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  • Ranking players depending on decision making during a game

    - by tabchas
    How would I go about a ranking system for players that play a game? Basically, looking at video games, players throughout the game make critical decisions that ultimately impact the end game result. Is there a way or how would I go about a way to translate some of those factors (leveling up certain skills, purchasing certain items, etc.) into something like a curve that can be plotted on a graph? This game that I would like to implement this is League of Legends. Example: Player is Level 1 in the beginning. Gets a kill very early in the game (he gets gold because of the kill and it increases his "power curve"), and purchases attack damage (gives him more damage which also increases his "power curve". However, the player that he killed (Player 2), buys armor (counters attack damage). This slightly increases Player 2's own power curve, and reduces Player 1's power curve. There's many factors I would like to take into account. These relative factors (example: BECAUSE Player 2 built armor, and I am mainly attack damage, it lowers my OWN power curve) seem the hardest to implement. My question is this: Is there a certain way to approach this task? Are there similar theoretical concepts behind ranking systems that I should read up on? I've seen the ELO system, but it doesn't seem what I want since it simply takes into account wins and losses.

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  • Java word scramble game [closed]

    - by Dan
    I'm working on code for a word scramble game in Java. I know the code itself is full of bugs right now, but my main focus is getting a vector of strings broken into two separate vectors containing hints and words. The text file that the strings are taken from has a colon separating them. So here is what I have so far. public WordApp() { inputRow = new TextInputBox(); inputRow.setLocation(200,100); phrases = new Vector <String>(FileUtilities.getStrings()); v_hints = new Vector<String>(); v_words = new Vector<String>(); textBox = new TextBox(200,100); textBox.setLocation(200,200); textBox.setText(scrambled + "\n\n Time Left: \t" + seconds/10 + "\n Score: \t" + score); hintBox = new TextBox(200,200); hintBox.setLocation(300,400); hintBox.hide(); Iterator <String> categorize = phrases.iterator(); while(categorize.hasNext()) { int index = phrases.indexOf(":"); String element = categorize.next(); v_words.add(element.substring(0,index)); v_hints.add(element.substring(index +1)); phrases.remove(index); System.out.print(index); } The FileUtilities file was given to us by the pofessor, here it is. import java.util.*; import java.io.*; public class FileUtilities { private static final String FILE_NAME = "javawords.txt"; //------------------ getStrings ------------------------- // // returns a Vector of Strings // Each string is of the form: word:hint // where word contains no spaces. // The words and hints are read from FILE_NAME // // public static Vector<String> getStrings ( ) { Vector<String> words = new Vector<String>(); File file = new File( FILE_NAME ); Scanner scanFile; try { scanFile = new Scanner( file); } catch ( IOException e) { System.err.println( "LineInput Error: " + e.getMessage() ); return null; } while ( scanFile.hasNextLine() ) { // read the word and follow it by a colon String s = scanFile.nextLine().trim().toUpperCase() + ":"; if( s.length()>1 && scanFile.hasNextLine() ) { // append the hint and add to collection s+= scanFile.nextLine().trim(); words.add(s); } } // shuffle Collections.shuffle(words); return words; } }

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  • I want to learn to program in SDL C++where do i start? I want to learn only what i need to to start making 2d games [on hold]

    - by user2644399
    Lazyfoo of Lazyfoo.net of the SDL 2d tutorial wrote that in order for me to start game programming in SDL, I need to know these concepts well; Operators, Controls, Loops, Functions, Structures, Arrays, References, Pointers, Classes, Objects how to use a template and Bitwise and/or. I want to know the fastest way to learn as much as I need of basic c++ that would allow me to make 2d games. Thanks in advance.

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  • Designing and refactoring of payment logic

    - by jokklan
    Im currently working on an application that helps users to coordinate dinner clubs and all related accounting. (A dinner club is where people in a group, take turns to cook for the rest and then you pay a small amount to participate. This is pretty normal in dorms and colleges where im from). However there is some different models that all have a price and the accounting aspect is therefore a little spread. We both have DinnerClub, ShoppingItem and are about to implement the third Payment when users pay their debts (or get refunded for expenses). Each of these have a "price" attribute and a users expense (that he or she needs refunded) is calculated by the total of these "prices" minus what other users have bought and he or she have used/participated in. My question is then if someone have some hints to refactor this bring all this behavior together in one place? For now have i thought about a Transaction class that are responsible for this behaviour, but I'm a little worried about the performance impact on having to query for another polymorphic record each time i want to show the price on dinner clubs and shopping items (i have a standard index page with a list for both so it's a lot of extra records being queried)...

