Search Results

Search found 7738 results on 310 pages for 'calling convention'.

Page 210/310 | < Previous Page | 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217  | Next Page >

• Redgate ANTS Performance Profiler

  - by Jon Canning

  Seemingly forever I've been working on a business idea, it's a REST API delivering content to mobiles, and I've never really had much idea about its performance. Yes, I have a suite of unit tests and integration tests, but these only tell me that it works, not how well it works. I was also about to embark on a major refactor, swapping the database from MongoDB to RavenDB, and was curious to see if that impacted performance at all, so I needed a profiler that supported IIS Express that I can run my integration tests against, and Google gave me:   http://www.red-gate.com/supportcenter/content/ANTS_Performance_Profiler/help/7.4/app_iise   Excellent. Following the above guide an instance of IIS Express and is launched, as is Internet Explorer. The latter eventually becomes annoying, I would like to decide whether I want a browser opened, but thankfully the guide is wrong in that it can be closed and profiling will continue. So I ran my tests, stopped profiling, and was presented with a call tree listing the endpoints called and allowing me to drill down to the source code beneath.     Although useful and fascinating this wasn't what I was expecting to see, I was after the method timings from the entire test suite. Switching Show to Methods Grid presented me with a list of my methods, with the slowest lit up in red at the top. Marvellous.     I did find that if you switch to Methods Grid before Call tree has loaded, you do not get the red warnings.   StructureMap was very busy, and next on the list was a request filter that I didn't expect to be so overworked. Highlighting it, the source code was presented to me in the bottom window with timings and a nice red indicator to show me where to look. Oh horror, that reflection hack I put in months ago, I'd forgotten all about it. It was calling Validate<T>() which in turn was resolving a validator from StructureMap. Note to self, use //TODO: when leaving smelly code lying around.     Before refactoring, remember to Save Profile Results from the File menu. Annoyingly you are not prompted to save your results when exiting, and using Save Project will only leave you thankful that you have version control and can go back in time to run your tests again.   Having implemented StructureMap’s ForGenericType, I ran my tests again and:     Win, thankyou ANTS (What does ANTS stand for BTW?)   There's definitely room in my toolbox for a profiler; what started out as idle curiosity actually solved a potential problem. When presented with a new codebase I can see enormous benefit from getting an overview of the pipeline from the call tree before drilling into the code, and as a sanity check before release it gives a little more reassurance that you've done your best, and shows you exactly where to look if you haven’t.   Next I’m going to profile a load test.

  Read the article

• Customer won't decide, how to deal?

  - by Crazy Eddie

  I write software that involves the use of measured quantities, many input by the user, most displayed, that are fed into calculation models to simulate various physical thing-a-majigs. We have created a data type that allows us to associate a numeric value with a unit, we call these "quantities" (big duh). Quantities and units are unique to dimension. You can't attach kilogram to a length for example. Math on quantities does automatic unit conversion to SI and the type is dimension safe (you can't assign a weight to a pressure for example). Custom UI components have been developed that display the value and its unit and/or allow the user to edit them. Dimensionless quantities, having no units, are a single, custom case implemented within the system. There's a set of related quantities such that our target audience apparently uses them interchangeably. The quantities are used in special units that embed the conversion factors for the related quantity dimensions...in other words, when using these units converting from one to another simply involves multiplying the value by 1 to the dimensional difference. However, conversion to/from the calculation system (SI) still involves these factors. One of these related quantities is a dimensionless one that represents a ratio. I simply can't get the "customer" to recognize the necessity of distinguishing these values and their use. They've picked one and want to use it everywhere, customizing the way we deal with it in special places. In this case they've picked one of the dimensions that has a unit...BUT, they don't want there to be a unit (GRR!!!). This of course is causing us to implement these special overrides for our UI elements and such. That of course is often times forgotten and worse...after a couple months everyone forgets why it was necessary and why we're using this dimensional value, calling it the wrong thing, and disabling the unit. I could just ignore the "customer" and implement the type as the dimensionless quantity, which makes most sense. However, that leaves the team responsible for figuring it out when they've given us a formula using one of the other quantities. We have to not only figure out that it's happening, we have to decide what to do. This isn't a trivial deal. The other option is just to say to hell with it, do it the customer's way, and let it waste continued time and effort because it's just downright confusing as hell. However, I can't count the amount of times someone has said, "Why is this being done this way, it makes no sense at all," and the team goes off the deep end trying to figure it out. What would you do? Currently I'm still attempting to convince them that even if they use terms interchangeably, we at the least can't do that within the product discussion. Don't have high hopes though.

  Read the article

• Multi Pass Blend

  - by Kirk Patrick

  I am seeking the simplest working example of a two pass HLSL pixel shader. It can do anything really, but the main idea is to perform "ping ponging" to take the output of the first pass and then send it for the second pass. In my example I want to draw to the R channel and then draw to the G channel and produce a simple Venn Diagram in the shader, but need to detect overlap. I can currently detect one or the other but not overlap. There are a red and green circle overlapping, and I want to put a dynamic texture map in the overlap region. I can currently put it in either or. Below is how it looks in the shader. -------------------------------- Texture2D shaderTexture; SamplerState SampleType; ////////////// // TYPEDEFS // ////////////// struct PixelInputType { float4 position : SV_POSITION; float2 tex0 : TEXCOORD0; float2 tex1 : TEXCOORD1; float4 color : COLOR; }; //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // Pixel Shader //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// float4 main(PixelInputType input) : SV_TARGET { float4 textureColor0; float4 textureColor1; // Sample the pixel color from the texture using the sampler at this texture coordinate location. textureColor0 = shaderTexture.Sample(SampleType, input.tex0); textureColor1 = shaderTexture.Sample(SampleType, input.tex1); if (input.color[0]==1.0f && input.color[1]==1.0f) // Requires multi-pass textureColor0 = textureColor1; return textureColor0; } Here is the calling code (that needs to be modified) m_d3dContext->IASetVertexBuffers(0, 2, vbs, strides, offsets); m_d3dContext->IASetIndexBuffer(m_indexBuffer.Get(), DXGI_FORMAT_R32_UINT,0); m_d3dContext->IASetPrimitiveTopology(D3D11_PRIMITIVE_TOPOLOGY_TRIANGLELIST); m_d3dContext->IASetInputLayout(m_inputLayout.Get()); m_d3dContext->VSSetShader(m_vertexShader.Get(), nullptr, 0); m_d3dContext->VSSetConstantBuffers(0, 1, m_constantBuffer.GetAddressOf()); m_d3dContext->PSSetShader(m_pixelShader.Get(), nullptr, 0); m_d3dContext->PSSetShaderResources(0, 1, m_SRV.GetAddressOf()); m_d3dContext->PSSetSamplers(0, 1, m_QuadsTexSamplerState.GetAddressOf());

  Read the article

• UppercuT v1.0 and 1.1&ndash;Linux (Mono), Multi-targeting, SemVer, Nitriq and Obfuscation, oh my!

