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• good literature for teaching object oriented thinking in C [closed]

  - by Dipan Mehta

  Quite often C is the primary platform for the development. And when things are large scale, I have seen partitioning of the system as different objects is quite a natural thing. Some or many of the object orientated analysis and design principles are used here very well. This is not a debate question about whether or not C is a good candidate for object oriented programming or not. This is also NOT a question how to do OO in C. You can refer to this question and there are probably many such citations. As far as I am concerned, I have learned some of this things while working with many open source and commercial projects. (libjpeg, ffmpeg, Gstreamer which is based on GObject). I can probably extend a few references that explains some of these concepts such as - 1. Event Helix article, 2. Linux Mag article 3. one of my answers which links Schreiner's reference. Unfortunately, when we induct younger folks, it seems too hard to make them learn all of it the hard way. Usually, when we say it's C, a general reaction is to throw away all of the "Object thinking". Looking for help extending above references from those who have been in the similar areas of work. Are there any good formal literature that explains how Object thinking can be made to use while you are working in C? I have seen tons of book on general "object oriented paradigms" but they all focus on advanced languages mostly not in C. You see most C books - but most focus only on the syntax and the obfuscated corners of C and that's it. There are hardly ANY good reference, specially books or any systematic (I mean formal) literature on how to apply OO in C. This is very surprising given that so many large scale open source projects use C which are truly using this very well; but we hardly see any good formal literature on this subject.

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• Effective handling of variables in non-object oriented programming

  - by srnka

  What is the best method to use and share variables between functions in non object-oriented program languages? Let's say that I use 10 parameters from DB, ID and 9 other values linked to it. I need to work with all 10 parameters in many functions. I can do it next ways: 1. call functions only with using ID and in every function get the other parameters from DB. Advantage: local variables are clear visible, there is only one input parameter to function Disadvantage: it's slow and there are the same rows for getting parameters in every function, which makes function longer and not so clear 2. call functions with all 10 parameters Advantage: working with local variables, clear function code Disadvantage: many input parameters, what is not nice 3. getting parameters as global variables once and using them everywhere Advantage - clearer code, shorter functions, faster processing Disadvantage - global variables - loosing control of them, possibility of unwanted overwriting (Especially when some functions should change their values) Maybe there is some another way how to implement this and make program cleaner and more effective. Can you say which way is the best for solving this issue?

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• Advice on developing a social network [on hold]

  - by Siraj Mansour

  I am doing research on assembling a team, using the right tools, and the cost to develop a highly responsive social network that is capable of dealing with a lot of users. Similar to the Facebook concept but using the basics package for now. Profile, friends, posts, updates, media upload/download, streaming, chat and Inbox messaging are all in the package. We certainly do not expect it to be as popular as Facebook or handle the same number of users and requests, but in its own game it has to be a monster, and expandable for later on. Neglecting the hosting, and servers part, i am looking for technical advise and opinions, on what kind of team i need ? how many developers ? their expertise ? What are the right tools ? languages ? frameworks ? environments ? Any random ideas about the infrastructure ? Quick thoughts on the development process ? Please use references, if you have any to support your ideas. Development cost mere estimation ? NEGLECTING THE COST OF SERVERS I know my question is too broad but my knowledge is very limited and i need detailed help, for any help you can offer i thank you in advance.

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• How to configure KDE default settings for a new user of a group?

  - by Adobe

  I'm a sys admin on Kubuntu 11.10 machine. Where do I configure the basic config for a new user (say belonging to group "users")? Edit 1: I want to configure langauages - currently my new users get English and Bulgarian Languages. I want them to get English and Russian - and also to set Alt-CapsLock - to be the input-language-switching-combination. Edit 2: How do I configure things in /usr/share/kde4 When I do kdesudo systemsettings and save configurations - only root settings got changed - not the /usr/share/kde4 ones. Edit 3: New user gets the /etc/skel files controlling bash behaviour-appearence. What about the KDE new user's default files - where are they stored? Edit 4: Oh, I found some hints: kde4-config --path config gives a list of folders (separated by the colon) where KDE looks for configs. My machine responded with: /home/boris/.kde/share/config/ /etc/kde4/ /usr/share/kubuntu-default-settings/kde4-profile/default/share/config/ /usr/share/kde4/config/ /usr/share/desktop-base/profiles/kde-profile/share/config/ It looks like third line is where KDE takes the default options. So I found these zilions of settings - but no GUI way to configure it ((. Edit 5: Finally, I've created a dummy user, configured it, and wrote a script which gives it's settings to a given user(s). The trick - is to chown after one transfered the dot files from one user to another. I've tested it - it works fine.

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• What is a Coding Dojo?

  - by huwyss

  Recently i found out that there is a thing called "coding dojo". The point behind it is that software developers want to have a space to learn new stuff like processes, methods, coding details, languages, and whatnot in an environment without stress. Just for fun. No competition. No results required. No deadlines.Some days ago I joined the Zurich coding dojo. We were three programmers with different backgrounds.We gave ourselves the task to develop a method that takes an input value and returns its prime factors. We did pair programming and every few minutes we switched positions. We used test driven development. The chosen programming language was Ruby.I haven't really done TDD before. It was pretty interesting to see the algorithm develop following the testcases.We started with the first test input=1 then developed the most simple productive program that passed this very first test. Then we added the next test input=2 and implemented the productive code. We kept adding tests and made sure all tests are passed until we had the general solution.When we improved the performance of our code we saw the value of the tests we wrote before. Of course our first performance improvement broke several tests.It was a very interesting experience to see how other developers think and how they work. I will participate at the dojo again and can warmly recommend it to anyone. There are  coding dojos all over the world.Have fun!

