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• Suggestions for connecting .NET WPF GUI with Java SE Server aoo

  - by Sam Goldberg

  BACKGROUND We are building a Java (SE) trading application which will be monitoring market data and sending trade messages based on the market data, and also on user defined configuration parameters. We are planning to provide the user with a thin client, built in .NET (WPF) for managing the parameters, controlling the server behavior, and viewing the current state of the trading. The client doesn't need real-time updates; it will instead update the view once every few seconds (or whatever interval is configured by the user). The client has about 6 different operations it needs to perform with the server, for example: CRUD with configuration parameters query subset of the data receive updates of current positions from server It is possible that most of the different operations (except for receiving data) are just different flavors of managing the configuration parameters, but it's too early in our analysis for us to be sure. To connect the client with the server, we have been considering using: SOAP Web Service RESTful service building a custom TCP/IP based API (text or xml) (least preferred - but we use this approach with other applications we have) As best as I understand, pros and cons of the different web service flavors are: SOAP pro: totally automated in .NET (and Java), modifying server side interface require no code changes in communication layer, just running refresh on Web Service reference to regenerate the classes. con: more overhead in the communication layer sending more text, etc. We're not using J2EE container so maybe doesn't work so well with J2SE REST pro: lighter weight, less data. Has good .NET and Java support. (I don't have any real experience with this, so don't know what other benefits it has.) con: client will not be automatically aware if there are any new operations or properties added (?), so communication layer needs to be updated by developer if server interface changes. con: (both approaches) Server cannot really push updates to the client at regular intervals (?) (However, we won't mind if client polls the server to get updates.) QUESTION What are your opinions on the above options or suggestions for other ways to connect the 2 parts? (Ideally, we don't want to put much work into the communication layer, because it's not the significant part of the application so the more off-the-shelf and automated the better.)

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• Win7 is not a tablet OS, no matter what the boys in Redmond think.

  - by John Conwell

  Despite what execs at Microsoft think, Windows 7 is NOT a tablet OS.  Just because you can install some software (or OS) on a device, doesn't mean that device is meant to run that software.  This seems to be the step that the non-engineer execs at Microsoft have seem to not understood.  In order to seamlessly work with a device, the software needs to be designed with that device in mind.  That has been the problem with the Windows PDA platform, the Windows Mobil platform, and now with trying to force fit Windows 7 on a tablet.  Its just not designed for that style of interaction.   Windows is designed to be interacted with via a mouse and keyboard.  In fact, it is brilliant at that.  But, It is NOT designed to be interacted with by your fingers.  And that is why the Windows tablet failed 10 years ago, and why it will fail today.  Its not the hardware's fault like Microsoft claimed 10 years ago.  Its the User Interaction design that failed. And this is why the iPhone and Android OS's work wonderfully on a tablet.  The user interaction was designed for small screens, navigated by big fat fingers.  I love these OS's and how I interact with them.  And when I play with a touch screen Windows 7 device, I am feel like I'm playing with a brittle wana-be.  And its not the hardware's fault.  The touchscreen is very responsive.  I actually like the hardware.  But the OS and the software are just not designed to be interacted with, with my big fat fingers.  In order to be successful, Microsoft needs to start from scratch, and build a platform AND SOFTWARE specifically for use by fingers.  Thats why everyone was so excited when they though Microsoft was going to release the Courier tablet.  Because it looked like a totally different platform.  Something that might actually work.  But Windows 7...I hate to burst your bubble, but you are not a touch platform.

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• What are the arguments against parsing the Cthulhu way?

  - by smarmy53

  I have been assigned the task of implementing a Domain Specific Language for a tool that may become quite important for the company. The language is simple but not trivial, it already allows nested loops, string concatenation, etc. and it is practically sure that other constructs will be added as the project advances. I know by experience that writing a lexer/parser by hand -unless the grammar is trivial- is a time consuming and error prone process. So I was left with two options: a parser generator à la yacc or a combinator library like Parsec. The former was good as well but I picked the latter for various reasons, and implemented the solution in a functional language. The result is pretty spectacular to my eyes, the code is very concise, elegant and readable/fluent. I concede it may look a bit weird if you never programmed in anything other than java/c#, but then this would be true of anything not written in java/c#. At some point however, I've been literally attacked by a co-worker. After a quick glance at my screen he declared that the code is uncomprehensible and that I should not reinvent parsing but just use a stack and String.Split like everybody does. He made a lot of noise, and I could not convince him, partially because I've been taken by surprise and had no clear explanation, partially because his opinion was immutable (no pun intended). I even offered to explain him the language, but to no avail. I'm positive the discussion is going to re-surface in front of management, so I'm preparing some solid arguments. These are the first few reasons that come to my mind to avoid a String.Split-based solution: you need lot of ifs to handle special cases and things quickly spiral out of control lots of hardcoded array indexes makes maintenance painful extremely difficult to handle things like a function call as a method argument (ex. add( (add a, b), c) very difficult to provide meaningful error messages in case of syntax errors (very likely to happen) I'm all for simplicity, clarity and avoiding unnecessary smart-cryptic stuff, but I also believe it's a mistake to dumb down every part of the codebase so that even a burger flipper can understand it. It's the same argument I hear for not using interfaces, not adopting separation of concerns, copying-pasting code around, etc. A minimum of technical competence and willingness to learn is required to work on a software project after all. (I won't use this argument as it will probably sound offensive, and starting a war is not going to help anybody) What are your favorite arguments against parsing the Cthulhu way?* *of course if you can convince me he's right I'll be perfectly happy as well

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• Will polishing my current project be a better learning experience than starting a new one?