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  • How should I architect a personal schedule manager that runs 24/7?

    - by Crawford Comeaux
    I've developed an ADHD management system for myself that's attempting to change multiple habits at once. I know this is counter to conventional wisdom, but I've tried the conventional for years & am now trying it my way. (just wanted to say that to try and prevent it from distracting people from the actual question) Anyway, I'd like to write something to run on a remote server that monitors me, helps me build/avoid certain habits, etc. What this amounts to is a system that: runs 24/7 may have multiple independent tasks to run at once may have tasks that require other tasks to run first lets tasks be scheduled by specific time, recurrence (ie. "run every 5 mins"), or interval (ie. "run from 2pm to 3pm") My first naive attempt at this was just a single PHP script scheduled to run every minute by cron (language was chosen in order to use a certain library, but no longer necessary). The logic behind when to run this or that portion of code got hairy pretty quick. So my question is how should I approach this from here? I'm not tied to any one language, though I'm partial to python/javascript. Thoughts: Could be done as a set of scripts that include a scheduling mechanism with one script per bit of logic...but the idea just feels wrong to me. Building it as a daemon could be helpful, but still unsure what to do about dozens of if-else statements for detecting the current time

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  • MVVM- Expose Model object in ViewModel

    - by Angel
    I have a wpf MVVM application , I exposed my model object into my viewModel by creating an instance of Model class (which cause dependency) into ViewModel , and instead of creating seperate VM properties , I wrap the Model properties inside my ViewModel Property. My model is just an entity framework generated proxy classes. Here is my Model class : public partial class TblProduct { public TblProduct() { this.TblPurchaseDetails = new HashSet<TblPurchaseDetail>(); this.TblPurchaseOrderDetails = new HashSet<TblPurchaseOrderDetail>(); this.TblSalesInvoiceDetails = new HashSet<TblSalesInvoiceDetail>(); this.TblSalesOrderDetails = new HashSet<TblSalesOrderDetail>(); } public int ProductId { get; set; } public string ProductCode { get; set; } public string ProductName { get; set; } public int CategoryId { get; set; } public string Color { get; set; } public Nullable<decimal> PurchaseRate { get; set; } public Nullable<decimal> SalesRate { get; set; } public string ImagePath { get; set; } public bool IsActive { get; set; } public virtual TblCompany TblCompany { get; set; } public virtual TblProductCategory TblProductCategory { get; set; } public virtual TblUser TblUser { get; set; } public virtual ICollection<TblPurchaseDetail> TblPurchaseDetails { get; set; } public virtual ICollection<TblPurchaseOrderDetail> TblPurchaseOrderDetails { get; set; } public virtual ICollection<TblSalesInvoiceDetail> TblSalesInvoiceDetails { get; set; } public virtual ICollection<TblSalesOrderDetail> TblSalesOrderDetails { get; set; } } Here is my ViewModel , public class ProductViewModel : WorkspaceViewModel { #region Constructor public ProductViewModel() { StartApp(); } #endregion //Constructor #region Properties private IProductDataService _dataService; public IProductDataService DataService { get { if (_dataService == null) { if (IsInDesignMode) { _dataService = new ProductDataServiceMock(); } else { _dataService = new ProductDataService(); } } return _dataService; } } //Get and set Model object private TblProduct _product; public TblProduct Product { get { return _product ?? (_product = new TblProduct()); } set { _product = value; } } #region Public Properties public int ProductId { get { return Product.ProductId; } set { if (Product.ProductId == value) { return; } Product.ProductId = value; RaisePropertyChanged("ProductId"); } } public string ProductName { get { return Product.ProductName; } set { if (Product.ProductName == value) { return; } Product.ProductName = value; RaisePropertyChanged(() => ProductName); } } private ObservableCollection<TblProduct> _productRecords; public ObservableCollection<TblProduct> ProductRecords { get { return _productRecords; } set { _productRecords = value; RaisePropertyChanged("ProductRecords"); } } //Selected Product private TblProduct _selectedProduct; public TblProduct SelectedProduct { get { return _selectedProduct; } set { _selectedProduct = value; if (_selectedProduct != null) { this.ProductId = _selectedProduct.ProductId; this.ProductCode = _selectedProduct.ProductCode; } RaisePropertyChanged("SelectedProduct"); } } #endregion //Public Properties #endregion // Properties #region Commands private ICommand _newCommand; public ICommand NewCommand { get { if (_newCommand == null) { _newCommand = new RelayCommand(() => ResetAll()); } return _newCommand; } } private ICommand _saveCommand; public ICommand SaveCommand { get { if (_saveCommand == null) { _saveCommand = new RelayCommand(() => Save()); } return _saveCommand; } } private ICommand _deleteCommand; public ICommand DeleteCommand { get { if (_deleteCommand == null) { _deleteCommand = new RelayCommand(() => Delete()); } return _deleteCommand; } } #endregion //Commands #region Methods private void StartApp() { LoadProductCollection(); } private void LoadProductCollection() { var q = DataService.GetAllProducts(); this.ProductRecords = new ObservableCollection<TblProduct>(q); } private void Save() { if (SelectedOperateMode == OperateModeEnum.OperateMode.New) { //Pass the Model object into Dataservice for save DataService.SaveProduct(this.Product); } else if (SelectedOperateMode == OperateModeEnum.OperateMode.Edit) { //Pass the Model object into Dataservice for Update DataService.UpdateProduct(this.Product); } ResetAll(); LoadProductCollection(); } #endregion //Methods } Here is my Service class: class ProductDataService:IProductDataService { /// <summary> /// Context object of Entity Framework model /// </summary> private MaizeEntities Context { get; set; } public ProductDataService() { Context = new MaizeEntities(); } public IEnumerable<TblProduct> GetAllProducts() { using(var context=new R_MaizeEntities()) { var q = from p in context.TblProducts where p.IsDel == false select p; return new ObservableCollection<TblProduct>(q); } } public void SaveProduct(TblProduct _product) { using(var context=new R_MaizeEntities()) { _product.LastModUserId = GlobalObjects.LoggedUserID; _product.LastModDttm = DateTime.Now; _product.CompanyId = GlobalObjects.CompanyID; context.TblProducts.Add(_product); context.SaveChanges(); } } public void UpdateProduct(TblProduct _product) { using (var context = new R_MaizeEntities()) { context.TblProducts.Attach(_product); context.Entry(_product).State = EntityState.Modified; _product.LastModUserId = GlobalObjects.LoggedUserID; _product.LastModDttm = DateTime.Now; _product.CompanyId = GlobalObjects.CompanyID; context.SaveChanges(); } } public void DeleteProduct(int _productId) { using (var context = new R_MaizeEntities()) { var product = (from c in context.TblProducts where c.ProductId == _productId select c).First(); product.LastModUserId = GlobalObjects.LoggedUserID; product.LastModDttm = DateTime.Now; product.IsDel = true; context.SaveChanges(); } } } I exposed my model object in my viewModel by creating an instance of it using new keyword, also I instantiated my DataService class in VM, I know this will cause a strong dependency. So , 1- Whats the best way to expose Model object in ViewModel ? 2- Whats the best way to use DataService in VM ?

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  • Consistency vs. Usability?

    - by dsimcha
    When designing an API, consistency often aids usability. However, sometimes they conflict where an extra API feature can be added to streamline a common case. It seems like there's somewhat of a divide over what to do here. Some designs (the Java standard library come to mind) favor consistency even if it makes common cases more verbose. Others (the Python standard library comes to mind) favor usability even if it means treating the common case as "special" to make it easier. What is your opinion on how consistency and usability should be balanced?

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  • Using "prevent execution of method" flags

    - by tpaksu
    First of all I want to point out my concern with some pseudocode (I think you'll understand better) Assume you have a global debug flag, or class variable named "debug", class a : var debug = FALSE and you use it to enable debug methods. There are two types of usage it as I know: first in a method : method a : if debug then call method b; method b : second in the method itself: method a : call method b; method b : if not debug exit And I want to know, is there any File IO or stack pointer wise difference between these two approaches. Which usage is better, safer and why?

