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  • Orthographic unit translation mismatch on grid (e.g. 64 pixels translates incorrectly)

    - by Justin Van Horne
    I am looking for some insight into a small problem with unit translations on a grid. Setup 512x448 window 64x64 grid gl_Position = projection * world * position; projection is defined by ortho(-w/2.0f, w/2.0f, -h/2.0f, h/2.0f); This is a textbook orthogonal projection function. world is defined by a fixed camera position at (0, 0) position is defined by the sprite's position. Problem In the screenshot below (1:1 scaling) the grid spacing is 64x64 and I am drawing the unit at (64, 64), however the unit draws roughly ~10px in the wrong position. I've tried uniform window dimensions to prevent any distortion on the pixel size, but now I am a bit lost in the proper way in providing a 1:1 pixel-to-world-unit projection. Anyhow, here are some quick images to aide in the problem. I decided to super-impose a bunch of the sprites at what the engine believes is 64x offsets. When this seemed off place, I went about and did the base case of 1 unit. Which seemed to line up as expected. The yellow shows a 1px difference in the movement. Vertices It would appear that the vertices going into the vertex shader are correct. For example, in reference to the first image the data looks like this in the VBO: x y x y ---------------------------- tl | 0.0 24.0 64.0 24.0 bl | 0.0 0.0 -> 64.0 0.0 tr | 16.0 0.0 80.0 0.0 br | 16.0 24.0 80.0 24.0 With that said, all I am left to believe is that I am munging up my actual projection. So, I am looking for any insight into maintaining the 1:1 pixel-to-world-unit projection.

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  • In the days of modern computing, in 'typical business apps' - why does performance matter?

    - by Prog
    This may seem like an odd question to some of you. I'm a hobbyist Java programmer. I have developed several games, an AI program that creates music, another program for painting, and similar stuff. This is to tell you that I have an experience in programming, but not in professional development of business applications. I see a lot of talk on this site about performance. People often debate what would be the most efficient algorithm in C# to perform a task, or why Python is slow and Java is faster, etc. What I'm trying to understand is: why does this matter? There are specific areas of computing where I see why performance matters: games, where tens of thousands of computations are happening every second in a constant-update loop, or low level systems which other programs rely on, such as OSs and VMs, etc. But for the normal, typical high-level business app, why does performance matter? I can understand why it used to matter, decades ago. Computers were much slower and had much less memory, so you had to think carefully about these things. But today, we have so much memory to spare and computers are so fast: does it actually matter if a particular Java algorithm is O(n^2)? Will it actually make a difference for the end users of this typical business app? When you press a GUI button in a typical business app, and behind the scenes it invokes an O(n^2) algorithm, in these days of modern computing - do you actually feel the inefficiency? My question is split in two: In practice, today does performance matter in a typical normal business program? If it does, please give me real-world examples of places in such an application, where performance and optimizations are important.

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  • Where is the line drawn with domain names which include a trademark?

    - by Thomas Clayson
    A search on google for "iphone developer" turns up loads of websites which have "iphone" in them, a trademarked name by Apple. So I'm led to believe that having a domain such as iphonedeveloper.com is ok? Well, you're still using Apple's trademark, but it would be hard to brand yourself otherwise. You're an IPHONE DEVELOPER... right? Well, what if I want to provide a website where users pay to get a list of the best offers from Ebay? I might have a domain like ebaydeals.com (I don't... i'm just speculating!). Now I've heard that places like Ebay are really hot on the trigger and fire out emails to people who register domains like that straight away. But whats the difference? In both cases I'm making money from the trademark, effectively, so is it just down to how lenient the company who owns the trademark is? Or are there rules? Is there a specific "line" you don't cross? Thanks

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  • Why is testing MVC Views frowned upon?