  - by Alejandro Cámara

  I started programming many years ago. Now I'm trying to make games. I have read many recommendations to start cloning some well known games like galaga, tetris, arkanoid, etc. I have also read that I should go for the whole game (including menus, sound, score, etc.). Yesterday I finished the first complete version of my arkanoid clone. But it is far from over. I can still work on it for months (I program as a hobby in my free time) implementing a screen resolution switcher, remap of the control keys, power-ups falling from broken bricks, and a huge etc. But I do not want to be forever learning how to clone ONE game. I have the urge to get to the next clone in order to apply some design ideas I have come upon while developing this arkanoid clone (at the same time I am reading the GoF book and much source code from Ludum Dare 21 game contest). So the question is: Should I keep improving the arkanoid clone until it has all the features the original game had? or should I move to the next clone (there are almost infinite games to clone) and start mending the things I did wrong with the previous clone? This can be a very subjective question, so please restrain the answers to the most effective way to learn how to make my own games (not cloning someone ideas). Thank you! CLARIFICATION In order to clarify what I have implemented I make this list: Features implemented: Bouncing capabilities (the ball bounces on walls, on bricks, and on the bar). Sounds when bouncing on bricks and the bar, and when the player wins or loses. Basic title menu (new game and exit only). Also in-game menu and win/lose menus. Only three levels, but the map system is so easy I do not think it will teach me much (am I wrong?). Features not-implemented: Power-ups when breaking the bricks. Complex bricks (with more than one "hit point" and invincible). Better graphics (I am not really good at it). Programming polishing (use more intensively the design patterns). Here's a link to its (minimal) webpage: http://blog.acamara.es/piperine/ I kind of feel ashamed to show it, so please do not hit me too hard :-) My question was related to the not-implemented features. I wondered what was the fastest (optimal) path to learn. 1) implement the not-implemented features in this project which is getting big, or 2) make a new game which probably will teach me those lessons and new ones. ANSWER I choose @ashes999 answer because, in my case, I think I should polish more and try to "ship" the game. I think all the other answers are also important to bear in mind, so if you came here having the same question, before taking a rush decision read all the discussion. Thank you all!

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• What do you think of the EntLib 5.0 configuration tool?

  Hello again! Its been a while, I know. Ive been busy over the last few months with several projects, some of them software related, and one of them human my son Jesse was born on 26 February 2010. Fun times! Meanwhile, back in Redmond, the p&p team has been busy working on Enterprise Library 5.0 see Grigoris announcement for details on the beta. Theres a ton of new stuff in this release, but theres one big new feature that hasnt received a lot of attention that Im keen to hear your perspectives on. The change is the biggest overhaul to the configuration tool since Enterprise Library was launched. If you havent yet grabbed the EntLib 5.0 beta, heres a before and after shot of the config tool: Enterprise Library 4.1 config tool Enterprise Library 5.0 (beta 1) config tool The tool has been rebuilt from the ground up in response to some feedback and usability studies from the previous version of the tool. But is this a step in the right direction? Id love to hear what you think. If youve downloaded EntLib 5.0 and tried out the tool, please share your thoughts on: First impressions. Is the tool easy to understand? Easy to find what youre looking for? Easy to read existing configuration? Pretty? Ease of use for real life tasks. Rather than make up your own tasks, here are a few sample scenarios you might want to try: Configure the data access block with a SQL Server connection called Audit that points to a database called Audit on a server called DB Configure the logging block so that any log entries in the Audit category are written to both the Event Log and the Audit database (see above) Configure the validation block with a ruleset called Email Address that uses an appropriate regular expression for e-mail addresses Configure the policy injection block such that any calls to classes in the MyCompany.Security namespace are logged before and after the call using the Audit category (see above) Comparison with the old config tool. What do you like better in the new tool? What did you like better in the old tool? How do you rate your level of expertise using the old tool? Keep in mind that I no longer work in the p&p team, so I cant say how any of this feedback will be used (although Im sure the team is listening!). However since Ive invested so much time in Enterprise Library, both in leading the team and using the product on real projects Im very interested to hear what you all think of the tools new direction.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.

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• 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;

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• My Graduate Experience at Oracle by Mayuri Khinvasara

  - by david.talamelli

  My experience at Oracle. I still vividly remember the day, when my name was announced in the campus hiring list of Oracle at my college. I was proud of myself but at the same time, I was getting goose bumps!!! A new world had arrived before me and the anxiousness of whether I could survive it or not had gripped me. Nervous about moving into an unknown city, I came to visit Hyderabad with my father. One look at the Oracle Campus and I felt some kind of magnetism pulling me towards it. And then, I joined Oracle in June 2009, with a lot of apprehensions in my mind. The HR Rep made us really comfortable in the first week itself. I met so many new people, managers, HR folks and most importantly 20 other Campus Hires like me. Then we had our team bonding sessions, team parties etc. I didn’t realize when the transition from campus to corporate happened. And I had started loving it. The confidence the HR Reps gave us and the bonding our managers imbibed in us, made us all ready for the new life ahead. Then started the rigorous training sessions, the excitement about our new work, new cubicles, new desktops, our first business cards, our first conference call and so on. I made new friends which were now my extended family, the freedom and courage of living alone. I was enjoying all that. As I was getting totally immersed into my regular work schedule I started getting to know the innumerable Oracle products, their functionalities, implementations and realizing the brand that Oracle is. Work pressure started increasing and so did the challenges to understand and deliver. I Didn’t realize how days and soon months passed by. Then came a golden chance to visit the Oracle Headquarters in US for 45 days training in November 2009. Once again, the excitement was enormous about the counter team-mates in HQ, the trainings ahead, the US work culture and my stay there. I felt so privileged for the company I was working. Boarding an international flight for the first time and visiting famous US cities which I had just seen in movies, was now a reality. It was a totally amazing experience. Work pressure kept me really busy, with learning new things every day, the immense satisfaction of delivering something, the nightmares of debugging a mistake, only to realize how silly it was.  I was enjoying the process. Soon a year passed by. I had transformed into this corporate software professional, I couldn’t believe I could be. Today, I complete 1 year and 8 months at Oracle and continue to look forward to the enriching experience I will have here. Truly one of the Top Companies in the World. Mayuri Khinvasara