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  • Trying to make a universe [on hold]

    - by caters
    I am wanting to program a universe so that it starts with a big bang and atoms form and then molecules form and stars start to form and planets start to form and then moons around those planets. I have a few questions. If 400 IPMUs(In Program Mass Units) = 1 solar mass than how would I calculate the number of IPMUs for a spectral class of star given the range of solar masses for a main sequence star in that spectral class? How can I have planets not look like stars? Since whether it is a subdwarf, main sequence star, subgiant, giant, bright giant, supergiant, or hypergiant is mainly dependent on the radius and luminosity how can I have the radius and luminosity independent of the mass?

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  • How to implement "bullet time" in a multiplayer game?

    - by Tom
    I have never seen such a feature before, but it should provide an interesting gameplay opportunity. So yes, in a multiplayer/real-time environment (imagine FPS), how could I implement a slow motion/bullet time effect? Something like an illusion for the player that's currently slo-mo'ed. So everybody sees him "real-time", but he sees everything slowed down. Update A sidenote: keep in mind that a FPS game has to be balanced in order for it to be fun. So yes, this bullet time feature has to be solid, giving a small advantage to the "player", while not taking away from other players. Plus, there is a possibility that two players could activate their bullet time at the same time. Furthermore: I'm going to implement this in the future no matter what it takes. And, the idea is to build a whole new game engine for all this. If that gives new options, I'm more then interested in hearing the ideas. Meanwhile, here with my team we're thinking about this too, when our theory will be crafted, I'm going to share it here. Is this even possible? So, the question on "is this even possible" has been answered, now it's time to find the best solution. I'm keeping the "answer" until something exceptionally good comes up, like a prototype theory with something close to working pseudo code.

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  • C++: calling non-member functions with the same syntax of member ones

    - by peoro
    One thing I'd like to do in C++ is to call non-member functions with the same syntax you call member functions: class A { }; void f( A & this ) { /* ... */ } // ... A a; a.f(); // this is the same as f(a); Of course this could only work as long as f is not virtual (since it cannot appear in A's virtual table. f doesn't need to access A's non-public members. f doesn't conflict with a function declared in A (A::f). I'd like such a syntax because in my opinion it would be quite comfortable and would push good habits: calling str.strip() on a std::string (where strip is a function defined by the user) would sound a lot better than calling strip( str );. most of the times (always?) classes provide some member functions which don't require to be member (ie: are not virtual and don't use non-public members). This breaks encapsulation, but is the most practical thing to do (due to point 1). My question here is: what do you think of such feature? Do you think it would be something nice, or something that would introduce more issues than the ones it aims to solve? Could it make sense to propose such a feature to the next standard (the one after C++0x)? Of course this is just a brief description of this idea; it is not complete; we'd probably need to explicitly mark a function with a special keyword to let it work like this and many other stuff.

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  • Why do old programming languages continue to be revised?

    - by SunAvatar
    This question is not, "Why do people still use old programming languages?" I understand that quite well. In fact the two programming languages I know best are C and Scheme, both of which date back to the 70s. Recently I was reading about the changes in C99 and C11 versus C89 (which seems to still be the most-used version of C in practice and the version I learned from K&R). Looking around, it seems like every programming language in heavy use gets a new specification at least once per decade or so. Even Fortran is still getting new revisions, despite the fact that most people using it are still using FORTRAN 77. Contrast this with the approach of, say, the typesetting system TeX. In 1989, with the release of TeX 3.0, Donald Knuth declared that TeX was feature-complete and future releases would contain only bug fixes. Even beyond this, he has stated that upon his death, "all remaining bugs will become features" and absolutely no further updates will be made. Others are free to fork TeX and have done so, but the resulting systems are renamed to indicate that they are different from the official TeX. This is not because Knuth thinks TeX is perfect, but because he understands the value of a stable, predictable system that will do the same thing in fifty years that it does now. Why do most programming language designers not follow the same principle? Of course, when a language is relatively new, it makes sense that it will go through a period of rapid change before settling down. And no one can really object to minor changes that don't do much more than codify existing pseudo-standards or correct unintended readings. But when a language still seems to need improvement after ten or twenty years, why not just fork it or start over, rather than try to change what is already in use? If some people really want to do object-oriented programming in Fortran, why not create "Objective Fortran" for that purpose, and leave Fortran itself alone? I suppose one could say that, regardless of future revisions, C89 is already a standard and nothing stops people from continuing to use it. This is sort of true, but connotations do have consequences. GCC will, in pedantic mode, warn about syntax that is either deprecated or has a subtly different meaning in C99, which means C89 programmers can't just totally ignore the new standard. So there must be some benefit in C99 that is sufficient to impose this overhead on everyone who uses the language. This is a real question, not an invitation to argue. Obviously I do have an opinion on this, but at the moment I'm just trying to understand why this isn't just how things are done already. I suppose the question is: What are the (real or perceived) advantages of updating a language standard, as opposed to creating a new language based on the old?