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Recently UppercuT (UC) quietly released version 1 (in August). I’m pretty happy with where we are, although I think it’s a few months later than I originally planned. I’m glad I held it back, it gave me some more time to think about some things a little more and also the opportunity to receive a patch for running builds with UC on Linux. We also released v1.1 very recently (December). UppercuT v1 Builds On Linux Perhaps the most significant changes to UC going v1 is that it now supports builds on Linux using Mono! This is thanks mostly to Svein Ackenhausen for the patches and working with me on getting it all working while not breaking the windows builds!  This means you can use mono on Windows or Linux. Notice the shell files to execute with Linux that come as part of UC now. Multi-Targeting Perhaps one of the hardest things to do that requires an automated build is multi-targeting. At v1 this is early, and possibly prone to some issues, but available.  We believe in making everything stupid simple, so it’s as simple as adding a comma to the microsoft.framework property. i.e. “net-3.5, net-4.0” to suddenly produce both framework builds. When you build, this is what you get (if you meet each framework’s requirements): At this time you have to let UC override the build location (as it does by default) or this will not work.  Semantic Versioning By now many of you have been using UppercuT for awhile and have watched how we have done versioning. Many of you who use git already know we put the revision hash in the informational/product version as the last octet. At v1, UppercuT has adopted the semantic versioning scheme. What does that mean? This is a short read, but a good one: http://SemVer.org SemVer (Semantic Versioning) is really using versioning what it was meant for. You have three octets. Major.Minor.Patch as in 1.1.0.  UC will use three different versioning concepts, one for the assembly version, one for the file version, and one for the product version. All versions - The first three octects of the version are owned by SemVer. Major.Minor.Patch i.e.: 1.1.0 Assembly Version - The assembly version would much closer follow SemVer. Last digit is always 0. Major.Minor.Patch.0 i.e: 1.1.0.0 File Version - The file version occupies the build number as the last digit. Major.Minor.Patch.Build i.e.: 1.1.0.2650 Product/Informational Version - The last octect of your product/informational version is the source control revision/hash. Major.Minor.Patch.RevisionOrHash i.e. (TFS/SVN): 1.1.0.235 i.e. (Git/HG): 1.1.0.a45ace4346adef0 SemVer is not on by default, the passive versioning scheme is still in effect. Notice that version.use_semanticversioning has been added to the UppercuT.config file (and version.patch in support of the third octet): Gems Support Gems support was added at v1. This will probably be deprecated as some point once there is an announced sunset for Nu v1. Application gems may keep it around since there is no alternative for that yet though (CoApp would be a possible replacement). Nitriq Support Nitriq is a code analysis tool like NDepend. It’s built by Mr. Jon von Gillern. It uses LINQ query language, so you can use a familiar idiom when analyzing your code base. It’s a pretty awesome tool that has a free version for those looking to do code analysis! To use Nitriq with UC, you are going to need the console edition.  To take advantage of Nitriq, you just need to update the location of Nitriq in the config: Then add the nitriq project files at the root of your source. Please refer to the Nitriq documentation on how these are created. UppercuT v1.1 Obfuscation One thing I started looking into was an easy way to obfuscate my code. I came across EazFuscator, which is both free and awesome. Plus the GUI for it is super simple to use. How do you make obfuscation even easier? Make it a convention and a configurable property in the UC config file! And the code gets obfuscated! Closing Definitely get out and look at the new release. It contains lots of chocolaty (sp?) goodness. And remember, the upgrade path is almost as simple as drag and drop!

  Read the article

• links for 2011-02-21

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Calling all enterprise architects | Enterprise architecture - InfoWorld Nominations are now open for the 2011 InfoWorld Enterprise Architecture Award, honoring companies whose enterprise architecture initiatives made a difference (tags: ping.fm) Red Tape, Part II : OTN Garage "How do you back up all of that storage? Tape: really fast tape. And, lots of it. This creates a whole variety of very interesting challenges today, elevating the topic to – at the very least – glamorous, but I think it qualifies as being downright hot!" - Kemer Thomson (tags: oracle entarch datastorage) The Buttso Blathers: Using Secure Config Files with the WebLogic Maven Plugin "WebLogic Server has long had a mechanism to provide a more secure way of connecting to the Administration Server from client utilities such that the username and password do not need to be specified and therefore can’t be seen from the process list or command shell history." (tags: oracle weblogic) World-class EA | Open Group Blog "World-class Enterprise Architecture is all about creating definitive collateral that defines how the architecture delivers value for societal value." - Mick Adams (tags: enterprisearchitecture entarch opengroup) Enterprise Process Maps: A Process Picture worth a Million Words (Telecommunications Architecture Corner) "Every BPM project (holistic BPM kick-off, enterprise system implementation, Service-oriented Architecture, business process transformation, corporate performance management, etc.) should be begin with a clear understanding of the business environment..." - Raul Goycoolea (tags: oracle otn telecommunications businessprocess entarch bpm) Andrejus Baranovskis's Blog: WebCenter PS3 Customization Manager- Long Awaited Feature for MDS Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovski shares "really great news for those of you who are working on MDS personalization and customization support in Oracle Fusion Middleware applications." (tags: oracle otn oracleace webcenter enterprise2.0) Oracle WebCenter: Common User Experience Architecture (Oracle Enterprise 2.0 Blog) Kellsey Ruppel describes "how the new release of Oracle WebCenter delivers a Common User Experience Architecture." (tags: oracle otn webcenter enterprise2.0) Java / Oracle SOA blog: Do your SOA deployments & configuration with AIA Oracle ACE Edwin Biemond illustrates the use of the SOA Suite / FMW deployment framework, "one of the Application Integration Architecture (AIA) hidden gems." (tags: oracle oracleace soa otn fusionmiddleware) Enterprise Software Development with Java: Clustering Stateful Session Beans with GlassFish 3.1 Oracle ACE Director Markus Eisele describes what he did "to get a Stateful Session Bean failover scenario working with two instances on one node." (tags: oracle otn oracleace glassfish) Enhanced REST Support in Oracle Service Bus 11gR1 (SOA Thinker) Jeff Davies illustrates how to re-implement the REST-ful Products services using query strings for passing parameter information. (tags: oracle otn soa REST)

  Read the article

• What is required for a scope in an injection framework?

  - by johncarl

  Working with libraries like Seam, Guice and Spring I have become accustomed to dealing with variables within a scope. These libraries give you a handful of scopes and allow you to define your own. This is a very handy pattern for dealing with variable lifecycles and dependency injection. I have been trying to identify where scoping is the proper solution, or where another solution is more appropriate (context variable, singleton, etc). I have found that if the scope lifecycle is not well defined it is very difficult and often failure prone to manage injections in this way. I have searched on this topic but have found little discussion on the pattern. Is there some good articles discussing where to use scoping and what are required/suggested prerequisites for scoping? I interested in both reference discussion or your view on what is required or suggested for a proper scope implementation. Keep in mind that I am referring to scoping as a general idea, this includes things like globally scoped singletons, request or session scoped web variable, conversation scopes, and others. Edit: Some simple background on custom scopes: Google Guice custom scope Some definitions relevant to above: “scoping” - A set of requirements that define what objects get injected at what time. A simple example of this is Thread scope, based on a ThreadLocal. This scope would inject a variable based on what thread instantiated the class. Here's an example of this: “context variable” - A repository passed from one object to another holding relevant variables. Much like scoping this is a more brute force way of accessing variables based on the calling code. Example: methodOne(Context context){ methodTwo(context); } methodTwo(Context context){ ... //same context as method one, if called from method one } “globally scoped singleton” - Following the singleton pattern, there is one object per application instance. This applies to scopes because there is a basic lifecycle to this object: there is only one of these objects instantiated. Here's an example of a JSR330 Singleton scoped object: @Singleton public void SingletonExample{ ... } usage: public class One { @Inject SingeltonExample example1; } public class Two { @Inject SingeltonExample example2; } After instantiation: one.example1 == two.example2 //true;