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• State / Screen management in Entity Component Systems

  - by David Lively

  My entity/component system is happily humming along and, despite some performance concerns I initially had, everything is working fine. However, I've realized that I missed a crucial point when starting this thing: how do you handle different screens? At the moment, I have a GameManager class which owns a component manager and entity manager. When I create an entity, the entity manager assigns it an ID and makes sure it's tracked. When I modify the components that are assigned to an entity. an UpdateEntity method is called, which alerts each of the systems that they may need to add or remove the entity from their respective entity lists. A problem with this is that the collection of entities operated on by each system is determined solely by the individual Systems, typically based on a "required component" filter. (An entity has to have a Renderable component to be rendered, for instance.) In this situation, I can't just keep collections of entities per screen and only Update/Draw those collections. They'd have to either be added and removed depending on their applicability to the current screen, which would cause their associated components to be removed, or enable/disable entities in a group per screen to hide what's not supposed to be visible. These approaches seem like really, really crappy kludges. What's a good way to handle this? A pretty straightforward way that comes to mind is to create a separate GameManager (which in my implementation owns all of the systems, entities, etc.) per screen, which means that everything outside of the device context would be duplicated. That's bothersome because some things are always visible, or I might want to continue to display the game under a translucent menu window. Another option would be to add a "layer" key to the GameManager class, which could be checked against a displayable layer stack held by the game manager. *System.Draw() would be called for each active layer, in the required order as determined by the stack. When the systems request an iterator for their respective entity collections, it would be pre-filtered to a (cached) set of those entities that participate in the active layer. Those collections could be updated from the same UpdateEntity event that's already used to maintain each system's entity collections. Still, kinda feels like a hack. If I've coded myself into a corner, feel free to throw tomatoes as long as they're labeled with a helpful suggestion. Hooray for learning curves.

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• Mobile Shopping Alerts

  - by David Dorf

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} It’s been popular to offer coupons when people check-in to a store, because you’re catching them at the best possible time – they’re presumably in a shopping state-of-mind, and they’re at your store.  But wouldn’t it be even better to catch the people walking by your store and entice them to visit?  That’s the concept of geo-fences.  When people enter a geographic zone, they are sent a relevant text message alerting them about something nearby. I wrote about Placecast doing this for The North Face, noting that the messages were a unique combination of both offers and useful information about outdoor activities. After creating a program with European carrier O2, Placecast recently entered into an agreement to provide similar services to AT&T customers.  The ShopAlerts program allows AT&T customers in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco opt-in to receive these messages.  The program will be expanded nationwide as early as this summer. It’s a much better model for customers (and Placecast) to sign-up once with the carrier instead of each individual retailer, but I hope the messages aren’t restricted to advertising.  I really the like the idea of providing other information, such as nearby special events, races, and perhaps even things to avoid like construction.

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• What can I do to make sure my code gets maintained in a developer light environment?

  - by asjohnson

  I am a contract data analyst, so I bounce between jobs every 3-6 months, which I find to be a good fit for me, but it leads to some problems when it comes to coding. I mostly do statistics (I've asked a similar question on cross validated, but the answers there are not relevant here), but I have also found out that the business world loves excel and loves copying and pasting the same thing over and over again even more. This led me to learn how to write VBA scripts and then VB.NET programs to automate as many of these reports as I can. I am certain my programs are not the most elegant, but I put a good bit of effort into making sure they work under as many cases as I can test, I add in exceptions and try to code so the program can handle changes in the files that it processes, but there is a limit, if you remove a huge portion of the data, there is a good chance my program is going to trip up, which I accept will inevitably happen. Usually a pretty minor change in the code fixes the problem and I do try and comment my code and make it readable under the assumption that some other person will have to read it some day. My problem is that I generally get put on teams of folks with essentially no experience with programming (like VBA would be a huge stretch for anyone I work directly with). I am wondering what I should be doing as the person that wrote the code to do my best to keep it maintained. I have two approaches in mind (outlined next), but would be very happy to get any advice. Solution 1: Find the more tech savvy coworkers and run them through the programs and what basic changes can be made. Honestly automating excel is about as easy as it can get when it comes to programming, so I feel like I could teach someone the basics of maintaining it pretty quick. Solution 2: Get in touch with the IT department and show them what is going on and maybe they will be able to help. The problem here is that the IT department is constantly swamped (as I'm sure many of you know) and I feel like kind of a jerk for dumping more things on them. I do leave my personal email address with places and am willing to answer quick questions via email, but I view the need for more exhaustive maintenance as something of an inevitability and would like to make sure I do my due diligence to make sure it gets done. I imagine some combination of the two approaches outlined there, but is there any kind of heads up I should give IT? I feel like I would be annoyed if I started getting requests to fix a program that I had never seen from some random guy that is no longer there.