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  • Visually and audibly unambiguous subset of the Latin alphabet?

    - by elliot42
    Imagine you give someone a card with the code "5SBDO0" on it. In some fonts, the letter "S" is difficult to visually distinguish from the number five, (as with number zero and letter "O"). Reading the code out loud, it might be difficult to distinguish "B" from "D", necessitating saying "B as in boy," "D as in dog," or using a "phonetic alphabet" instead. What's the biggest subset of letters and numbers that will, in most cases, both look unambiguous visually and sound unambiguous when read aloud? Background: We want to generate a short string that can encode as many values as possible while still being easy to communicate. Imagine you have a 6-character string, "123456". In base 10 this can encode 10^6 values. In hex "1B23DF" you can encode 16^6 values in the same number of characters, but this can sound ambiguous when read aloud. ("B" vs. "D") Likewise for any string of N characters, you get (size of alphabet)^N values. The string is limited to a length of about six characters, due to wanting to fit easily within the capacity of human working memory capacity. Thus to find the max number of values we can encode, we need to find that largest unambiguous set of letters/numbers. There's no reason we can't consider the letters G-Z, and some common punctuation, but I don't want to have to go manually pairwise compare "does G sound like A?", "does G sound like B?", "does G sound like C" myself. As we know this would be O(n^2) linguistic work to do =)...

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  • Trying to Integrate Five9 and Apptivio [on hold]

    - by David Mitchell
    Five9 is a calling system application and Apptivio will be used to store client information for purchased products. Specifically what I need is an example code that will allow me to access Five9's CRM system using the access key and transfer a persons first and last name, for example, to Apptivio. The issue is I have never dealt with this type of system and I cannot find any information for it other than the Web2Campaign that was sent to me by Five9. Lets say this is the code from Five9 F9key=first_name&F9key=last_name&first_name=jon&last_name=smith Once this information is placed into Five9 I must update Apptivio with this information. I am lost as to how to send this information to Apptivio.

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  • Ubiquitous Language and Custom types

    - by EdvRusj
    Note that my question is referring to those attributes that even on their own already represent a concept ( ie on their own provide a cohesive meaning ). Thus such attribute needs no additional functional support and as such is self-contained. I'm also well-aware that even with self-contained attributes the custom types may prove beneficial ( for example, they give the ability to add new behavior later, when business requirements change ). Thus, my question focuses only on whether custom types for self-contained attributes really enrich Ubiquitous Language UL a) I've read that in most cases, even simple, self-contained attributes should have custom, more descriptive types rather than basic value types ( double, string ... ), because among other things, descriptive types add to the UL, while the use of basic types instead weakens the language. I understand the importance of UL, but how does having a basic type for a self-contained attribute weaken the language, since with self-contained attributes the name of the attribute already adequately describes the concept and thus contributes to the UL vocabulary? For example, the term person_age already adequately explains the concept of quantifying the number of years a person has: class Person { string person_age; } so what could we possibly gain by also introducing the term ThingAge to the UL: class person { ThingAge person_age; } thanks

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  • two-part dice pool mechanic

    - by bythenumbers
    I'm working on a dice mechanic/resolution system based off of the Ghost/Echo (hereafter shortened to G/E) tabletop RPG. Specifically, since G/E can be a little harsh with dealing out consequences and failure, I was hoping to soften the system and add a little more player control, as well as offer the chance for players to evolve their characters into something unique, right from creation. So, here's the mechanic: Players roll 2d12 against the two statistics for their character (each is a number from 2-11, and may be rolled above or below depending on the nature of the action attempted, rolling your stat exactly always fails). Depending on the success for that roll, they add dice to the pool rolled for a modified G/E style action. The acting player gets two dice anyhow, and I am debating offering a bonus die for each success, or a single bonus die for succeeding on both of the statistic-compared rolls. One the size of the dice pool is set, the entire pool is rolled, and the players are allowed to assign rolled dice to a goal and a danger. Assigned results are judged as follows: 1-4 means the attempted goal fails, or the danger comes true. 5-8 is a partial success at the goal, or partially avoiding the danger. 9-12 means the goal is achieved, or the danger avoided. My concerns are twofold: Firstly, that the two-stage action is too complicated, with two rolls to judge separately before anything can happen. Secondly, that the statistics involved go too far in softening the game. I've run some basic simulations, and the approximate statistics follow: 2 dice (up to) 3 dice (up to) 4 dice failure ~33% ~25% ~20% partial ~33% ~35% ~35% success ~33% ~40% ~45% I'd appreciate any advice that addresses my concerns or offers to refine my simulation (right now the first roll is statistically modeled as sign(1d12-1d12), where 0 is a success).