  Read the article

• WebAPI and MVC4 and OData

  - by Aligned

  I was looking closer into WebAPI, specificially how to use OData to avoid writing GetCustomerByCustomerId(int id) methods all over the place. I had problems just returning IQueryable<T> as some sites suggested in the WebpAPI (Assembly System.Web.Http.dll, v4.0.0.0).  I think things changed in the release version and the blog posts are still out of date. There is no [Queraable] as the answer to this question suggests. Once I get WebAPI.Odata Nuget package, and added the [Queryable] to the method http://localhost:57146/api/values/?$filter=Id%20eq%201 worked (don’t forget the ‘$’). Now the main question is whether I should do this and how to stop logged in users from sniffing the url and getting data for other users. I John V. Peterson has a post on securing WebAPI with headers and intercepting the call at that point. He had an update to use HttpMessageHandlers instead. I think I’ll use this to force the call to contain some kind of unique code for the user, but I’m still thinking about this. I will not expose this to the public, just to my calls with-in my Forms Authentication areas. Other links: http://robbincremers.me/2012/02/16/building-and-consuming-rest-services-with-asp-net-web-api-and-odata-support/ ~lots of good information John V Peterson example: https://github.com/johnvpetersen/ASPWebAPIExample ~ all data access goes through the WebApi and the web client doesn’t have a connection string ~ There is code library for calling the WebApi from MVC using the HttpClient. It’s a great starting point http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alexj/archive/2012/08/15/odata-support-in-asp-net-web-api.aspx ~ Beta (9/18/2012) Nuget package to help with what I want to do? ~ has a sample code project with examples http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alexj/archive/2012/08/15/odata-support-in-asp-net-web-api.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alexj/archive/2012/08/21/web-api-queryable-current-support-and-tentative-roadmap.aspx http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10885868/asp-net-mvc4-rc-web-api-odata-filter-not-working-with-iqueryable JSON, pass the correct format in the header (Accept: application/json). $format=JSON doesn’t appear to be working. Async methods built into WebApi! Look for the GetAsync methods.

  Read the article

• 3D Model not translating correctly (visually)

  - by ChocoMan

  In my first image, my model displays correctly: But when I move the model's position along the Z-axis (forward) I get this, yet the Y-axis doesnt change. An if I keep going, the model disappears into the ground: Any suggestions as to how I can get the model to translate properly visually? Here is how Im calling the model and the terrain in draw(): cameraPosition = new Vector3(camX, camY, camZ); // Copy any parent transforms. Matrix[] transforms = new Matrix[mShockwave.Bones.Count]; mShockwave.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(transforms); Matrix[] ttransforms = new Matrix[terrain.Bones.Count]; terrain.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(ttransforms); // Draw the model. A model can have multiple meshes, so loop. foreach (ModelMesh mesh in mShockwave.Meshes) { // This is where the mesh orientation is set, as well // as our camera and projection. foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); effect.PreferPerPixelLighting = true; effect.World = transforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateRotationY(modelRotation) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(modelPosition); // Looking at the model (picture shouldnt change other than rotation) effect.View = Matrix.CreateLookAt(cameraPosition, modelPosition, Vector3.Up); effect.Projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView( MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), aspectRatio, 1.0f, 10000.0f); effect.TextureEnabled = true; } // Draw the mesh, using the effects set above. prepare3d(); mesh.Draw(); } //Terrain test foreach (ModelMesh meshT in terrain.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect effect in meshT.Effects) { effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); effect.PreferPerPixelLighting = true; effect.World = ttransforms[meshT.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateRotationY(0) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(terrainPosition); // Looking at the model (picture shouldnt change other than rotation) effect.View = Matrix.CreateLookAt(cameraPosition, terrainPosition, Vector3.Up); effect.Projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView( MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), aspectRatio, 1.0f, 10000.0f); effect.TextureEnabled = true; } // Draw the mesh, using the effects set above. prepare3d(); meshT.Draw(); DrawText(); } base.Draw(gameTime); } Im suspecting that there may be something wrong with how I'm handling my camera. The model rotates fine on its Y-axis.

  Read the article

• How to handle updated configuration when it's already been cloned for editing

  - by alexrussell

  Really sorry about the title that probably doesn't make much sense. Hopefully I can explain myself better here as it's something that's kinda bugged me for ages, and is now becoming a pressing concern as I write a bit of software with configuration. Most software comes with default configuration options stored in the app itself, and then there's a configuration file (let's say) that a user can edit. Once created/edited for the first time, subsequent updates to the application can not (easily) modify this configuration file for fear of clobbering the user's own changes to the default configuration. So my question is, if my application adds a new configurable parameter, what's the best way to aid discoverability of the setting and allow the user (developer) to override it as nicely as possible given the following constraints: I actually don't have a canonical default config in the application per se, it's more of a 'cascading filesystem'-like affair - the config template is stored in default/config.json and when the user wishes to edit the configuration, it's copied to user/config.json. If a user config is found it is used - there is no automatic overriding of a subset of keys, the whole new file is used and that's that. If there's no user config the default config is used. When a user wishes to edit the config they run a command to 'generate' it for them (which simply copies the config.json file from the default to the user directory). There is no UI for the configuration options as it's not appropriate to the userbase (think of my software as a library or something, the users are developers, the config is done in the user/config.json file). Due to my software being library-like there's no simple way to, on updating of the software, run some tasks automatically (so any ideas of look at the current config, compare to template config, add ing missing keys) aren't appropriate. The only solution I can think of right now is to say "there's a new config setting X" in release notes, but this doesn't seem ideal to me. If you want any more information let me know. The above specifics are not actually 100% true to my situation, but they represent the problem equally well with lower complexity. If you do want specifics, however, I can explain the exact setup. Further clarification of the type of configuration I mean: think of the Atom code editor. There appears to be a default 'template' config file somewhere, but as soon as a configuration option is edited ~/.atom/config.cson is generated and the setting goes in there. From now on is Atom is updated and gets a new configuration key, this file cannot be overwritten by Atom without a lot of effort to ensure that the addition/modification of the key does not clobber. In Atom's case, because there is a GUI for editing settings, they can get away with just adding the UI for the new setting into the UI to aid 'discoverability' of the new setting. I don't have that luxury. Clarification of my constraints and what I'm actually looking for: The software I'm writing is actually a package for a larger system. This larger system is what provides the configuration, and the way it works is kinda fixed - I just do a config('some.key') kinda call and it knows to look to see if the user has a config clone and if so use it, otherwise use the default config which is part of my package. Now, while I could make my application edit the user's configuration files (there is a convention about where they're stored), it's generally not done, so I'd like to live with the constraints of the system I'm using if possible. And it's not just about discoverability either, one large concern is that the addition of a configuration key won't actually work as soon as the user has their own copy of the original template. Adding the key to the template won't make a difference as that file is never read. As such, I think this is actually quite a big flaw in the design of the configuration cascading system and thus needs to be taken up with my upstream. So, thinking about it, based on my constraints, I don't think there's going to be a good solution save for either editing the user's configuration or using a new config file every time there are updates to the default configuration. Even the release notes idea from above isn't doable as, if the user does not follow the advice, suddenly I have a config key with no value (user-defined or default). So the new question is this: what is the general way to solve the problem of having a default configuration in template config files and allowing a user to make user-specific version of these in order to override the defaults? A per-key cascade (rather than per-file cascade) where the user only specifies their overrides? In this case, what happens if a configuration value is an array - do we replace or append to the default (or, more realistically, how does the user specify whether they wish to replace or append to)? It seems like configuration is kinda hard, so how is it solved in the wild?