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• Managing Joomla via Android

  Surprisingly, it was only today that I actually looked for possible solutions to write more content for my blog. Since quite some time I'm using my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 for all kind of social media activities like Google+, FB, etc. but also for my casual mail during the evening hours. And yes, I feel a little bit guilty about missing the chance to use my tablet to write some content here... OK, only a little bit. ;-) These are not the droids you are looking for But those lazy times are over! While searching the Play Store with the expression 'joomla' I got three interesting hits: - Joomla Admin Mobile! - Joooid - Joomla! Security Checklist After reading the reviews I installed the two later apps. Joomla! Security Checklist The author clearly outlines here that the app is primarily for his personal purpose to have safety checklist at hand at anytime. I guess that any reader of this article has an Android based smartphone or tablet, so that simple app should be part of your toolbox when using Joomla! for your websites. Joooid plugin & app Although I was looking for an app that could work with the default XML RPC interface of Joomla I have to admit that this combination of an enhanced Web service suits me better, mainly due to performance reason. The official website has not only the downloads for Joomla versions 1.5 - 2.5 but also very good and easy to follow step-by-step instructions to prepare your server for the Android app. It will take you less than 5 minutes to get it up and running. For safety reasons, I recommend that you should configure your Web server to have an additional authentication layer on the plugins folder. The smartphone app has the ability to run against HTTP authentication. Personally, I like the look and feel of the app. It is a little bit different compared to the web UI but still easy to use. In fact, this article is the first one written in the Joooid app. At the moment, I only miss the ability to have list tags. Quick and easy Writing full-fledged articles with images, a couple of hyperlinks and some styling here and there should be left to the desktop. At least for the moment. Let's see whether I'm going to change my mind on this during the upcoming months... I'll give it a try, and hope to publish at least once per month to write some content using Joooid. Actually, it would be great to have some feedback about other Joomla! clients in the wild.

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• #SSAS #Tabular Workshop and Community Events in Netherlands and Denmark

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

  Next week I will finally start the roadshow of the SSAS Tabular Workshop, a 2-day seminar about the new BISM Tabular model for Analysis Services that has been introduced in SQL Server 2012. During these roadshows, we always try to arrange some speeches at local community events in the evening - we already defined for Copenhagen, we have some logistic issue in Amsterdam that we're trying to solve. Here is the timetable: Netherlands SSAS Workshop in Amsterdam, NL – April 16-17, 2012 2-day seminar, I and Alberto will be the trainers for this event, register here We're trying to manage a Community event but we still don't have a confirmation, stay tuned        Denmark SSAS Workshop in Copenhagen, DK – April 26-27, 2012 2-day seminar, I and Alberto will be the trainers for this event, register here Community event on April 26, 2012 This event will run in Hellerup, at Microsoft venue All details available here: http://msbip.dk/events/26/msbip-mode-nr-5/ People from Sweden are welcome! Just register to this private group on LinkedIn in order to announce your presence, so we’ll know how many people will attend In community events we’ll deliver two speeches – here are the descriptions: Inside xVelocity (VertiPaq) PowerPivot and BISM Tabular models in Analysis Services share a great columnar-based database engine called xVelocity in-memory analytics engine (VertiPaq). If you want to improve performance and optimize memory used, you have to understand some basic principles about how this engine works, how data is compressed, and how you can design a data model for better optimization. Prepare yourself to change your mind. xVelocity optimization techniques might seem counterintuitive and are absolutely different than OLAP and SQL ones! Choosing between Tabular and Multidimensional You have a new project and you have to make an important decision upfront. Should you use Tabular or Multidimensional? It is not easy to answer, because sometime there is a clear choice, but most of the times both decisions might be correct, at least at the beginning. In this session we’ll help you making an informed decision, correctly evaluating pros and cons of each one according to common scenarios, considering both short-term and long-term consequences of your choice. I hope to meet many people in this first dates. We have many other events coming in May and June, including an online event (for US time zones), and you can also attend our PreCon Day at TechEd US in Orland (PRC06) or TechEd Europe in Amsterdam. I’ll be a good customer for airline companies in the next three months! I’m just sorry that I hadn’t time to write other articles in the last month, but I’m accumulating material that I will need to write down during some flight – stay tuned…

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• Using ASP.NET Membership Provider with an ACL

  - by geekrutherford

  Up until recently one of my applications has used the membership provider within ASP.NET exclusively. However, it has been proposed that while the currently defined roles are beneficial, security needs to be more granular to restrict both access to certain pages and functionality present within a given page.   Unfortunately, the role based security ASP.NET gives you out of the box falls down in this area. This is not due to a lack of foresight by Microsoft, but rather it was simply not designed for implementing both role based security and any inherent ACL you may define within these roles. Mind you some would say an ACL is independent of the role to which a user belongs and is assigned to the user directly.   The application mentioned here has it's own User object (which encapsulates the membership provider user object as a property) and SQL Server table to store extended information not present in the aspnet_users table. While I could have modified the aspnet membership schema to suit the applications needs, it seemed smarter to simply create a separate table with a foreign key back to the aspnet_users table.   Since I have a separate object to store extended user information, I simply created an ACL object and expose it as a property of my user object.   This is all well and good, but it does not help in regards to the SiteMapProvider and restricting access at the page level based on the users ACL.   The straightforward answer would be to develop some code within the databound event for the menu that checks the page title and has hardcoded logic that dictates a user must have certain permissions turned on. The problem with this approach is that it's HARDCODED!!! If you need to change access to a page you'd need to do a build and go through your normal deployment process....ugh!!!   An alternative method, albeit not perfect, is to utilize the resourceKey property on the SiteMapNodes in the SiteMap file with the name of the required permission to view the page. Within the databound event for your menu you iterate the SiteMapNodes in the menus SiteMapProvider looking for a match at the page level based on title. When a match is detected, you have a switch/case on the SiteMapNodes resourceKey (the name of the ACL permission required). The case for the resourceKey ensures the users ACL permission is turned on and viola!!!   This is noteably not perfect in that it is using the resourceKey in a manner other than intended.  Since the application is not localized, using it in the manner described it not an issue.   Below is a sample SiteMap file with the resourceKey used as the ACL permission identifier:     Below is the ItemDataBound event. This application uses the Telerik Menu control:

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• How to get better at solving Dynamic programming problems

  - by newbie

  I recently came across this question: "You are given a boolean expression consisting of a string of the symbols 'true', 'false', 'and', 'or', and 'xor'. Count the number of ways to parenthesize the expression such that it will evaluate to true. For example, there is only 1 way to parenthesize 'true and false xor true' such that it evaluates to true." I knew it is a dynamic programming problem so i tried to come up with a solution on my own which is as follows. Suppose we have a expression as A.B.C.....D where '.' represents any of the operations and, or, xor and the capital letters represent true or false. Lets say the number of ways for this expression of size K to produce a true is N. when a new boolean value E is added to this expression there are 2 ways to parenthesize this new expression 1. ((A.B.C.....D).E) ie. with all possible parenthesizations of A.B.C.....D we add E at the end. 2. (A.B.C.(D.E)) ie. evaluate D.E first and then find the number of ways this expression of size K can produce true. suppose T[K] is the number of ways the expression with size K produces true then T[k]=val1+val2+val3 where val1,val2,val3 are calculated as follows. 1)when E is grouped with D. i)It does not change the value of D ii)it inverses the value of D in the first case val1=T[K]=N.( As this reduces to the initial A.B.C....D expression ). In the second case re-evaluate dp[K] with value of D reversed and that is val1. 2)when E is grouped with the whole expression. //val2 contains the number of 'true' E will produce with expressions which gave 'true' among all parenthesized instances of A.B.C.......D i) if true.E = true then val2 = N ii) if true.E = false then val2 = 0 //val3 contains the number of 'true' E will produce with expressions which gave 'false' among all parenthesized instances of A.B.C.......D iii) if false.E=true then val3=( 2^(K-2) - N ) = M ie. number of ways the expression with size K produces a false [ 2^(K-2) is the number of ways to parenthesize an expression of size K ]. iv) if false.E=false then val3 = 0 This is the basic idea i had in mind but when i checked for its solution http://people.csail.mit.edu/bdean/6.046/dp/dp_9.swf the approach there was completely different. Can someone tell me what am I doing wrong and how can i get better at solving DP so that I can come up with solutions like the one given above myself. Thanks in advance.

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• Oracle Spatial and Graph – A year in review

  - by Mandy Ho

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} What a great year for Oracle Spatial! Or shall I now say, Oracle Spatial and Graph, with our official name change this summer. There were so many exciting events and updates we had this year, and this blog will review and link to some of the events you may have missed over the year. We kicked off 2012 with our webinar: Situational Analysis at OnStar with Oracle Spatial and Graph. We collaborated with OnStar’s Emergency Strategy and Outreach expert, Jeff Joyner ,on how Onstar uses Google Earth Visualization, NAVTEQ data and Oracle Database to deliver fast, accurate emergency services to its customers. In the next webinar in our 2012 series, Oracle partner TARGUSinfo showcased how to build a robust, scalable and secure customer relationship management systems – with built-in mapping and spatial analysis, and deployed in the cloud. This is a very cool system using all Oracle technologies including Oracle Database and Fusion Middleware MapViewer. Attendees learned how to gather market insight, score prospects and customers and perform location analysis. The replay is available here. Our final webinar of the year focused on using Oracle Business Intelligence tools, along with Oracle Spatial and Graph to perform location-aware predictive analysis. Watch the webcast here: In June, we joined up with the Location Intelligence conference in Washington, DC, and had a very successful 2012 Oracle Spatial User Conference. Customers and partners from the US, as well as from EMEA and Asia, flew in to share experiences and ideas, and get technical updates from Oracle experts. Users were excited to hear about spatial-Exadata performance, and advances in MapViewer and BI. Peter Doolan of Oracle Public Sector kicked off the event with a great keynote, and US Census, NOAA, and Ordnance Survey Great Britain were just a few of the presenters. Presentation archive here. We recognized some of the most exceptional partners and customers for their contributions to advancing mainstream solutions using geospatial technologies. Planning for 2013’s conference has already started. Please contribute your papers for consideration here. http://www.locationintelligence.net/ We also launched a new Oracle PartnerNetwork Spatial Specialization – to enable partners to get validated in the marketplace for their expertise in taking solutions to market. Individuals can also get individual certifications. Learn more here. Oracle Open World was not to disappoint, with news regarding our next Oracle Spatial and Graph release, as well as the announcement of our new Oracle Spatial and Graph SIG board! Join the SIG today. One more exciting event as we look to 2013. Spatial and location technologies have a dedicated track at the January BIWA SIG Summit – on January 9-10 in Redwood Shores, CA. View the agenda and register here: www.biwasummit.org. We thank you for all your support during the year of 2012 and look towards an even more exciting 2013! Wishing you and your family a prosperous New Year and Happy Holidays!