    - by Peter Bernier
    I'm currently setting the groundwork for an ASP.Net MVC application and I'm looking into what sort of unit-tests I should be prepared to write. I've seen in multiple places people essentially saying 'don't bother testing your views, there's no logic and it's trivial and will be covered by an integration test'. I don't understand how this has become the accepted wisdom. Integration tests serve an entirely different purpose than unit tests. If I break something, I don't want to know a half-hour later when my integration tests break, I want to know immediately. Sample Scenario : Lets say we're dealing with a standard CRUD app with a Customer entity. The customer has a name and an address. At each level of testing, I want to verify that the Customer retrieval logic gets both the name and the address properly. To unit-test the repository, I write an integration test to hit the database. To unit-test the business rules, I mock out the repository, feed the business rules appropriate data, and verify my expected results are returned. What I'd like to do : To unit-test the UI, I mock out the business rules, setup my expected customer instance, render the view, and verify that the view contains the appropriate values for the instance I specified. What I'm stuck doing : To unit-test the repository, I write an integration test, setup an appropriate login, create the required data in the database, open a browser, navigate to the customer, and verify the resulting page contains the appropriate values for the instance I specified. I realize that there is overlap between the two scenarios discussed above, but the key difference it time and effort required to setup and execute the tests. If I (or another dev) removes the address field from the view, I don't want to wait for the integration test to discover this. I want is discovered and flagged in a unit-test that gets multiple times daily. I get the feeling that I'm just not grasping some key concept. Can someone explain why wanting immediate test feedback on the validity of an MVC view is a bad thing? (or if not bad, then not the expected way to get said feedback)

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  • Roll a DIY Camera Jib for $25

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Video gear is expensive; save your pennies by building a DIY camera jib for smooth camera movement on a budget. Over at Oliva tech they explain just how few parts you need to build their DIY jib: The guys here at the studio mocked up a simple DIY jib that is not only ridiculously inexpensive to piece together, but also very straight forward. The point of this jib was to get a very wide range of motion from top to bottom with only a few feet of 0.75? square tube, 1? angled aluminum, 1/4? nuts and bolts, and nylon washers is all you’ll need to put the jib together. This light weight jib can be used on small portable tripods, but will require a fluid head for panning left and right. Hit up the link below for a detailed parts list and build guide. How to Make a DIY Camera Jib [via Make] How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 1 What’s the Difference Between Sleep and Hibernate in Windows? Screenshot Tour: XBMC 11 Eden Rocks Improved iOS Support, AirPlay, and Even a Custom XBMC OS

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  • How to decide on a price for the project as a freelancer

    - by Shekhar_Pro
    I have seen similar question on this SE site but none comes close to a sure shot answer and many are rather subjective. So i am taking a website as an example to be more objective for you to decide its development price i should quote for the complete work.I would like to have specific figures. In past I have developed many projects for my classmates (Computer science and few .net) when i was in college and there i just arbitrarily quoted the price i will take depending on my mood and customer's ability to pay.. usually ranging from Rs.500 (about $10 USD) to Rs. 1500 (about $30 USD). I have also developed few websites but that was open-source and free. But this time impressed by my work i have got a client that wants to get a website developed similar to this: [ http://www.jeetle.in/ ]. So taking this website as an example tell me how much should i charge for complete work from designing to payment gateway implementation (Excluding the charge the payment gateway provider will take). Few information you might like to consider. I am the only developer on this project if that makes any difference. And i would be using ASP.Net and MSSQL Express for server side processing and jQuery on client. Time period for development offered is about 4 to 6 Weeks. Its like i know my work but not how much I'm worth

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  • Sync KeePassX with KeePass2

    - by bioShark
    Simply put: In Ubuntu I am using KeePassX and in Windows KeePass2. In am not able to export/import passwords from one to another. I would prefer to use the same database, but I don't really know how. If there is no possibility to sync the 2, can you recommend another password vault, which is able to sync passwords from 2 OS, using a shared DB. Thanks I am using Ubuntu 12.04 and Win 7. Edit: I have noticed that KeePass2 is available in the Software Center, so I have installed it, and I can successfully open my Win7 database. Now I will migrate my KeePassX passwords. I am seeing now a huge difference in the looks. While KeePassX doesn't exactly have Ubuntu like look&feel, it's 100 times more elegant than the interface KeePass2 comes with. Well, maybe that was my initial decision for installing KeePassX on my Ubuntu machine. I can't remember. @fossfreedom, please add your comment as a response, so that I can accept it. Thank for the suggestion

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  • Statistical Software Quality Control References

    - by Xodarap
    I'm looking for references about hypothesis testing in software management. For example, we might wonder whether "crunch time" leads to an increase in defect rate - this is a surprisingly difficult thing to do. There are many questions on how to measure quality - this isn't what I'm asking. And there are books like Kan which discuss various quality metrics and their utilities. I'm not asking this either. I want to know how one applies these metrics to make decisions. E.g. suppose we decide to go with critical errors / KLOC. One of the problems we'll have to deal with with that this is not a normally distributed data set (almost all patches have zero critical errors). And further, it's not clear that we really want to examine the difference in means. So what should our alternative hypothesis be? (Note: Based on previous questions, my guess is that I'll get a lot of answers telling me that this is a bad idea. That's fine, but I'd request that it's based on published data, instead of your own experience.)