  Read the article

• Custom Configuration Section Handlers

  Most .NET developers who need to store something in configuration tend to use appSettings for this purpose, in my experience.  More recently, the framework itself has helped things by adding the <connectionStrings /> section so at least these are in their own section and not adding to the appSettings clutter that pollutes most apps.  I recommend avoiding appSettings for several reasons.  In addition to those listed there, I would add that strong typing and validation are additional reasons to go the custom configuration section route. For my ASP.NET Tips and Tricks talk, I use the following example, which is a simple DemoSettings class that includes two fields.  The first is an integer representing how many attendees there are present for the talk, and the second is the title of the talk.  The setup in web.config is as follows: <configSections> <section name="DemoSettings" type="ASPNETTipsAndTricks.Code.DemoSettings" /> </configSections>   <DemoSettings sessionAttendees="100" title="ASP.NET Tips and Tricks DevConnections Spring 2010" /> Referencing the values in code is strongly typed and straightforward.  Here I have a page that exposes two properties which internally get their values from the configuration section handler: public partial class CustomConfig1 : System.Web.UI.Page { public string SessionTitle { get { return DemoSettings.Settings.Title; } } public int SessionAttendees { get { return DemoSettings.Settings.SessionAttendees; } } } Note that the settings are only read from the config file once after that they are cached so there is no need to be concerned about excessive file access. Now weve seen how to set it up on the config file and how to refer to the settings in code.  All that remains is to see the file itself: public class DemoSettings : ConfigurationSection { private static DemoSettings settings = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("DemoSettings") as DemoSettings; public static DemoSettings Settings{ get { return settings;} }   [ConfigurationProperty("sessionAttendees" , DefaultValue = 200 , IsRequired = false)] [IntegerValidator(MinValue = 1 , MaxValue = 10000)] public int SessionAttendees { get { return (int)this["sessionAttendees"]; } set { this["sessionAttendees"] = value; } }   [ConfigurationProperty("title" , IsRequired = true)] [StringValidator(InvalidCharacters = "~!@#$%^&*()[]{}/;\"|\\")] public string Title { get { return (string)this["title"]; } set { this["title"] = value; }   } } The class is pretty straightforward, but there are some important components to note.  First, it must inherit from System.Configuration.ConfigurationSection.  Next, as a convention I like to have a static settings member that is responsible for pulling out the section when the class is first referenced, and further to expose this collection via a static readonly property, Settings.  Note that the types of both of these are the type of my class, DemoSettings. The properties of the class, SessionAttendees and Title, should map to the attributes of the config element in the XML file.  The [ConfigurationProperty] attribute allows you to map the attribute name to the property name (thus using both XML standard naming conventions and C# naming conventions).  In addition, you can specify a default value to use if nothing is specified in the config file, and whether or not the setting must be provided (IsRequired).  If it is required, then it doesnt make sense to include a default value. Beyond defaults and required, you can specify more advanced validation rules for the configuration values using additional C# attributes, such as [IntegerValidator] and [StringValidator].  Using these, you can declaratively specify that your configuration values be in a given range, or omit certain forbidden characters, for instance.  Of course you can write your own custom validation attributes, and there are others specified in System.Configuration. Individual sections can also be loaded from separate files, using syntax like this: <DemoSettings configSource="demosettings.config" /> Summary Using a custom configuration section handler is not hard.  If your application or component requires configuration, I recommend creating a custom configuration handler dedicated to your app or component.  Doing so will reduce the clutter in appSettings, will provide you with strong typing and validation, and will make it much easier for other developers or system administrators to locate and understand the various configuration values that are necessary for a given application. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

  Read the article

• Two interfaces with identical signatures

  - by corsiKa

  I am attempting to model a card game where cards have two important sets of features: The first is an effect. These are the changes to the game state that happen when you play the card. The interface for effect is as follows: boolean isPlayable(Player p, GameState gs); void play(Player p, GameState gs); And you could consider the card to be playable if and only if you can meet its cost and all its effects are playable. Like so: // in Card class boolean isPlayable(Player p, GameState gs) { if(p.resource < this.cost) return false; for(Effect e : this.effects) { if(!e.isPlayable(p,gs)) return false; } return true; } Okay, so far, pretty simple. The other set of features on the card are abilities. These abilities are changes to the game state that you can activate at-will. When coming up with the interface for these, I realized they needed a method for determining whether they can be activated or not, and a method for implementing the activation. It ends up being boolean isActivatable(Player p, GameState gs); void activate(Player p, GameState gs); And I realize that with the exception of calling it "activate" instead of "play", Ability and Effect have the exact same signature. Is it a bad thing to have multiple interfaces with an identical signature? Should I simply use one, and have two sets of the same interface? As so: Set<Effect> effects; Set<Effect> abilities; If so, what refactoring steps should I take down the road if they become non-identical (as more features are released), particularly if they're divergent (i.e. they both gain something the other shouldn't, as opposed to only one gaining and the other being a complete subset)? I'm particularly concerned that combining them will be non-sustainable as soon as something changes. The fine print: I recognize this question is spawned by game development, but I feel it's the sort of problem that could just as easily creep up in non-game development, particularly when trying to accommodate the business models of multiple clients in one application as happens with just about every project I've ever done with more than one business influence... Also, the snippets used are Java snippets, but this could just as easily apply to a multitude of object oriented languages.

  Read the article

• How to Overcome or fix MIXED_DML_OPERATION error in Salesforce APEX without future method ?

  - by sathya

  How to Overcome or fix MIXED_DML_OPERATION error in Salesforce APEX without future method ?MIXED_DML_OPERATION :-one of the worst issues we have ever faced :)While trying to perform DML operation on a setup object and non-setup object in a single action you will face this error.Following are the solutions I tried and the final one worked out :-1. perform the 1st objects DML on normal apex method. Then Call the 2nd objects DML through a future method.    Drawback :- You cant get a response from the future method as its context is different and because its executing asynchronously and that its static.2. Tried the following option but it didnt work :-    1. perform the dml operation on the normal apex method.    2. tried calling the 2nd dml from trigger thinking that it would be in a different context. But it didnt work.    3. Some suggestions were given in some blogs that we could try System.runas()   Unfortunately that works only for test class.   4. Finally achieved it with response synchronously through the following solution :-    a. Created 2 apex:commandbuttons :-        1. <apex:commandButton value="Save and Send Activation Email" action="{!CreateContact}"  rerender="junkpanel" oncomplete="callSimulateUserSave()">            Note :- Oncomplete will not work if you dont have a rerender attribute. So just try refreshing a junk panel.        2. <apex:commandButton value="SimulateUserSave" id="SimulateUserSave" action="{!SaveUser}"  style="display:none;margin-left:5px;"/>        Have a junk panel as well just for rerendering  :-        <apex:outputPanel id="junkpanel"></apex:outputPanel>    b. Created this javascript function which is called from first button's oncomplete and clicks the second button :-                function callSimulateUserSave()                {                    // Specify the id of the button that needs to be clicked. This id is based on the Apex Component Hierarchy.                    // You will not get this value if you dont have the id attribute in the button which needs to be clicked from javascript                    // If you have any doubt in getting this value. Just hover over the button using Chrome developer tools to get the id.                    // But it will show like theForm:SimulateUserSave but you need to replace the colon with a dot here.                    // Note :- I have given display:none in the style of the second button to make sure that, it is not visible for the user.                    var mybtn=document.getElementById('{!$Component.theForm.SimulateUserSave}');                                    mybtn.click();                }    c. Apex Methods CreateContact and SaveUser are the pagereference methods which contains the code to create contact and user respectively.       After inserting the user inside the second apex method you can just set some public Properties in the page,        for ex:- created userid to get the user details and display in the page to show the acknowledgement to the users that the User is created.