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• Cloud service and IM protocol advice, for a backend to group chat mobile app

  - by Jonathan

  Overview I’m going to develop an app on Android and iOS. It will allow users to set up group ‘chat rooms’ and talk on chat rooms set up by other users. The service needs to be highly scalable, such that it could accommodate a massive increase in users overnight (we can only dream). Chat requirements The chat protocol used should be flexible: it should allow me to determine who can view/post on ‘chat rooms’ based on certain other factors, as determined by the first poster/creator of the particular ‘chat room’. It should also allow for users to simply install the app and begin using the service, after only providing a simple nickname (which could be changed later). Chat protocol plans Having looked around I think the XMPP protocol is the best candidate. In particular the Multi-user chat extension looks like what I’ll need. Would this be most suited to my requirements, or do you know another potential solution? Cloud service I have been deciding between Amazon Web Services, Google App Engine and Windows Azure. I’m coming to the conclusion that Azure will be best, as it is easier to manage than AWS (ease of scalability will be a key factor in the design), I think it may be less restricted than GAE, plus Azure will soon have toolkits to allow easy interfacing with both Android and iOS phones. Is this the decision you would have made, or would you recommend/look into other cloud services? General project philosophy I have only recently started looking into this project’s feasibility, and am no expert on any of its aspects. So wherever possible I will leave the actual implementations to experts, i.e. choosing a higher-level cloud service, using a well-documented plugin of a, proven reliable, group chat protocol etc. My background I have some programming knowledge from a computer science degree. Main languages I’ve used have been Java and Python, but I don’t want this to affect design decisions for the project. The most appropriate languages for the task should be used, i.e. I don’t mind learning a lot of new skills (my current programming levels are relatively basic anyway). Thank you Thanks for reading, and any advice you have about any aspect would be greatly appreciated :-)

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• Which is the most practical way to add functionality to this piece of code?

  - by Adam Arold

  I'm writing an open source library which handles hexagonal grids. It mainly revolves around the HexagonalGrid and the Hexagon class. There is a HexagonalGridBuilder class which builds the grid which contains Hexagon objects. What I'm trying to achieve is to enable the user to add arbitrary data to each Hexagon. The interface looks like this: public interface Hexagon extends Serializable { // ... other methods not important in this context <T> void setSatelliteData(T data); <T> T getSatelliteData(); } So far so good. I'm writing another class however named HexagonalGridCalculator which adds some fancy pieces of computation to the library like calculating the shortest path between two Hexagons or calculating the line of sight around a Hexagon. My problem is that for those I need the user to supply some data for the Hexagon objects like the cost of passing through a Hexagon, or a boolean flag indicating whether the object is transparent/passable or not. My question is how should I implement this? My first idea was to write an interface like this: public interface HexagonData { void setTransparent(boolean isTransparent); void setPassable(boolean isPassable); void setPassageCost(int cost); } and make the user implement it but then it came to my mind that if I add any other functionality later all code will break for those who are using the old interface. So my next idea is to add annotations like @PassageCost, @IsTransparent and @IsPassable which can be added to fields and when I'm doing the computation I can look for the annotations in the satelliteData supplied by the user. This looks flexible enough if I take into account the possibility of later changes but it uses reflection. I have no benchmark of the costs of using annotations so I'm a bit in the dark here. I think that in 90-95% of the cases the efficiency is not important since most users wont't use a grid where this is significant but I can imagine someone trying to create a grid with a size of 5.000.000.000 X 5.000.000.000. So which path should I start walking on? Or are there some better alternatives? Note: These ideas are not implemented yet so I did not pay too much attention to good names.

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• Guiding Management to the Correct Decision

  - by Blumer

  My supervisor (also a developer) and I have a running joke about writing a book called "Managing From Beneath: Subversively Guiding Management to the Right Decision" and including a number of "techniques" we've developed for helping those who make the decisions to make the right ones. So far, we've got (cynicism warning!): BIC It! BIC stands for "Bury In Committee." When a bad idea comes up that someone wants to champion, we try to get it deferred to a committee for input. Typically it will either get killed outright (especially if other members of the committee are competing for you as a resource), or it will be hung up long enough that the proponent forgets about it. Smart, Stupid, or Expensive? When someone gets a visionary idea, offer them three ways to do it: a smart way, a stupid way, and an expensive way. The hope is that you've at least got a 2/3 shot of not having to do it the way that makes a piece of your soul die. All-Pro. It's a preemptive pro/con list in which you get into the mind of the (pr)opponent and think what would be cons against doing it your way. Twist them into pros and present them in your pro list before they have a chance to present them as cons. Dependicitis. Link pending decisions together, ideally with the proponent's pet project as the final link in the chain. Use this leverage to force action on those that have been put off. Preemptive Acceptance. Sometimes it's clear that management is going to go a particular direction regardless of advice to the contrary, and it's time to make the best of it. Take the opportunity to get something else you need, though. Approach the sponsor out of the blue and take the first step: "You know, I've been thinking about it, and while it's not the route I would advise, as long as we can get the schedule and budget for Project Awesome loosened up, I can work some magic to make your project fly." So ... what techniques have you come up with to try to head off the problem projects or make the best of what may come?