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  • Convience of mySQL over xml

    - by Bonechilla
    Currently I use XML to store specific information to correctly load a few things such as a list of specfied characters, scenes and music, Once more I use JAXB in combination with standard compression/decompression(ZIP) functionality to store a list of extrenous data. This data is called to add functionality to the character, somewhat like Skills in an RPG. Each skill is seperated into its own XML file with a grandlist which contains the names of each file with their extensions omitted and zipped in folder that gets encrypted. At first using xml was working fine however as the skill list grow i worry about its stability. I was wondering if I should begin storing the data in mySQL. Originally I planned to simply convert everything to JSON over xml but i think possibly mySQL would be a better move. Can anyone inform me of the key difference and pros and cons of each I guess i'm looking for the best way to store the data more conviently and would be easier to operate on. The data is mostly primatives and strings and the only arraylist of values i have i can just concat into a single field and parse later

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  • How To Scale Canvas In Android

    - by Daniel Braithwaite
    I am writing a android game using Canvas as the way to draw everything, the problem is that when i run it on different android phones the canvas dosn't change size i tried using canvas.scale() but that didn't make a i difference. The code i use for drawing is ... public void draw( Canvas c, int score ) { Obstical2[] obstmp = Queue.toArray(this.o); Coin[] cointmp = QueueC.toArray(this.c); for( int i = 0; i < obstmp.length; i++ ) { obstmp[i].draw(c); } for( int i = 0; i < cointmp.length; i++ ) { cointmp[i].draw(c); } c.drawText(String.format("%d", score ), 20, 50, textPaint); if( isWon && isStarted ) c.drawText("YOU WON", 20, 400, resPaint); else if( isLost && isStarted ) c.drawText("YOU LOST", 20, 400, resPaint); } The function above calls the draw functions for the entity's on the screen, theses function are as follows Draw Function For Obstical : public void draw( Canvas c ) { Log.i("D", "COIN"); coin.draw(c); } Draw Function For Coin : public void draw( Canvas c ) { obstical.draw(c); } How could i make the canvas re-size to it would look the same on any screen ? Cheers Daniel

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  • SQL SERVER – A Puzzle Part 2 – Fun with SEQUENCE in SQL Server 2012 – Guess the Next Value

    - by pinaldave
    Before continuing this blog post – please read the first part of the SEQUENCE Puzzle here A Puzzle – Fun with SEQUENCE in SQL Server 2012 – Guess the Next Value. Where we played a simple guessing game about predicting next value. The answers the of puzzle is shared on the blog posts as a comment. Now here is the next puzzle based on yesterday’s puzzle. First execute the script which I have written here. The only difference between yesterday’s script is that I have removed the MINVALUE as 1 from the syntax. Now guess what will be the next value as requested in the query. USE TempDB GO -- Create sequence CREATE SEQUENCE dbo.SequenceID AS BIGINT START WITH 3 INCREMENT BY 1 MAXVALUE 5 CYCLE NO CACHE; GO -- Following will return 3 SELECT next value FOR dbo.SequenceID; -- Following will return 4 SELECT next value FOR dbo.SequenceID; -- Following will return 5 SELECT next value FOR dbo.SequenceID; -- Following will return which number SELECT next value FOR dbo.SequenceID; -- Clean up DROP SEQUENCE dbo.SequenceID; GO Above script gave me following resultset. 3 is the starting value and 5 is the maximum value. Once Sequence reaches to maximum value what happens? and WHY? I (kindly) suggest you try to attempt to answer this question without running this code in SQL Server 2012. I am very confident that irrespective of SQL Server version you are running you will have great learning. I will follow up of the answer in comments below. Recently my friend Vinod Kumar wrote excellent blog post on SQL Server 2012: Using SEQUENCE, you can head over there for learning sequence in details. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • How do I stop ubuntu from detaching minimize/maximuze/close buttons?