  Read the article

• Database Security: The First Step in Pre-Emptive Data Leak Prevention

  - by roxana.bradescu

  With WikiLeaks raising awareness around information leaks and the harm they can cause, many organization are taking stock of their own information leak protection (ILP) strategies in 2011. A report by IDC on data leak prevention stated: Increasing database security is one of the most efficient and cost-effective measures an organization can take to prevent data leaks. By utilizing the data protection, access control, account management, encryption, log management, and other security controls inherent in the database management system, entities can institute first-level control over the widest range of protected information. As a central repository for unstructured data, which is growing at leaps and bounds, the database should be the first layer providing information leakage protection. Unfortunately, most organizations are not taking sufficient steps to protect their databases according to a survey of the Independent Oracle User Group. For example, any operating system administrator or database administrator can access the all the data stored in the database in most organizations. Without any kind of auditing or monitoring. And it's not just administrators, database users can typically access the database with ad-hoc query tools from their desktop and by-pass any application level controls. Despite numerous regulations calling for controls to limit the powers of insiders, most organizations still put too many privileges in the hands of their employees. Time and time again these excess privileges have backfired. Internal agents were implicated in almost half of data breaches according to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report and the rate is rising. Hackers also took advantage of these excess privileges very successfully using stolen credentials and SQL injection attacks. But back to the insiders. Who are these insiders and why do they do it? In 2002, the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) behavioral psychologists and CERT information security experts formed the Insider Threat Study team to examine insider threat cases that occurred in US critical infrastructure sectors, and examined them from both a technical and a behavioral perspective. A series of fascinating reports has been published as a result of this work. You can learn more by watching the ISSA Insider Threat Web Conference. So as your organization starts to look at data leak prevention over the coming year, start off by protecting your data at the source - your databases. IDC went on to say: Any enterprise looking to improve its competitiveness, regulatory compliance, and overall data security should consider Oracle's offerings, not only because of their database management capabilities but also because they provide tools that are the first layer of information leak prevention. Learn more about Oracle Database Security solutions and get the whitepapers, demos, tutorials, and more that you need to protect data privacy from internal and external threats.

  Read the article

• Started wrong with a project. Should I start over?

  - by solidsnake

  I'm a beginner web developer (one year of experience). A couple of weeks after graduating, I got offered a job to build a web application for a company whose owner is not much of a tech guy. He recruited me to avoid theft of his idea, the high cost of development charged by a service company, and to have someone young he can trust onboard to maintain the project for the long run (I came to these conclusions by myself long after being hired). Cocky as I was back then, with a diploma in computer science, I accepted the offer thinking I can build anything. I was calling the shots. After some research I settled on PHP, and started with plain PHP, no objects, just ugly procedural code. Two months later, everything was getting messy, and it was hard to make any progress. The web application is huge. So I decided to check out an MVC framework that would make my life easier. That's where I stumbled upon the cool kid in the PHP community: Laravel. I loved it, it was easy to learn, and I started coding right away. My code looked cleaner, more organized. It looked very good. But again the web application was huge. The company was pressuring me to deliver the first version, which they wanted to deploy, obviously, and start seeking customers. Because Laravel was fun to work with, it made me remember why I chose this industry in the first place - something I forgot while stuck in the shitty education system. So I started working on small projects at night, reading about methodologies and best practice. I revisited OOP, moved on to object-oriented design and analysis, and read Uncle Bob's book Clean Code. This helped me realize that I really knew nothing. I did not know how to build software THE RIGHT WAY. But at this point it was too late, and now I'm almost done. My code is not clean at all, just spaghetti code, a real pain to fix a bug, all the logic is in the controllers, and there is little object oriented design. I'm having this persistent thought that I have to rewrite the whole project. However, I can't do it... They keep asking when is it going to be all done. I can not imagine this code deployed on a server. Plus I still know nothing about code efficiency and the web application's performance. On one hand, the company is waiting for the product and can not wait anymore. On the other hand I can't see myself going any further with the actual code. I could finish up, wrap it up and deploy, but god only knows what might happen when people start using it. What do you think I should do?

  Read the article

• JS closures - Passing a function to a child, how should the shared object be accessed

  - by slicedtoad

  I have a design and am wondering what the appropriate way to access variables is. I'll demonstrate with this example since I can't seem to describe it better than the title. Term is an object representing a bunch of time data (a repeating duration of time defined by a bunch of attributes) Term has some print functionality but does not implement the print functions itself, rather they are passed in as anonymous functions by the parent. This would be similar to how shaders can be passed to a renderer rather than defined by the renderer. A container (let's call it Box) has a Schedule object that can understand and use Term objects. Box creates Term objects and passes them to Schedule as required. Box also defines the print functions stored in Term. A print function usually takes an argument and uses it to return a string based on that argument and Term's internal data. Sometime the print function could also use data stored in Schedule, though. I'm calling this data shared. So, the question is, what is the best way to access this shared data. I have a lot of options since JS has closures and I'm not familiar enough to know if I should be using them or avoiding them in this case. Options: Create a local "reference" (term used lightly) to the shared data (data is not a primitive) when defining the print function by accessing the shared data through Schedule from Box. Example: var schedule = function(){ var sched = Schedule(); var t1 = Term( function(x){ // Term.print() return (x + sched.data).format(); }); }; Bind it to Term explicitly. (Pass it in Term's constructor or something). Or bind it in Sched after Box passes it. And then access it as an attribute of Term. Pass it in at the same time x is passed to the print function, (from sched). This is the most familiar way for my but it doesn't feel right given JS's closure ability. Do something weird like bind some context and arguments to print. I'm hoping the correct answer isn't purely subjective. If it is, then I guess the answer is just "do whatever works". But I feel like there are some significant differences between the approaches that could have a large impact when stretched beyond my small example.

  Read the article

• Namespaces are obsolete

  - by Bertrand Le Roy

  To those of us who have been around for a while, namespaces have been part of the landscape. One could even say that they have been defining the large-scale features of the landscape in question. However, something happened fairly recently that I think makes this venerable structure obsolete. Before I explain this development and why it’s a superior concept to namespaces, let me recapitulate what namespaces are and why they’ve been so good to us over the years… Namespaces are used for a few different things: Scope: a namespace delimits the portion of code where a name (for a class, sub-namespace, etc.) has the specified meaning. Namespaces are usually the highest-level scoping structures in a software package. Collision prevention: name collisions are a universal problem. Some systems, such as jQuery, wave it away, but the problem remains. Namespaces provide a reasonable approach to global uniqueness (and in some implementations such as XML, enforce it). In .NET, there are ways to relocate a namespace to avoid those rare collision cases. Hierarchy: programmers like neat little boxes, and especially boxes within boxes within boxes. For some reason. Regular human beings on the other hand, tend to think linearly, which is why the Windows explorer for example has tried in a few different ways to flatten the file system hierarchy for the user. 1 is clearly useful because we need to protect our code from bleeding effects from the rest of the application (and vice versa). A language with only global constructs may be what some of us started programming on, but it’s not desirable in any way today. 2 may not be always reasonably worth the trouble (jQuery is doing fine with its global plug-in namespace), but we still need it in many cases. One should note however that globally unique names are not the only possible implementation. In fact, they are a rather extreme solution. What we really care about is collision prevention within our application. What happens outside is irrelevant. 3 is, more than anything, an aesthetical choice. A common convention has been to encode the whole pedigree of the code into the namespace. Come to think about it, we never think we need to import “Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Agent” and that would be very hard to remember. What we want to do is bring nHibernate into our app. And this is precisely what you’ll do with modern package managers and module loaders. I want to take the specific example of RequireJS, which is commonly used with Node. Here is how you import a module with RequireJS: var http = require("http"); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } This is of course importing a HTTP stack module into the code. There is no noise here. Let’s break this down. Scope (1) is provided by the one scoping mechanism in JavaScript: the closure surrounding the module’s code. Whatever scoping mechanism is provided by the language would be fine here. Collision prevention (2) is very elegantly handled. Whereas relocating is an afterthought, and an exceptional measure with namespaces, it is here on the frontline. You always relocate, using an extremely familiar pattern: variable assignment. We are very much used to managing our local variable names and any possible collision will get solved very easily by picking a different name. Wait a minute, I hear some of you say. This is only taking care of collisions on the client-side, on the left of that assignment. What if I have two libraries with the name “http”? Well, You can better qualify the path to the module, which is what the require parameter really is. As for hierarchical organization, you don’t really want that, do you? RequireJS’ module pattern does elegantly cover the bases that namespaces used to cover, but it also promotes additional good practices. First, it promotes usage of self-contained, single responsibility units of code through the closure-based, stricter scoping mechanism. Namespaces are somewhat more porous, as using/import statements can be used bi-directionally, which leads us to my second point… Sane dependency graphs are easier to achieve and sustain with such a structure. With namespaces, it is easy to construct dependency cycles (that’s bad, mmkay?). With this pattern, the equivalent would be to build mega-components, which are an easier problem to spot than a decay into inter-dependent namespaces, for which you need specialized tools. I really like this pattern very much, and I would like to see more environments implement it. One could argue that dependency injection has some commonalities with this for example. What do you think? This is the half-baked result of some morning shower reflections, and I’d love to read your thoughts about it. What am I missing?