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• Software monetization that is not evil

  - by t0x1n

  I have a free open-source project with around 800K downloads to date. I've been contacted by some monetization companies from time to time and turned them down, since I didn't want toolbar malware associated with my software. I was wondering however, is there a non-evil way to monetize software ? Here are the options as I know them: Add a donation button. I don't feel comfortable with that as I really don't need "donations" - I'm paid quite well. Donating users may feel entitled to support etc. (see the second to last bullet) Add ads inside your application. In the web that may be acceptable, but in a desktop program it looks incredibly lame. Charge a small amount for each download. This model works well in the mobile world, but I suspect no one will go for it on the desktop. It doesn't mix well with open source, though I suppose I could charge only for the binaries (most users won't go to the hassle of compiling the sources). People may expect support etc. after having explicitly paid (see next bullet). Make money off a service / community / support associated with the program. This is one route I definitely don't want to take, I don't want any sort of hassle beyond coding. I assure you, the program is top notch (albeit simple) and I'm not aware of any bugs as of yet (there are support forums and blog comments where users may report them). It is also very simple, documented, and discoverable so I do think I have a case for supplying it "as is". Add affiliate suggestions to your installer. If you use a monetization company, you lose control over what they propose. Unless you can establish some sort of strong trust with the company to supply quality suggestions (I sincerely doubt it), I can't have that. Choosing your own affiliate (e.g. directly suggesting Google Toolbar) is possibly the only viable solution to my mind. Problem is, where do I find a solid affiliate that could actually give value to the user rather than infect his computer with crapware? I thought maybe Babylon (not the toolbar of course, I hate toolbars)?

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• Random thoughts on Monday

  - by user10760339

  I know that it has been a long time since my last post, just though that I would update you my latest thoughts of Governance. I just recently completed an executive round table series on EA and Cloud in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. The response was phenomenal. The key point of the session was that Enterprise is the key enabler of innovation - All companies want to drive to be market leaders, EA can lay the foundation for the path to deliver that at innovation. When it comes to innovation, I see two distinct types: (a) Passive innovation is where a company creates innovation thought increments improvement over time. A great example is when airlines went from paper tickets to electronic ticket. Next logical progression is to do the same with boarding passes. There are a lot of examples to choose from, thought the thing to keep in mind, is that passive innovation will only keep you in the lead, it won’t allow you to create new markets or jump from #3 to #1 in one go. For that we need another type of innovation. (b) Disruptive innovation is where you create market where none existed before. Thought very difficult to do and requires significant investment in research, product and software development and not least of all, visionary thinking and timing, if done correctly, can turn the world on it’s ear. A great example is Apple iTunes. Some might say that this is incremental innovation, but only in one aspect, the downloading of music. Other then that, it’s all disruptive innovation. Being able to buy a single song rather then the album fundamentally changed the way we get out music. Behind all of these types of innovation is Enterprise Architecture. EA creates the infrastructure foundation, then delivery systems and the end-user experience to deliver this innovation. At Oracle, we are driving that EA innovation with our private cloud offerings from “bolt-to-glass” as I like to say. For more on what Oracle has to offer in EA and cloud, have a look at Cloud Computing | Oracle and Enterprise Architecture - OracleI am working on new material that I will be posting in a couple of weeks, so check back regularly for new updates or feel free to subscript for updates.

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• Shrink NTFS Windows 7 Partition with GParted

  - by user15961

  I am running a dual-boot system with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10. Initially I allocated about 20GB for my Ubuntu partition; however, I quickly ran out of that space and am now looking to expand my partition. Currently my NTFS partition (450GB) has about 130GB of free space. I tried using GParted to shrink the partition but encountered the following error. I booted into windows so I could run chkdsk but the countdown freezes at 1 upon reboot. I tried multiple methods to resolve that issue but nothing seems to work. Finally I gave up, and now I just want to know what is the best way for me to force GParted to shrink the partition regardless of the errors. I don't really have anything important and I don't mind risking the data. I just don't want to wipe the entire NTFS partition because I don't have a Windows install CD and might require Windows later on for some programs. I tried using sudo ntfsresize but that spews out the same error as GParted... Any ideas? Check and repair file system (ntfs) on /dev/sda2 00:00:09 ( ERROR ) calibrate /dev/sda2 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS ) path: /dev/sda2 start: 36944325 end: 976771119 size: 939826795 (448.14 GiB) check file system on /dev/sda2 for errors and (if possible) fix them 00:00:09 ( ERROR ) ntfsresize -P -i -f -v /dev/sda2 ntfsresize v2.0.0 (libntfs 10:0:0) Device name : /dev/sda2 NTFS volume version: 3.1 Cluster size : 4096 bytes Current volume size: 481191318016 bytes (481192 MB) Current device size: 481191319040 bytes (481192 MB) Checking for bad sectors ... Checking filesystem consistency ... Cluster 63468 is referenced multiple times! Cluster 63469 is referenced multiple times! Cluster 63465 is referenced multiple times! Cluster 63466 is referenced multiple times! Cluster 63467 is referenced multiple times! Cluster 165621 is referenced multiple times! Cluster 165622 is referenced multiple times! Cluster 165623 is referenced multiple times! Cluster 165624 is referenced multiple times! ERROR: Filesystem check failed! ERROR: 9 clusters are referenced multiply times. NTFS is inconsistent. Run chkdsk /f on Windows then reboot it TWICE! The usage of the /f parameter is very IMPORTANT! No modification was and will be made to NTFS by this software until it gets repaired.

