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• When to use abstract classes instead of interfaces and extension methods in C#?

  - by Gulshan

  "Abstract class" and "interface" are similar type of ideas, while interface being more abstract. One need of abstract classes was to provide method implementations for the derived classes. But in C#, that need has also been reduced by lately introduced extension methods. So, in C#, when should we use abstract classes instead of using interfaces and extension methods associated with the interface? And now, we can use 'Properties' in interfaces also. A notable example of interface+ extension methods is the Heavily used IEnumerable and it's helper methods. You use Linq and it's all by this extension methods!

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• Variable declaration versus assignment syntax

  - by rwallace

  Working on a statically typed language with type inference and streamlined syntax, and need to make final decision about syntax for variable declaration versus assignment. Specifically I'm trying to choose between: // Option 1. Create new local variable with :=, assign with = foo := 1 foo = 2 // Option 2. Create new local variable with =, assign with := foo = 1 foo := 2 Creating functions will use = regardless: // Indentation delimits blocks square x = x * x And assignment to compound objects will do likewise: sky.color = blue a[i] = 0 Which of options 1 or 2 would people find most convenient/least surprising/otherwise best?

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• Why are Javascript for/in loops so verbose?

  - by Matthew Scharley

  I'm trying to understand the reasoning behind why the language designers would make the for (.. in ..) loops so verbose. For example: for (var x in Drupal.settings.module.stuff) { alert("Index: " + x + "\nValue: " + Drupal.settings.module.stuff[x]); } It makes trying to loop over anything semi-complex like the above a real pain as you either have to alias the value locally inside the loop yourself, or deal with long access calls. This is especially painful if you have two to three nested loops. I'm assuming there is a reason why they would do things this way, but I'm struggling with the reasoning.

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• Solid principles vs YAGNI

  - by KeesDijk

  When do the SOLID principles become YAGNI? As programmers we make trade-offs all the time, between complexity, maintainability, time to build and so forth. Amongst others, two of the smartest guidelines for making choices are in my mind the SOLID principles and YAGNI. If you don't need it; don't build it, and keep it clean. Now for example, when I watch the dimecast series on SOLID, I see it starts out as a fairly simple program, and ends up as a pretty complex one (end yes complexity is also in the eye of the beholder), but it still makes me wonder: when do SOLID principles turn into something you don't need? All solid principles are ways of working that enable use to make changes at a later stage. But what if the problem to solve is a pretty simple one and it's a throwaway application, then what? Or are the SOLID principles something that always apply? As asked in the comments: Solid Principles YAGNI

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• Recommended method towards making custom maps for a 2d game?

  - by Qasim

  I am planning on making a 2D game, however different from my last personal projects I want this one to have enhanced graphics, with custom-designed levels. My previous 2d platformers were tile-based, in which I made a map editor for to create levels. However, I am wondering the best way to implement custom designed maps? For say, some grass is a litter higher than others, flowers here and there, cool drawings and structures along the way, etc. instead of just the same old tiles over and over again. I am thinking but I just can't grasp the idea of how to implement it. I have seen it done in other games and am interested to see how they accomplish it, but can't get my hands on some source code. :(

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• Is my Document Type Definition Still Up to Date?

  - by Sam

  Hi folks, currently all my php generated rich html webpages start with this line, which I have been adding to my tempaltes YEARS ago... <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> Am I still up to date and 2011-proof? or Should I be changing this into something fasterloaden/more agile/more flexible? I have heard of XHTML 1.1. When I remove this line all still works fine. Is it very much needed still? What are my alternatives? Thanks very much for your suggestions.

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• Can someone recommend an appriopriate drawing tablet that fits my needs?

  - by Syg

  I'm looking for something that can help me to easily create small hand drawn graphics and mock-ups digitalize technical drawings I would normally draw on a whiteboard. I'm a developer, not a designer, so it doesn't have to be high-end I guess. Just something to help make it easier, more fun and more productive to quickly draw mockups etc. After a quick search I landed on the wacom site, but it's hard for me to tell the difference between the offerings never having used something like this. Is small too small? is it annoying? Other suggestion are also welcome ofcourse. Thanx for any help you can give me

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• Is true multithreading really necessary?