  Read the article

• Why is my laptop so sluggish? Or Damn You Facebook and Twitter! Or All Hail Chrome!

  - by John Conwell

  In the past three weeks, I've noticed that my laptop (dual core 2.1GHz, 2Gb RAM) has become amazingly sluggish.  I only uses for communications and data lookup workflows, so the slowness was tolerable.  But today I finally got fed up with the suckyness and decided to get to the root of the problem (I do have strong performance roots after all). It actually didn't take all that long to figure it out.  About a year ago I converted to Google Chrome (away from FireFox).  One of the great tools Chrome has is a "Task Manager" tool, that gives you Windows Task Manager like details for all the tabs open in the browser (Shift + Esc).  Since every tab runs in its own process, its easy from Task Manager (both Windows or Chrome) to identify and kill a single performance offending tab.  This is unlike IE, where you only get aggregate data about all tabs open.  Anyway, I digress.  Today my laptop sucked.  Windows Task Manager told me that I had two memory hogging Chrome tabs, but couldn't tell me which web page those tabs are showing.  Enter Chrome Task Manager which tells you the page title, along with CPU, memory and network utilization of each tab.  Enter my amazement.  Turns out Facebook was using just shy of half a Gb of RAM.  Half a Gigabyte!  That's 512 Megabytes!524,288 Kilobytes! 536,870,912 Bytes!  Or 4,294,967,296 Bits!  In other words, that's a frackin boat load of memory.  Now consider that Facebook is running on pretty much 96.3% (statistics based on absolutely nothing) of every house hold desktop, laptop, netbook, and mobile device in America, that is pretty horrific! And I wasn't playing any Facebook games like FarmWars or MafiaVille.  I just had my normal, default home page up showing me who just had breakfast, or just got finished with their morning run. I'm sorry...let me say that again...HALF A GIG OF RAM!  That is just unforgivable. I can just see my mom calling me up:  Mom: "John...I think I need a new computer.  Mine is really slow these days" John: "What do you have running?" Mom: "Oh, just Facebook" John: "Ok, close Facebook and tell me how fast your computer feels" Mom: "Well...I don't know how fast it is.  All I do is use Facebook" John: "Ok Mom, I'll send you a new computer by Tuesday" Oh yea...and the other offending web page?  It was Twitter, using a quarter of a Gigabyte. God I love social networks!

  Read the article

• Best Language for the job? Database | C++, .NET, Java

  - by Randy E

  Ok, quick overview. I'm pretty brand new to software design. I have experience reading and editing/customizing PHP things for online scripts/software; Such as CMS, Wordpress, some forum solutions. I'm about to begin my degree in Software Design, the school I'm going to will allow us to kind of focus on an area, C++, Java, or .NET. I've played around a little with VB over the past week, mostly just trying to get a slight feel for it, however nothing extensive. I've been through Herbert Schildt's "C++, A Beginner's Guide." but I was mainly reading it, not doing anything with it beyond a couple basic Console Apps (and getting frustrated with auto-close :/ ). Now, where I decide to focus more in with my degree will depend on what the best language for the job is for my first piece of software I want to develop on my own. Assume I haven't looked at any of the languages at all, please help with the following: My first piece of software will be a database program. Everything has to do with users inputting and retrieving data, and calling that data to help with another function of the software, automatically calculating billing information based on information inputted in the other portion of the program. I won't go into too many details as I'm targeting a niche that doesn't have too much competition, but the competition that is there is established. I want to offer more features, scalable solutions, and the ability to port it to an online version. Ok, basically, it is a complete case management with integrated billing for Private Investigators. I would like the case management to be able to check the Database to see if certain information has been inputted before (such as Names/SSN's), and then the billing will pull hours inputted in the case portion for investigative work, multiplying by an already inputted amount for the fee, and then calculate sales tax. I also want to provide potential clients with an easily scalable solution, that is, a basic option for start ups that costs the least amount, with no additional users, ran on one machine. A middle option with the ability to create users and place them in two groups (User or Admin), as well as adding a few additional features, ran on one machine, but this will allow it to be accessed after being mapped on a network drive. And a third option to allow the placement into 4 different groups (Investigators, Billing, Managers, Admins) and more features. And then, a couple of years after launch, a 4th option that is browser based allowing the same 4 groups to login, as well as clients (view things concerning their case, with some admin customizable objects that can be added for clients view), over the internet. The only licensing security I would like to employ right off the bat will be serial key generated after ordering online (received in an email after the successful purchase). The program will access a database stored on a server periodically to verify license. I would like it to be able to check to make sure it's the most updated version and automatically update if not.

  Read the article

• How to suggest using an ORM instead of stored procedures?

  - by Wayne M

  I work at a company that only uses stored procedures for all data access, which makes it very annoying to keep our local databases in sync as every commit we have to run new procs. I have used some basic ORMs in the past and I find the experience much better and cleaner. I'd like to suggest to the development manager and rest of the team that we look into using an ORM Of some kind for future development (the rest of the team are only familiar with stored procedures and have never used anything else). The current architecture is .NET 3.5 written like .NET 1.1, with "god classes" that use a strange implementation of ActiveRecord and return untyped DataSets which are looped over in code-behind files - the classes work something like this: class Foo { public bool LoadFoo() { bool blnResult = false; if (this.FooID == 0) { throw new Exception("FooID must be set before calling this method."); } DataSet ds = // ... call to Sproc if (ds.Tables[0].Rows.Count > 0) { foo.FooName = ds.Tables[0].Rows[0]["FooName"].ToString(); // other properties set blnResult = true; } return blnResult; } } // Consumer Foo foo = new Foo(); foo.FooID = 1234; foo.LoadFoo(); // do stuff with foo... There is pretty much no application of any design patterns. There are no tests whatsoever (nobody else knows how to write unit tests, and testing is done through manually loading up the website and poking around). Looking through our database we have: 199 tables, 13 views, a whopping 926 stored procedures and 93 functions. About 30 or so tables are used for batch jobs or external things, the remainder are used in our core application. Is it even worth pursuing a different approach in this scenario? I'm talking about moving forward only since we aren't allowed to refactor the existing code since "it works" so we cannot change the existing classes to use an ORM, but I don't know how often we add brand new modules instead of adding to/fixing current modules so I'm not sure if an ORM is the right approach (too much invested in stored procedures and DataSets). If it is the right choice, how should I present the case for using one? Off the top of my head the only benefits I can think of is having cleaner code (although it might not be, since the current architecture isn't built with ORMs in mind so we would basically be jury-rigging ORMs on to future modules but the old ones would still be using the DataSets) and less hassle to have to remember what procedure scripts have been run and which need to be run, etc. but that's it, and I don't know how compelling an argument that would be. Maintainability is another concern but one that nobody except me seems to be concerned about.