    - by Shahbaz
    Some time ago I managed to get ubuntu to keep the window menubars in the menu rather than the bar above (I'm not sure if this part is unity or compiz, or what's the difference). That was by removing indicator-appmenu Anyway, so now everything is fine except one thing: If I have a window that is full screen, the minimize/maximize/close buttons are still grabbed by the bar on the top. Usually this doesn't cause a problem because the upper-left corner of the full screen window and the whole screen are not too far apart. However, one thing happens to me a lot, and that is I am working on something (programming), then I need to check some things from other places so I open some windows, see what I want and switch back to my work. Those windows however are temporary so at some point I want to close them. Now here's what happens: I have the focus on some window and I can't close the maximized window behind it unless I click on the window first, so that the buttons appear and then close it. I couldn't find anything on the internet about this. Is this something that's hardcoded in unity/compiz/whatever or is there actually a way to configure this?

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  • How do I disable all lid close processes?

    - by Mat
    I want to be able to close my laptop without Ubuntu registering it. I've been looking everywhere and I've found plenty of people with the same problem but no real solutions. Obviously I have set the lid close setting to 'do nothing' for both AC and battery, but when I close the lid it still blanks the screen, disconnects from external monitors, and brings up the lock screen when I reopen it. Some people have suggested disabling the lock screen, but this doesn't stop the screen blanking and external displays disconnecting, and I don't want to disable the lock anyway, as I still want it when I tell Ubuntu to lock or sleep or whatever else. Others have suggested it's something to do with ACPI support, but I have tried changing some ACPI scripts, and even removed them completely (e.g. /etc/acpi/lid.sh and /etc/acpi/events/lidbtn) and it makes no difference. There must be a bit of code somewhere that can just be removed or commented out or altered to prevent any lid close actions - does anyone know where? I know this has been asked before, but I'm getting really frustrated with this problem. I'm disappointed to say that I'm actually using Windows 7 more often just because it's quite happy to completely ignore the closed lid. So I just wanted to check, are we any closer to a real solution for this problem?

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  • Canonicals with differing content

    - by Jimbo Jonny
    Interesting conundrum here with canonicals. Lets say I have a site with a "verified" system where other websites can become so and so "verified". Their url to send people to to confirm verification is something like "blah.com/verify/company1" and "blah.com/verify/company2". But logically "blah.com/verify" itself is not verifying anyone in particular, so it redirects to the signup form to get verified, at "blah.com/verify/register" As far as the actual companies registered, I figure it doesn't make sense to index every individual url with only the tiny difference of which company name it's saying yay or nay to being verified, so canonicals could come in handy on those pages to condense the indexing. Yet making "blah.com/verify" the canonical "hub" doesn't work well because it's a signup form, not a verification page, so technically has quite different content from the various verification pages themselves. But at the same time it's a bit unfair to choose 1 company to point all the canonical benefits too to use that as the "hub", yet a bit wasteful to have google index every individual verification page and spread out all that linkjuice. Basically, I'm just looking for advice, what's best for this from a search engine standpoint?

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  • Are Intel compilers really better than Microsoft ones?

    - by Rocket Surgeon
    Years ago I was surprised when discovered that Intel sells Studio compatible compilers. I tried it in particular for C/C++ as well as fantastic diagnostic tools. But the code was simply not that computationally intensive to notice the difference. The only impression was: did Intel really did it for me just now, Wow, amazing tools with nanoseconds resolution, unbeleivable. But the trial ended and team never seriously considered a purchase. From your experience, if license cost does not matter, which vendor is a winner ? It is not broad or vague question or attemt to spark a holy war. This sort of question about 2 very visible tools. Nobody likes when tools have any mysteries or surprises. And choices between best and best are always the pain. I also understand the "grass greener" argument. I want to hear all "what ifs" stories. What if Intel just locally optimizes it for the chip stepping of the month, and not every hardware target will actually work as well as Microsoft compiled ? What if AMD hardware is the target and everything will slow down for no reason ? Or on other hand, what if Intel's hardware has so many unnoticable opportunities, that Microsoft compiler writers are too slow to adopt and never implement in the compiler ? What if both are the same exactly, actually a single codebase just wrapped into 2 different boxes and licensed to both vendors by some 3rd party shop? And so on. But someone knows some answers.