  - by Jonathan Graef

  So yeah, I'm creating a programming language. And the language allows multiple threads. But, all threads are synchronized with a global interpreter lock, which means only one thread is allowed to execute at a time. The only way to get the threads to switch off is to explicitly tell the current thread to wait, which allows another thread to execute. Parallel processing is of course possible by spawning multiple processes, but the variables and objects in one process cannot be accessed from another. However the language does have a fairly efficient IPC interface for communicating between processes. My question is: Would there ever be a reason to have multiple, unsynchronized threads within a single process (thus circumventing the GIL)? Why not just put thread.wait() statements in key positions in the program logic (presuming thread.wait() isn't a CPU hog, of course)? I understand that certain other languages that use a GIL have processor scheduling issues (cough Python), but they have all been resolved.

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• what making a good soundtrack for social game

  - by Maged

  there are many successful social games in Facebook and other social sites like brain buddies, who has the biggest brain and word challenge.both of them have a great soundtrack while playing and in the beginning of the game . my question is how to find a good soundtrack or what's i should look for to find a good soundtrack like this that's help to attract the user specially for games that need concentration ?

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• Requiring multithreading/concurrency for implementation of scripting language

  - by Ricky Stewart

  Here's the deal: I'm looking at designing my own scripting/interpreted language for fun. I'm only in the planning stages right now; I want to make sure I have a very strong hold on exactly how I will implement everything before I start coding. What I'm currently struggling with is concurrency. It seems to me like an easy way to avoid the unpredictable performance that comes with garbage collection would be to put the garbage collector in its own thread, and have it run concurrently with the interpreter itself. (To be clear, I don't plan to allow the scripts to be multithreaded themselves; I would simply put a garbage collector to work in a different thread than the interpreter.) This doesn't seem to be a common strategy for many popular scripting languages, probably for portability reasons; I would probably write the interpreter in the UNIX/POSIX threading framework initially and then port it to other platforms (Windows, etc.) if need be. Does anyone have any thoughts in this issue? Would whatever gains I receive by exploiting concurrency be nullified by the portability issues that will inevitably arise? (On that note, am I really correct in my assumption that I would experience great performance gains with a concurrent garbage collector?) Should I move forward with this strategy or step away from it?

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• Will a polled event system cause lag for a server?

  - by Milo

  I'm using a library called ENet. It is a reliable UDP library. The way it works is a polled event system like this: ENetEvent event; /* Wait up to 1000 milliseconds for an event. */ while (enet_host_service (client, & event, 1000) > 0) { switch (event.type) { case ENET_EVENT_TYPE_CONNECT: printf ("A new client connected from %x:%u.\n", event.peer -> address.host, event.peer -> address.port); /* Store any relevant client information here. */ event.peer -> data = "Client information"; break; case ENET_EVENT_TYPE_RECEIVE: printf ("A packet of length %u containing %s was received from %s on channel %u.\n", event.packet -> dataLength, event.packet -> data, event.peer -> data, event.channelID); /* Clean up the packet now that we're done using it. */ enet_packet_destroy (event.packet); break; case ENET_EVENT_TYPE_DISCONNECT: printf ("%s disconected.\n", event.peer -> data); /* Reset the peer's client information. */ event.peer -> data = NULL; } } It waits up to 1000 milliseconds for an event. If I'm hosting say 75 event driven card games and a lobby on the same thread as this code, will it cause any problems. If my understanding is correct, the process will simply sleep until there is an event, when there is one, it will process the event then come back here where potentially 5 or so events have queued up since so enet_host_services would return right away and not cause lag. I have been advised not to use multiple threads, will that be alright like this? Thanks

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• Code and Slides: Techniques, Strategies, and Patterns for Structuring JavaScript Code

  - by dwahlin

  This presentation was given at the spring 2012 DevConnections conference in Las Vegas and is based on my Structuring JavaScript Code course from Pluralsight. The goal of the presentation is to show how closures combined with code patterns can be used to provide structure to JavaScript code and make it more re-useable, maintainable, and less susceptible to naming conflicts.  Topics covered include: Closures Using Object literals Namespaces The Prototype Pattern The Revealing Module Pattern The Revealing Prototype Pattern View more of my presentations here. Sample code from the presentation can be found here. Check out the full-length course on the topic at Pluralsight.com.