  Read the article

• C-states and P-states : confounding factors for benchmarking

  - by Dave

  I was recently looking into a performance issue in the java.util.concurrent (JUC) fork-join pool framework related to particularly long latencies when trying to wake (unpark) threads in the pool. Eventually I tracked the issue down to the power & scaling governor and idle-state policies on x86. Briefly, P-states refer to the set of clock rates (speeds) at which a processor can run. C-states reflect the possible idle states. The deeper the C-state (higher numerical values) the less power the processor will draw, but the longer it takes the processor to respond and exit that sleep state on the next idle to non-idle transition. In some cases the latency can be worse than 100 microseconds. C0 is normal execution state, and P0 is "full speed" with higher Pn values reflecting reduced clock rates. C-states are P-states are orthogonal, although P-states only have meaning at C0. You could also think of the states as occupying a spectrum as follows : P0, P1, P2, Pn, C1, C2, ... Cn, where all the P-states are at C0. Our fork-join framework was calling unpark() to wake a thread from the pool, and that thread was being dispatched onto a processor at deep C-state, so we were observing rather impressive latencies between the time of the unpark and the time the thread actually resumed and was able to accept work. (I originally thought we were seeing situations where the wakee was preempting the waker, but that wasn't the case. I'll save that topic for a future blog entry). It's also worth pointing out that higher P-state values draw less power and there's usually some latency in ramping up the clock (P-states) in response to offered load. The issue of C-states and P-states isn't new and has been described at length elsewhere, but it may be new to Java programmers, adding a new confounding factor to benchmarking methodologies and procedures. To get stable results I'd recommend running at C0 and P0, particularly for server-side applications. As appropriate, disabling "turbo" mode may also be prudent. But it also makes sense to run with the system defaults to understand if your application exhibits any performance sensitivity to power management policies. The operating system power management sub-system typically control the P-state and C-states based on current and recent load. The scaling governor manages P-states. Operating systems often use adaptive policies that try to avoid deep C-states for some period if recent deep idle episodes proved to be very short and futile. This helps make the system more responsive under bursty or otherwise irregular load. But it also means the system is stateful and exhibits a memory effect, which can further complicate benchmarking. Forcing C0 + P0 should avoid this issue.

  Read the article

• Is 2 lines of push/pop code for each pre-draw-state too many?

  - by Griffin

  I'm trying to simplify vector graphics management in XNA; currently by incorporating state preservation. 2X lines of push/pop code for X states feels like too many, and it just feels wrong to have 2 lines of code that look identical except for one being push() and the other being pop(). The goal is to eradicate this repetitiveness,and I hoped to do so by creating an interface in which a client can give class/struct refs in which he wants restored after the rendering calls. Also note that many beginner-programmers will be using this, so forcing lambda expressions or other advanced C# features to be used in client code is not a good idea. I attempted to accomplish my goal by using Daniel Earwicker's Ptr class: public class Ptr<T> { Func<T> getter; Action<T> setter; public Ptr(Func<T> g, Action<T> s) { getter = g; setter = s; } public T Deref { get { return getter(); } set { setter(value); } } } an extension method: //doesn't work for structs since this is just syntatic sugar public static Ptr<T> GetPtr <T> (this T obj) { return new Ptr<T>( ()=> obj, v=> obj=v ); } and a Push Function: //returns a Pop Action for later calling public static Action Push <T> (ref T structure) where T: struct { T pushedValue = structure; //copies the struct data Ptr<T> p = structure.GetPtr(); return new Action( ()=> {p.Deref = pushedValue;} ); } However this doesn't work as stated in the code. How might I accomplish my goal? Example of code to be refactored: protected override void RenderLocally (GraphicsDevice device) { if (!(bool)isCompiled) {Compile();} //TODO: make sure state settings don't implicitly delete any buffers/resources RasterizerState oldRasterState = device.RasterizerState; DepthFormat oldFormat = device.PresentationParameters.DepthStencilFormat; DepthStencilState oldBufferState = device.DepthStencilState; { //Rendering code } device.RasterizerState = oldRasterState; device.DepthStencilState = oldBufferState; device.PresentationParameters.DepthStencilFormat = oldFormat; }

  Read the article

• LWJGL - Mixing 2D and 3D

  - by nathan

  I'm trying to mix 2D and 3D using LWJGL. I have wrote 2D little method that allow me to easily switch between 2D and 3D. protected static void make2D() { glEnable(GL_BLEND); GL11.glMatrixMode(GL11.GL_PROJECTION); GL11.glLoadIdentity(); glOrtho(0.0f, SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f); GL11.glMatrixMode(GL11.GL_MODELVIEW); GL11.glLoadIdentity(); } protected static void make3D() { glDisable(GL_BLEND); GL11.glMatrixMode(GL11.GL_PROJECTION); GL11.glLoadIdentity(); // Reset The Projection Matrix GLU.gluPerspective(45.0f, ((float) SCREEN_WIDTH / (float) SCREEN_HEIGHT), 0.1f, 100.0f); // Calculate The Aspect Ratio Of The Window GL11.glMatrixMode(GL11.GL_MODELVIEW); glLoadIdentity(); } The in my rendering code i would do something like: make2D(); //draw 2D stuffs here make3D(); //draw 3D stuffs here What i'm trying to do is to draw a 3D shape (in my case a quad) and i 2D image. I found this example and i took the code from TextureLoader, Texture and Sprite to load and render a 2D image. Here is how i load the image. TextureLoader loader = new TextureLoader(); Sprite s = new Sprite(loader, "player.png") And how i render it: make2D(); s.draw(0, 0); It works great. Here is how i render my quad: glTranslatef(0.0f, 0.0f, 30.0f); glScalef(12.0f, 9.0f, 1.0f); DrawUtils.drawQuad(); Once again, no problem, the quad is properly rendered. DrawUtils is a simple class i wrote containing utility method to draw primitives shapes. Now my problem is when i want to mix both of the above, loading/rendering the 2D image, rendering the quad. When i try to load my 2D image with the following: s = new Sprite(loader, "player.png); My quad is not rendered anymore (i'm not even trying to render the 2D image at this point). Only the fact of creating the texture create the issue. After looking a bit at the code of Sprite and TextureLoader i found that the problem appears after the call of the glTexImage2d. In the TextureLoader class: glTexImage2D(target, 0, dstPixelFormat, get2Fold(bufferedImage.getWidth()), get2Fold(bufferedImage.getHeight()), 0, srcPixelFormat, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, textureBuffer); Commenting this like make the problem disappear. My question is then why? Is there anything special to do after calling this function to do 3D? Does this function alter the render part, the projection matrix?