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  • what knowledge would I need to make a good simulation games

    - by Skeith
    I have an idea for a game like theme park but don't know how simulation games are made. I am not some noob on his first game so I appreciated constructive answers instead of "its hard, don't do it". What I want is to know how simulation game mechanics are put together. I figure it would be heaver on the AI than normal games and not knowing much about AI would like to know some programming techniques I should look into for this style game. specific techniques please not just a book on ai. what sort of architecture would be used? I guess it would have some sort of probability engine with pre designed events that are triggered based on the AI state. Would it use a FSM or be purely event driven ? Any information on how a sims game functions would be cool.

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

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

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  • overriding implemented base class methods

    - by user793468
    I read somewhere that the chain of inheritance breaks when you alter a behavior from derived class. What does "altering a behavior" mean here? Is overriding an already implemented method in base class considered as "altering behavior"? Or, does the author mean altering method signatures and the output? Also, I ready Duplicating code is not a good practice, and its a maintenance nightmare. Again, does overriding an already implemented method in base class considered "Duplicating code"? If not, what would be considered as "Duplicating code"? I

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  • Master Data Management

    - by Logicalj
    I am looking for a very flexible, easy to integrate and dynamic application with as many features as possible for Master Data Management. As Master Data Management is used to Manage Operational Data, Analytical Data and Master Data so, I want guidance about "What is exactly expected from Master Data Management and What are the Basic and Challenging Scenarios to be covered or resolved in Master Data Management". Please guide me with all the possible aspects of Master Data Management like Data Cleansing, Data Management and Start Data Analyzing, etc.

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  • Creating new games on Android and/or iPhone

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

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

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

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  • How should compound words be handled when coding? Is there a definitive list of compound words? [closed]

    - by Ray
    QUESTION: How should you handle compound words when programming? Are there any good lists available online for developers of generally accepted technology-related compound words? I can see how this is highly ambiguous, so should I just use common-sense? EXAMPLE: I would be inclined to do this: filename NOT FileName or login NOT LogIn However, the microsoft documentation indicates that filename is not compound. So I wonder, is there a more definitive source? See also, this english.stackexchange discussion on filename. Under the section "Capitalization Rules for Compound Words and Common Terms" located here: Microsoft .NET Capitalization Conventions only offers a limited introduction into the topic, and leaves it up to the developer to use their intuition with the rest.

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  • Have you worked with a well designed application?

    - by Vilx-
    Inspired by this question, I started wondering - is there or has there ever been such a thing as a "well designed application"? One where the architecture would be perfect and no refactoring would ever be needed; code would be easy to read and understand even for someone new to the project; changes could be done with a 100% certainty that they won't break anything; etc? I must admit that whatever codebases I've worked with, they've all been more or less a mess. Even code that I start myself only stays organized at the start, and then slowly deteriorates as the time passes. I'm even starting to accept this as part of life and can't figure out whether I should be worried about that or not. So... is there such a thing as a "well designed application"? Or is all our code so shitty that there isn't even a point in trying to make it better, because it will never be good anyway?

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  • Is it a good approach to rely on 3rd party software ( not library )?

    - by gunbuster363
    We have program using a call to a winzip program or 7zip commandline tool to zip some files. Once I accidentally uninstall winzip on my computer and making one of our program( created by the programmer already left ) crashed. So we cannot uninstall the winzip program. Now I've come to a point which I need to decide a external tool for gzip in windows or I make a java program which I can call to gzip the file. Obviously a external tool such as 7z is convenient and we can avoid some extra coding with java. On the contrary, if 7z is uninstalled accidentally, our program will crash. What do you think?

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