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  • Attempting to install netgear N300 Wireless USB Adapter on Ubuntu without a present internet connection

    - by Liz
    Hello Linux/Ubuntu world out there. I don't have internet presently on the desktop I am trying to install the USB wireless adapter on. This seems to be the problem, which if the hardware would work would theoretically fix the problem. I can NOT access the internet via anything but wireless. I am presently on my laptop searching for answers while trying to install this little device. So any advice will have to take that into account. Now I have tried so far, using WINE which does not want to work, I have tried Windows Wireless Drivers which doesn't want to work, I have tried Software Sources, Other Software and it will not acknowledge the cdrom as a repository stating errors like E:Unable to stat the mount point /cdrom/ -stat (2: No such file or directory) However I can open the CD icon on my computer and access and browse the files. The computer can read the CD. I can read the CD. I've tried just plugging it in and seeing if the computer will automatically recognize the hardware, and go from there. That does not work either. I have tested USB port to just verify that the USB port works. It does. My laptop recognizes the hardware, and would easily install the software if I prompted it to. The difference is that my laptop is Vista, and I HATE Vista. Any tips, tricks?

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  • Android&ndash;Finding your SDK debug certificate MD5 fingerprint using Keytool

    - by Bill Osuch
    I recently upgraded to a new development machine, which means the certificate used to sign my applications during debug changed. Under most circumstances you’ll never notice a difference, but if you’re developing apps using Google’s Maps API you’ll find that your old API key no longer works with the new certificate fingerprint. Google's instructions walk you through retrieving the MD5 fingerprint of your SDK debug certificate - the certificate that you’re probably signing your apps with before publishing, but it doesn't talk much about the Keytool command. The thing to remember is that Keytool is part of Java, not the Android SDK, so you'll never find it searching through your Android and Eclipse directories. Mine is located in C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_02\bin so you should find yours somewhere similar. From a command prompt, navigate to this directory and type: keytool -v -list -keystore "C:/Documents and Settings/<user name>/.android/debug.keystore" That’s assuming the path to your debug certificate is in the typical location. If this doesn’t work, you can find out where it’s located in Eclipse by clicking Window –> Preferences –> Android –> Build. There's no need to use the additional commands shown on Google's page. You'll be prompted for a password, just hit enter. The last line shown, Certificate fingerprint, is the key you'll give Google to generate your new Maps API key. Technorati Tags: Android Mapping

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  • JSR Updates - Multiple JSRs migrate to latest JCP version

    - by Heather VanCura
    As part of the JCP.Next reform effort, many JSRs have migrated to the latest version of the JCP program in the last month.  These JSRs' Spec Leads and Expert Groups are contributing to the strides the JCP has been making to enable greater community transparency, participation and agility to the working of the JSR development through the JCP program. Any other JSR Spec Leads interested in migrating to the latest JCP version, now JCP 2.9, as of 13 November, incorporating the Merged Executive Committee (EC), see the Spec Lead Guide for instructions on migrating to the latest JCP version.  For JCP 2.8 JSRs, you are effectively already operating under JCP 2.9 since there are no longer two ECs.  This is the difference for JCP 2.8 JSRs migrating to JCP 2.9 -- a merged EC.  To make the migration official, just inform your Expert Group on a public channel and email your request to admin at jcp.org. JSR 310, Date and Time API, led by Stephen Colebourne and Michael Nascimento and Oracle (Roger Riggs)  JSR 349, Bean Valirdation 1.1, led by RedHat (Emmanuel Bernard) JSR 350, Java State Management, led by Oracle (Mitch Upton) JSR 339, JAX-RS 2.0: The Java API for RESTful Web Services, led by Oracle, (Santiago Pericas-Geertsen and Marek Potociar) JSR 347, Data Grids for the Java Platform, led by RedHat (Manik Surtani)

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  • Squeezing all the SEO out of a URL as possible.