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• Microkernel architectural pattern and applicability for business applications

  - by Pangea

  We are in the business of building customizable web applications. We have the core team that provides what we call as the core platform (provides services like security, billing etc.) on top of which core products are built. These core products are industry specific solutions like telecom, utility etc. These core products are later used by other teams to build customer specific solutions in a particular industry. Until now we have a loose separation between platform and core product. The customer specific solutions are build by customizing 20-40% of the core offering and re-packaging. The core-platform and core products are released together as monolithic apps (ear). I am looking to improvise the current situation so that there is a cleaner separation on these 3. This allows us to have evolve each of these 3 separately etc. I've read through the Mircokernel architecture and kind of felt that I can take apply the principles in my context. But most of my reading about this pattern is always in the context of operating systems or application servers etc. I am wondering if there are any examples on how that pattern was used for architecting business applications. Or you could provide some insight on how to apply that pattern to my problem.

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• Code Smell: Inheritance Abuse

  - by dsimcha

  It's been generally accepted in the OO community that one should "favor composition over inheritance". On the other hand, inheritance does provide both polymorphism and a straightforward, terse way of delegating everything to a base class unless explicitly overridden and is therefore extremely convenient and useful. Delegation can often (though not always) be verbose and brittle. The most obvious and IMHO surest sign of inheritance abuse is violation of the Liskov Substitution Principle. What are some other signs that inheritance is The Wrong Tool for the Job even if it seems convenient?

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• How to Detect Sprites in a SpriteSheet?

  - by IAE

  I'm currently writing a Sprite Sheet Unpacker such as Alferds Spritesheet Unpacker. Now, before this is sent to gamedev, this isn't necessarily about games. I would like to know how to detect a sprite within a spriitesheet, or more abstactly, a shape inside of an image. Given this sprite sheet: I want to detect and extract all individual sprites. I've followed the algorithm detailed in Alferd's Blog Post which goes like: Determine predominant color and dub it the BackgroundColor Iterate over each pixel and check ColorAtXY == BackgroundColor If false, we've found a sprite. Keep going right until we find a BackgroundColor again, backtrack one, go down and repeat until a BackgroundColor is reached. Create a box from location to ending location. Repeat this until all sprites are boxed up. Combined overlapping boxes (or within a very short distance) The resulting non-overlapping boxes should contain the sprite. This implementation is fine, especially for small sprite sheets. However, I find the performance too poor for larger sprite sheets and I would like to know what algorithms or techniques can be leveraged to increase the finding of sprites. A second implementation I considered, but have not tested yet, is to find the first pixel, then use a backtracking algorithm to find every connected pixel. This should find a contiguous sprite (breaks down if the sprite is something like an explosion where particles are no longer part of the main sprite). The cool thing is that I can immediately remove a detected sprite from the sprite sheet. Any other suggestions?

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• How to manage own bots at the server?

  - by Nikolay Kuznetsov

  There is a game server and people can play in game rooms of 2, 3 or 4. When a client connects to server he can send a request specifying a number of people or range he wants to play with. One of this value is valid: {2-4, 2-3, 3-4, 2, 3, 4} So the server maintains 3 separate queues for game room with 2, 3 and 4 people. So we can denote queues as #2, #3 and #4. It work the following way. If a client sends request, 3-4, then two separate request are added to queues #3 and #4. If queue #3 now have 3 requests from different people then game room with 3 players is created, and all other requests from those players are removed from all queues. Right now not many people are online simultaneously, so they apply for a game wait for some time and quit because game does not start in a reasonable time. That's a simple bot for beginning has been developed. So there is a need to patch server code to run a bot, if some one requests a game, but humans are not online. Input: request from human {2-4, 2-3, 3-4, 2, 3, 4} Output: number of bots to run and time to wait for each before connecting, depending on queues state. The problem is that I don't know how to manage bots properly at the server? Example: #3 has 1 request and #4 has 1 request Request from user is {3,4} then server can add one bot to play game with 3 people or two bots to play game of 4. Example: #3 has 1 request and #4 has 2 requests Request from user is {3,4} then in each case just one bot is needed so game with 4 players is more preferrable.

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• Naming a predicate: "precondition" or "precondition_is_met"?