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• Upstart: How does rc job work / order of (contradicting) "start on ..." and "stop on ..." stanzas

  - by Binarus

  Hi, I just can't understand how Upstart's rc job definition in Natty 11.04 works. To illustrate the problem, here is the definition (empty lines and comments are left out): start on runlevel [0123456] stop on runlevel [!$RUNLEVEL] export RUNLEVEL export PREVLEVEL console output env INIT_VERBOSE task exec /etc/init.d/rc $RUNLEVEL Let's suppose we currently are in runlevel 2 and the rc job is stopped (that is exactly the situation after booting my box and logging in via SSH). Now, let's assume that the system switches to runlevel 3, for example due to a command like "telinit 3" given by root. What will happen to the rc job? Obviously, the rc job will be started since it is currently stopped and the event runlevel 3 is matching the start events. But from now on, things are unclear to me: According to the manual $RUNLEVEL evaluates to the new runlevel when the job is started (that means 3 in our example). Therefore, the next stanza "stop on runlevel [!$RUNLEVEL]" translates to "stop on runlevel [!3]"; that means we have a first stanza which will trigger the job, but the second stanza will never stop the job and seems to be useless. Since I know that the Ubuntu / Upstart people won't do useless things, I must be heavily misunderstanding something. I would be grateful for any explanation. While trying to understand this, an additional question came to my mind. If I had contradicting start and stop triggers, for example start on foo stop on foo what would happen? I swear I never will do that, but I am nevertheless very interested in how Upstart handles that on the theoretical level. Thank you very much! Editing the question as a reaction on geekosaur's first answer: I can see the parallelism, but it is not that easy (at least, not to me). Let's assume the job aurrently is still running, and a new runlevel event comes in (of course, the new runlevel is different from the current one). Then, the following should happen: 1) The job is single instance. That means that "start on ..." won't be triggered since the job is currently running; $RUNLEVEL is not touched. 2) "stop on ..." will be triggered since the new runlevel is different from $RUNLEVEL, so the job will be aborted. 3) Now, the job is stopped and waiting. I can't see how it is restarted with the new runlevel. AFAIK, initctl emits events only once, so "start on ..." won't be triggered and the new runlevel won't be entered. I know that I still misunderstanding something, and I am grateful for explanations. Thank you very much!

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• 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.

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• Data structures for a 2D multi-layered and multi-region map?

  - by DevilWithin

  I am working on a 2D world editor and a world format subsequently. If I were to handle the game "world" being created just as a layered set of structures, either in top or side views, it would be considerably simple to do most things. But, since this editor is meant for 3rd parties, I have no clue how big worlds one will want to make and I need to keep in mind that eventually it will become simply too much to check, handling and comparing stuff that are happening completely away from the player position. I know the solution for this is to subdivide my world into sub regions and stream them on the fly, loading and unloading resources and other data. This way I know a virtually infinite game area is achievable. But, while I know theoretically what to do, I really have a few questions I'd hoped to get answered for some hints about the topic. The logic way to handle the regions is some kind of grid, would you pick evenly distributed blocks with equal sizes or would you let the user subdivide areas by taste with irregular sized rectangles? In case of even grids, would you use some kind of block/chunk neighbouring system to check when the player transposes the limit or just put all those in a simple array? Being a region a different data structure than its owner "game world", when streaming a region, would you deliver the objects to the parent structures and track them for unloading later, or retain the objects in each region for a more "hard-limit" approach? Introducing the subdivision approach to the project, and already having a multi layered scene graph structure on place, how would i make it support the new concept? Would you have the parent node have the layers as children, and replicate in each layer node, a node per region? Or the opposite, parent node owns all the regions possible, and each region has multiple layers as children? Or would you just put the region logic outside the graph completely(compatible with the first suggestion in Q.3) When I say virtually infinite worlds, I mean it of course under the contraints of the variable sizes and so on. Using float positions, a HUGE world can already be made. Do you think its sane to think beyond that? Because I think its ok to stick to this limit since it will never be reached so easily.. As for when to stream a region, I'm implementing it as a collection of watcher cameras, which the streaming system works with to know what to load/unload. The problem here is, i will be needing some kind of warps/teleports built in for my game, and there is a chance i will be teleporting a player to a unloaded region far away. How would you approach something like this? Is it sane to load any region to memory which can be teleported to by a warp within a radius from the player? Sorry for the huge question, any answers are helpful!

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• Simple collision detection in Unity 2D

  - by N1ghtshade3

  I realise other posts exist with this topic yet none have gone into enough detail for me. I am attempting to create a 2D game in Unity using C# as my scripting language. Basically I have two objects, player and bomb. Both were created simply by dragging the respective PNG to the stage. I have set up touch controls to move player left and right; gravity of any kind is not needed as I only require it to move x units when I tap either the left or right side of the screen. This movement is stored in a script called playerController.cs and works just fine. I also have a variable health = 3 for player, which is stored in healthScript.cs. I am now at a point where I am stuck. I would like it so that when player collides with bomb, health decreases by one and the bomb object is destroyed. So what I tried doing is using a new script called playerPhysics.cs, I added the following: void OnCollisionEnter2D(Collision2D coll){ if(coll.gameObject.name=="bomb") GameObject.Destroy("bomb"); healthScript.health -= 1; } While I'm fairly sure I don't know the proper way to reference a variable in another script and that's why the health didn't decrease when I collided, bomb never disappeared from the stage so I'm thinking there's also a problem with my collision. Initially, I had simply attached playerPhysics.cs to player. After searching around though, it appeared as though player also needed a rigidBody attached to it, so I did that. Still no luck. I tried using a circleCollider (player is a circle), using a rigidBody2D, and using all manner of colliders on one and/or both of the objects. If you could please explain what colliders (if any) should be attached to which objects and whether I need to change my script(s), that would be much more helpful than pointing me to one of the generic documentation examples I've already read. Also, if it would be simple to fix the health thing not working that would be an added bonus but not exactly the focus of this question. Bear in mind that this game is 2D; I'm not sure if that changes anything. Thanks!

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