    - by John Isaacks
    I am working on an ecommerce site, I told our SEO consultant that I plan to make the URL scheme: /products/<id>/<name>. This is similar to Stackoverflow's URLs which are /questions/<id>/<title>. He asked me if I could change the URL scheme to /p/<id>/<name> instead. I know why he wants this change, the word "products" isn't needed to find the correct product, and it doesn't offer any SEO, so shortening it to just p would make the relevant keywords in the <name> weigh more. His main priority is maximizing SEO, but the part that I don't think he is considering is how this effects the semantics of the site. Also having the word "products" looks like it has meaning and a reason for being there, just having a p looks chaotic and ugly to me. I also don't think it makes that much of a difference does it? Stackoverflow doesn't use /q/<id>/<title> and they do just fine, I do realize that theres many factors at play here though, not just the URL. So I want some outside opinions on which is the better way and why?

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  • What is the role of traditional issue tracker when Scrum / Kanban board is used?

    - by Borek
    From a very high level view, to me it seems there are generally 2 types of Project Management tools: Traditional issue trackers like Fogbugz, JIRA, BugZilla, Trac, Redmine etc. Virtual card boards / agile project management tools like Pivotal Tracker, GreenHopper, AgileZen, Trello etc. Sure, they overlap in one way or another, e.g. Pivotal Tracker tasks can be imported to JIRA, GreenHopper itself is implemented on top of JIRA issue base etc. but I think one can still see the difference in orientation between those two types of tools. Traditional issue tracker seems to be used even in companies otherwise doing agile project management. My question is, why do they do that? I also feel that we should use an issue tracker in my company but when I'm thinking about it, I'm not actually sure why should we need it. For example, Trello development seems to be managed by using Trello itself (see this virtual wall) even though they have access to Fogbugz, one of the best issue trackers around. So maybe we don't need traditional issue tracker when we'll be doing 100% of our work in an agile manner using one of the agile PM tools?

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  • Meet up with the JCP at JavaOne Latin America

    - by Heather VanCura
    The JCP made it to JavaOne Brazil!  We had a quickie presentation earlier today on JCP.Next that was well attended.  Come to see us at@ the  OTN mini-theatre tomorrow from 12:00-12:15 pm for a quickie on participation.  Then make your way to the Mazanino Sala 12 at 12:30 pm for CON-22250.  "The Java Community Process: How You Can Make a Positive Difference" will be presented with Heather VanCura, JCP,  and Fabio Velloso, SouJava, on Thursday, 6 December, at 12:30 pm.  Find out more about how to participate in the JCP program, the JCP.Next effort and how to get involved with Adopt-a-JSR through your JUG (or on your own)!  Here is the description in Portuguese: A JCP desempenha um papel fundamental na evolução do Java. A sessão vai enfatizar o valor da transparência e participação através da JCP, Grupos de Usuários Java e do programa Adote um JSR. Vamos explorar também algumas das mudanças futuras no processo através da iniciativa JCP.Next, e explicar como você pode se envolver. Traga suas dúvidas, suas sugestões, e suas preocupações. Nós queremos ouvir de você, e incentivá-lo e facilitar a sua participação ativa no avanço da plataforma Java

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  • Split a 2D scene in layers or have a z coordinate

    - by Bane
    I am in the process of writing a 2D game engine, and a dilemma emerged. Let me explain the situation... I have a Scene class, to which various objects can be added (Drawable, ParticleEmitter, Light2D, etc), and as this is a 2D scene, things will obviously be drawn over each other. My first thought was that I could have basic add and remove methods, but I soon realized that then there would be no way for the programmer to control the order in which things were drawn. So I can up with two options, each with its pros and cons. A) Would be to split the scene in layers. By that I mean instead of having the scene be a container of objects, have it be a container of layers, which are in turn the containers of objects. B) Would require to have some kind of z-coordinate, and then have the scene sorted so objects with lower z get drawn first. Option A is pretty solid, but the problem is with the lights. In what layer do I add it? Does it work cross-layer? On all bottom layers? And I still need the Z coordinate to calculate the shadow! Option B would require me to change all my code from having Vector2D positions, to some kind of class that inherits from Vector2D and adds a z coordinate to it (I don't want it to be a Vector3D because I still need all the same methods the 2D kind has, just with .z clamped on). Am I missing something? Is there an alternative to these methods? I'm working in Javascript, if that makes a difference.