  Read the article

• JavaDay Taipei 2014 Trip Report

  - by reza_rahman

  JavaDay Taipei 2014 was held at the Taipei International Convention Center on August 1st. Organized by Oracle University, it is one of the largest Java developer events in Taiwan. This was another successful year for JavaDay Taipei with a fully sold out venue packed with youthful, energetic developers (this was my second time at the event and I have already been invited to speak again next year!). In addition to Oracle speakers like me, Steve Chin and Naveen Asrani, the event also featured a bevy of local speakers including Taipei Java community leaders. Topics included Java SE, Java EE, JavaFX, cloud and Big Data. It was my pleasure and privilege to present one of the opening keynotes for the event. I presented my session on Java EE titled "JavaEE.Next(): Java EE 7, 8, and Beyond". I covered the changes in Java EE 7 as well as what's coming in Java EE 8. I demoed the Cargo Tracker Java EE BluePrints. I also briefly talked about Adopt-a-JSR for Java EE 8. The slides for the keynote are below (click here to download and view the actual PDF): It appears your Web browser is not configured to display PDF files. No worries, just click here to download the PDF file. In the afternoon I did my JavaScript + Java EE 7 talk titled "Using JavaScript/HTML5 Rich Clients with Java EE 7". This talk is basically about aligning EE 7 with the emerging JavaScript ecosystem (specifically AngularJS). The talk was completely packed. The slide deck for the talk is here: JavaScript/HTML5 Rich Clients Using Java EE 7 from Reza Rahman The demo application code is posted on GitHub. The code should be a helpful resource if this development model is something that interests you. Do let me know if you need help with it but the instructions should be fairly self-explanatory. I am delivering this material at JavaOne 2014 as a two-hour tutorial. This should give me a little more bandwidth to dig a little deeper, especially on the JavaScript end. I finished off Java Day Taipei with my talk titled "Using NoSQL with ~JPA, EclipseLink and Java EE" (this was the last session of the conference). The talk covers an interesting gap that there is surprisingly little material on out there. The talk has three parts -- a birds-eye view of the NoSQL landscape, how to use NoSQL via a JPA centric facade using EclipseLink NoSQL, Hibernate OGM, DataNucleus, Kundera, Easy-Cassandra, etc and how to use NoSQL native APIs in Java EE via CDI. The slides for the talk are here: Using NoSQL with ~JPA, EclipseLink and Java EE from Reza Rahman The JPA based demo is available here, while the CDI based demo is available here. Both demos use MongoDB as the data store. Do let me know if you need help getting the demos up and running. After the event the Oracle University folks hosted a reception in the evening which was very well attended by organizers, speakers and local Java community leaders. I am extremely saddened by the fact that this otherwise excellent trip was scarred by terrible tragedy. After the conference I joined a few folks for a hike on the Maokong Mountain on Saturday. The group included friends in the Taiwanese Java community including Ian and Robbie Cheng. Without warning, fatal tragedy struck on a remote part of the trail. Despite best efforts by us, the excellent Taiwanese Emergency Rescue Team and World class Taiwanese physicians we were unable to save our friend Robbie Cheng's life. Robbie was just thirty-four years old and is survived by his younger brother, mother and father. Being the father of a young child myself, I can only imagine the deep sorrow that this senseless loss unleashes. Robbie was a key member of the Taiwanese Java community and a Java Evangelist at Sun at one point. Ironically the only picture I was able to take of the trail was mere moments before tragedy. I thought I should place him in that picture in profoundly respectful memoriam: Perhaps there is some solace in the fact that there is something inherently honorable in living a bright life, dying young and meeting one's end on a beautiful remote mountain trail few venture to behold let alone attempt to ascend in a long and tired lifetime. Perhaps I'd even say it's a fate I would not entirely regret facing if it were my own. With that thought in mind it seems appropriate to me to quote some lyrics from the song "Runes to My Memory" by legendary Swedish heavy metal band Amon Amarth idealizing a fallen Viking warrior cut down in his prime: "Here I lie on wet sand I will not make it home I clench my sword in my hand Say farewell to those I love When I am dead Lay me in a mound Place my weapons by my side For the journey to Hall up high When I am dead Lay me in a mound Raise a stone for all to see Runes carved to my memory" I submit my deepest condolences to Robbie's family and hope my next trip to Taiwan ends in a less somber note.

  Read the article

• Why does my 3D model not translate the way I expect? [closed]

  - by ChocoMan

  In my first image, my model displays correctly: But when I move the model's position along the Z-axis (forward) I get this, yet the Y-axis doesnt change. An if I keep going, the model disappears into the ground: Any suggestions as to how I can get the model to translate properly visually? Here is how Im calling the model and the terrain in draw(): cameraPosition = new Vector3(camX, camY, camZ); // Copy any parent transforms. Matrix[] transforms = new Matrix[mShockwave.Bones.Count]; mShockwave.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(transforms); Matrix[] ttransforms = new Matrix[terrain.Bones.Count]; terrain.CopyAbsoluteBoneTransformsTo(ttransforms); // Draw the model. A model can have multiple meshes, so loop. foreach (ModelMesh mesh in mShockwave.Meshes) { // This is where the mesh orientation is set, as well // as our camera and projection. foreach (BasicEffect effect in mesh.Effects) { effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); effect.PreferPerPixelLighting = true; effect.World = transforms[mesh.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateRotationY(modelRotation) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(modelPosition); // Looking at the model (picture shouldnt change other than rotation) effect.View = Matrix.CreateLookAt(cameraPosition, modelPosition, Vector3.Up); effect.Projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView( MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), aspectRatio, 1.0f, 10000.0f); effect.TextureEnabled = true; } // Draw the mesh, using the effects set above. prepare3d(); mesh.Draw(); } //Terrain test foreach (ModelMesh meshT in terrain.Meshes) { foreach (BasicEffect effect in meshT.Effects) { effect.EnableDefaultLighting(); effect.PreferPerPixelLighting = true; effect.World = ttransforms[meshT.ParentBone.Index] * Matrix.CreateRotationY(0) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(terrainPosition); // Looking at the model (picture shouldnt change other than rotation) effect.View = Matrix.CreateLookAt(cameraPosition, terrainPosition, Vector3.Up); effect.Projection = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView( MathHelper.ToRadians(45.0f), aspectRatio, 1.0f, 10000.0f); effect.TextureEnabled = true; } // Draw the mesh, using the effects set above. prepare3d(); meshT.Draw(); DrawText(); } base.Draw(gameTime); } I'm suspecting that there may be something wrong with how I'm handling my camera. The model rotates fine on its Y-axis.

  Read the article

• Behaviour Trees with irregular updates

  - by Robominister

  I'm interested in behaviour trees that aren't iterated every game tick, but every so often. (Edit: the tree could specify how many frames within the main game loop to wait before running its tick function again). Every theoretical implementation I have seen of behaviour trees talks of the tree search being carried out every game update - which seems necessary, because a leaf node (eg a behaviour, like 'return to base') needs to be constantly checked to see if is still running, failed or completed. Can anyone suggest how I might start implementing a tree that isnt run every tick, or point me in the direction of good material specific to this case (I am struggling to find anything)? My thoughts so far: action leaf nodes (when they start) must only push some kind of action object onto a list for an entity, rather than directly calling any code that makes the entity do something. The list of actions for the entity would be run every frame (update any that need to run, pop any that have completed from the list). the return state from a given action must be fed back into the tree, so that when we run the tree iteration again (and reach the same action leaf node - so the tree has so far determined that we ought to still be trying this action) - that the action has completed, or is still running etc. If my actual action code is running from an action list on an entity, then I possibly need to cancel previously running actions in the list - i am thinking that I can just delete the entire stack of queued up actions. I've seen the idea of ActionLists which block lower priority actions when a higher priority one is added, but this seems like very close logic to behaviour trees, and I dont want to be duplicating behaviour. This leaves me with some questions 1) How would I feed the action return state back into the tree? Its obvious I need to store some information relating to 'currently executing actions' on the entity, and check that in the tree tick, but I can't imagine how. 2) Does having a seperate behaviour tree (for deciding behaviour) and action list (for carrying out actual queued up actions) sound like a reasonable approach? 3) Is the approach of updating a behaviour tree irregularly actually used by anyone? It seems like a nice idea for budgeting ai search time when you have a lot of ai entities to process. (Edit) - I am also thinking about storing a single instance of a given behaviour tree in memory, and providing it by reference to any entity that uses it. So any information about what action was last selected for execution on an entity must be stored in a data context relative to the entity (which the tree can check). (I am probably answering my own questions as i go!) I hope I have expressed my questions adequately! Thanks in advance for any help :)

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217  | Next Page >