  - by RexE

  In my web app framework, each page can have a precondition that needs to be satisfied before it can be displayed to the user. For example, if user 1 and user 2 are playing a back-and-forth role-playing game, user 2 needs to wait for user 1 to finish his turn before he can take his turn. Otherwise, the user is displayed a waiting page. This is implemented with a predicate: def precondition(self): return user_1.completed_turn The simplest name for this API is precondition, but this leads to code like if precondition(): ..., which is not really obvious. Seems to me like it is more accurate to call it precondition_is_met(), but not sure about that either. Is there a best practice for naming methods like this?

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• Which Game Engine to Use for an Angry Bird style game? [JAVA] [on hold]

  - by Arch1tect

  Our team is building an Angry Bird Style game, and we have only about ten days. The game is a little more complex than Angry Bird because there are two players, they each have a castle with pigs to protect(not destroy:)). And the goal is to destroy the other player's pigs. I wonder what Game Engine would help us finish this game most efficiently. We at least need a physics engine but I guess game engine is more helpful since it usually includes physics engine. Correct me if I'm wrong. (So I'm wondering which game engine I should use, if it's just physics engine, I'll use box2d) Networking may or may not be added later depend on time we have. Thanks in advance for any advice! EDIT: image looks small, I'll add one:

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• Help with this optimization

  - by Milo

  Here is what I do: I have bitmaps which I draw into another bitmap. The coordinates are from the center of the bitmap, thus on a 256 by 256 bitmap, an object at 0.0,0.0 would be drawn at 128,128 on the bitmap. I also found the furthest extent and made the bitmap size 2 times the extent. So if the furthest extent is 200,200 pixels, then the bitmap's size is 400,400. Unfortunately this is a bit inefficient. If a bitmap needs to be drawn at 500,500 and the other one at 300,300, then the target bitmap only needs to be 200,200 in size. I cannot seem to find a correct way to draw in the components correctly with a reduced size. I figure out the target bitmap size like this: float AvatarComposite::getFloatWidth(float& remainder) const { float widest = 0.0f; float widestNeg = 0.0f; for(size_t i = 0; i < m_components.size(); ++i) { if(m_components[i].getSprite() == NULL) { continue; } float w = m_components[i].getX() + ( ((m_components[i].getSprite()->getWidth() / 2.0f) * m_components[i].getScale()) / getWidthToFloat()); float wn = m_components[i].getX() - ( ((m_components[i].getSprite()->getWidth() / 2.0f) * m_components[i].getScale()) / getWidthToFloat()); if(w > widest) { widest = w; } if(wn > widest) { widest = wn; } if(w < widestNeg) { widestNeg = w; } if(wn < widestNeg) { widestNeg = wn; } } remainder = (2 * widest) - (widest - widestNeg); return widest - widestNeg; } And here is how I position and draw the bitmaps: int dw = m_components[i].getSprite()->getWidth() * m_components[i].getScale(); int dh = m_components[i].getSprite()->getHeight() * m_components[i].getScale(); int cx = (getWidth() + (m_remainderX * getWidthToFloat())) / 2; int cy = (getHeight() + (m_remainderY * getHeightToFloat())) / 2; cx -= m_remainderX * getWidthToFloat(); cy -= m_remainderY * getHeightToFloat(); int dx = cx + (m_components[i].getX() * getWidthToFloat()) - (dw / 2); int dy = cy + (m_components[i].getY() * getHeightToFloat()) - (dh / 2); g->drawScaledSprite(m_components[i].getSprite(),0.0f,0.0f, m_components[i].getSprite()->getWidth(),m_components[i].getSprite()->getHeight(),dx,dy, dw,dh,0); I basically store the difference between the original 2 * longest extent bitmap and the new optimized one, then I translate by that much which I would think would cause me to draw correctly but then some of the components look cut off. Any insight would help. Thanks

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• null values vs "empty" singleton for optional fields

  - by Uko

  First of all I'm developing a parser for an XML-based format for 3D graphics called XGL. But this question can be applied to any situation when you have fields in your class that are optional i.e. the value of this field can be missing. As I was taking a Scala course on coursera there was an interesting pattern when you create an abstract class with all the methods you need and then create a normal fully functional subclass and an "empty" singleton subclass that always returns false for isEmpty method and throws exceptions for the other ones. So my question is: is it better to just assign null if the optional field's value is missing or make a hierarchy described above and assign it an empty singleton implementation?