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  • Learning Electronics & the Arduino Microcontroller

    - by Chris Williams
    Lately, I've had a growing interest in Electronics & Microcontrollers. I'm a loyal reader of Make Magazine and thoroughly enjoy seeing all the various projects in each issue, even though I rarely try to make any of them. I've been reading and watching videos about the Arduino, which is an open source Microcontroller and software project that the people at Make (and a lot of other folks) are pretty hot about. Even the prebuilt hardware is remarkably inexpensive , although there are kits available to build one from the base components. (Full disclosure: I bought my first soldering iron... EVER... just last week, so I fully acknowledge the likelihood of making some mistakes. That's why I'm not trying to do the "build it yourself" kit just yet. It's also another reason to be happy the hardware is so cheap.) There are a number of different Arduino boards available, but the two that have really piqued my interest are the Arduino UNO and the NETduino. The UNO is a very popular board, with a number of features and is under $35 which means I won't hurl myself off a bridge when I inevitably destroy it. The NETduino is very similar to the Arduino UNO and has the added advantage of being programmable with... you guessed it... C#. I'm actually ordering both boards and some miscellaneous other doodads to go with them.  There are a few good websites for this sort of thing, including www.makershed.com and www.adafruit.com. The price difference is negligible, so in my case, I'm ordering from Maker Shed (the Make Magazine people) because I want to support them. :) I've also picked up a few O'Reilly books on the subject which I am looking forward to reading & reviewing: Make: Electronics, Arduino: A Quick Start Guide and Getting Started With Arduino (all three of which arrived on my doorstep today.) This ties in with my "learn more about robotics" goals as well, since I'll need a good understanding of Electronics if I want to move past Lego Mindstorms eventually.

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  • Can I remove the systems from a component entity system?

    - by nathan
    After reading a lot about entity/component based engines. I feel like there is no real definition for this kind of engine. Reading this thread: Implementing features in an Entity System and the linked article made me think a lot. I did not feel that comfortable using System concept so I'll write something else, inspired by this pattern. I'd like to know if you think it's a good way to organize game code and what improvements can be made. Regarding a more strict implementation of entity/component based engine, is my solution viable? Do I risk getting stuck at any point due to the lack of flexibility of this implementation (or anything else)? My engine, as for entity/component patterns has entities and components, no systems since the game logic is handled by components. Also, I think the main difference is the fact that my engine will use inherence and OOP concepts in general, I mean, I don't try to minimize them. Entity: an entity is an abstract class. It holds his position, width and height, scale and a list of linked components. The current implementation can be found here (java). Every frame, the entity will be updated (i.e all the components linked to this entity will be updated), and rendered, if a render component is specified. Component: like for entity, a component is an abstract class that must be extended to create new components. The behavior of an entity is created through his components collection. The component implementation can be found here. Components are updated when the owning entity is updated or for only one specific component (render component), rendered. Here is an example of a logic component (i.e not a renderable component, a component that's updated each frame) in charge of listening for keyboard events and a render component in charge of display a plain sprite (i.e not animated).

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  • Paying it Forward

    - by Liam McLennan
    You’re a talented guy (or girl). You’ve done alright. Years of hard work and stick-to-it-ive-ness have paid off and left you with plenty and an opportunity to make a positive difference to someone else. And then there are people with less than they need. Sometimes all they need to help themselves is a start. Opportunity International provide micro financing to help people grow their small businesses so that they can afford food, shelter, water and education. microfinance to solve poverty   MonsoonerOrLater This June, Chris, Angus (my brother) and I are travelling to India, entering into a rickshaw race and raising money for charity (Opportunity International and Round Table India). The Deccan Odyssey is a nine day rally, racing up the coast of India from Goa to Mumbai in a three wheeled motorbike. If you would like to support us, please make a tax deductable donation via our secure site at GoFundraise. For more information take a look at the MonsoonerOrLater site. If you live in Brisbane come along to An Evening With MonsoonerOrLater. The entry fee includes a three-course Indian meal, live music, henna tattooist, chilli eating competition, best bollywood dance off, Dhalsim Vs Dhalsim Street fighter, Delhi Belly Bet, Auctions and Prizes. All profits go to our charities: Round Table India and Opportunity International.

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