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• Would you use UML if it kept stakeholders from requesting changes frequently?

  - by Huperniketes

  As much as programmers hate to document their code/system and draw UML (especially, Sequencing, Activity and State machine diagrams) or other diagramming notation, would you agree to do it if it kept managers from requesting a "minor change" every couple of weeks? IOW, would you put together visual models to document the system if it helped you demonstrate to managers what the effect of changes are and why it takes so long to implement them? (Edited to help programmers understand what type of answer I'm looking for.) 2nd edit: Restating my question again, "Would you be willing to use some diagramming notation, against your better nature as a programmer, if it helped you manage change requests?" This question isn't asking if there might be something wrong with the process. It's a given that there's something wrong with the process. Would you be willing to do more work to improve it?

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• Overloading interface buttons, what are the best practices?

  - by XMLforDummies

  Imagine you'll have always a button labeled "Continue" in the same position in your app's GUI. Would you rather make a single button instance that takes different actions depending on the current state? private State currentState = State.Step1; private ContinueButton_Click() { switch(currentState) { case State.Step1: DoThis(); currentState = State.Step2; break; case State.Step2: DoThat(); break; } } Or would you rather have something like this? public Form() { this.ContinueStep2Button.Visible = false; } private ContinueStep1Button_Click() { DoThis(); this.ContinueStep1Button.Visible = false; this.ContinueStep2Button.Visible = true; } private ContinueStep2Button_Click() { DoThat(); }

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• What's the best Wireframing tool?

  - by Strae

  I'm looking for something similar to iPlotz or Mockup. I've found the Pencil Project, but it requires xulrunner-1.9 (which seems to be incompatible with xulrunner-1.9.2) in order to run as a standalone application. It can be used as a firefox plugin... but it is a bit slower. The error on my desktop (Ubuntu 10.04) is: Could not find compatible GRE between version 1.9.1 and 1.9.2.* Does anyone know other software? Edit: Open-source software is preferred, and it doesn't matter whether or not it's free.

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• How to refactor and improve this XNA mouse input code?

  - by Andrew Price

  Currently I have something like this: public bool IsLeftMouseButtonDown() { return currentMouseState.LeftButton == ButtonState.Pressed && previousMouseSate.LeftButton == ButtonState.Pressed; } public bool IsLeftMouseButtonPressed() { return currentMouseState.LeftButton == ButtonState.Pressed && previousMouseSate.LeftButton == ButtonState.Released; } public bool IsLeftMouseButtonUp() { return currentMouseState.LeftButton == ButtonState.Released && previousMouseSate.LeftButton == ButtonState.Released; } public bool IsLeftMouseButtonReleased() { return currentMouseState.LeftButton == ButtonState.Released && previousMouseSate.LeftButton == ButtonState.Pressed; } This is fine. In fact, I kind of like it. However, I'd hate to have to repeat this same code five times (for right, middle, X1, X2). Is there any way to pass in the button I want to the function so I could have something like this? public bool IsMouseButtonDown(MouseButton button) { return currentMouseState.IsPressed(button) && previousMouseState.IsPressed(button); } public bool IsMouseButtonPressed(MouseButton button) { return currentMouseState.IsPressed(button) && !previousMouseState.IsPressed(button); } public bool IsMouseButtonUp(MouseButton button) { return !currentMouseState.IsPressed(button) && previousMouseState.IsPressed(button); } public bool IsMouseButtonReleased(MouseButton button) { return !currentMouseState.IsPressed(button) && previousMouseState.IsPressed(button); } I suppose I could create some custom enumeration and switch through it in each function, but I'd like to first see if there is a built-in solution or a better way.. Thanks!

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• What makes game sound effects "good"?

  - by you786

  I'm making a small game, and I've found some free sound effects that I'd like to use. The issue is that I can't get the sound effects to sound like they "belong" in my game. I don't know what to look for that can make sound effects match the rest of my game style. I have some ideas on what affects the meshing of audio with graphics. For example, I have a feeling that the current SFX I may be too "realistic" for my graphical style, which is pretty cartoon-like. Also, is there a golden standard for what volume various SFX should be at? (for example, I am thinking that footsteps or other common sounds should be at barely audible volumes, while enemy deaths or something that is a "big deal" should be louder). I found a similar question about graphics, I'm looking for a similar response with sound effects.

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