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• Writing a DB Python or Ruby

  - by WojonsTech

  I am planning on writing a database. I know it's crazy and people will tell me there is no good reason to do so. I am really using it to get better at programming overall, this database wont be used in production. I am planning on writing it Ruby or Python. I have some experience with both languages, but no job or large project experience. I don't want this to be a this is better than that randomly I really need some facts. The things that I need to know are which of the language are better at the following things. Searching arrays/hashes? Sorting? Threading? Sockets? Memory management? Disk Reads/Writes? base64 encode/decode? Again this is just a project for myself. I will port it on github for the hell of it, but I don't expect it to be amazing or going up against mysql or mongodb any day.

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• Stacks in C++

  - by MarkPearl

  So some more basics… One of the things you will be taught at any college after conquering arrays is different derivatives of collections. Stack is one of the simplest of those and very useful… A stack is a LIFO (last in first out) data structure and has at least two basic method calls – push & pop. Push, “pushes” an item on the top of the stack. Pop, removes the top most item off the stack. Because all elements on a stack are of the same type, one can use an array to implement a stack or a linked list. With the array based approach, the first element in a stack would be the first element in the array, the second on the stack would be the second on the array, etc. One limitation with an array implementation of a stack is that unless the array is dynamic, one would have to have a preset max stack size (based on the bounds of the array). Linked lists is another approach that gets past this boundary by allowing you to dynamically grow or shrink a collection of data. Stacks have many applications… a typical computer science example would be Postfix Expression Calculator, where the LIFO principle is maintained.

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• How to change careers

  - by Jack Black

  For the past 4 years I have worked in c# doing web development. I have really enjoyed it, learnt a lot and have a worked hard to get to a position where I am earning good money and enjoy the work. However lately - I have wanted a change. What with the "native renaissance" I would like to change my career from being high level application and web development to more down to the metal native development. I haven't done any c or c++ since Uni over 4 years ago and so I have begun reading text books and websites to brush up. However - one major issue I have is that I have no practical experience with C++ and although I am brushing up on it, there will be a lot I don't know. Most of the jobs I have seen in native code around me all require native experience. The only positions I can find that don't explicitly ask for native experience are junior level positions. In my current role I am a mid level developer and although there would be a lot to learn in a c++ position, I wouldn't class myself as a junior. I guess my question is, how do people solve this issue when changing programming languages for their profession and / or how would you approach this hurdle? Like I said, I would really like to try out native development professionally but I wouldn't want to move back to a junior role. Would employers consider years of managed development and native hobby projects enough experience?

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• Building Enterprise Smartphone App &ndash; Part 4: Application Development Considerations

  - by Tim Murphy

  This is the final part in a series of posts based on a talk I gave recently at the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Feel free to leave feedback. Application Development Considerations Now we get to the actual building of your solutions.  What are the skills and resources that will be needed in order to develop a smartphone application in the enterprise? Language Knowledge One of the first things you need to consider when you are deciding which platform language do you either have the most in house skill base or can you easily acquire.  If you already have developers who know Java or C# you may want to use either Android or Windows Phone.  You should also take into consideration the market availability of developers.  If your key developer leaves how easy is it to find a knowledgeable replacement? A second consideration when it comes to programming languages is the qualities exposed by the languages of a particular platform.  How well does that development language and its associated frameworks support things like security and access to the features of the smartphone hardware?  This will play into your overall cost of ownership if you have to create this infrastructure on your own. Manage Limited Resources Everything is limited on a smartphone: battery, memory, processing power, network bandwidth.  When developing your applications you will have to keep your footprint as small as possible in every way.  This means not running unnecessary processes in the background that will drain the battery or pulling more data over the airwaves than you have to.  You also want to keep your on device in as compact a format as possible. Mobile Design Patterns There are a number of design patterns that have either come to life because of smartphone development or have been adapted for this use.  The main pattern in the Windows Phone environment is the MVVM (Model-View-View-Model).  This is great for overall application structure and separation of concerns.  The fun part is trying to keep that separation as pure as possible.  Many of the other patterns may or may not have strict definitions, but some that you need to be concerned with are push notification, asynchronous communication and offline data storage. Real estate is limited on smartphones and even tablets. You are also limited in the type of controls that can be represented in the UI. This means rethinking how you modularize your application. Typing is also much harder to do so you want to reduce this as much as possible.  This leads to UI patterns.  While not what we would traditionally think of as design patterns the guidance each platform has for UI design is critical to the success of your application.  If user find the application difficult navigate they will not use it. Development Process Because of the differences in development tools required, test devices and certification and deployment processes your teams will need to learn new way of working together.  This will include the need to integrate service contracts of back-end systems with mobile applications.  You will also want to make sure that you present consistency across different access points to corporate data.  Your web site may have more functionality than your smartphone application, but it should have a consistent core set of functionality.  This all requires greater communication between sub-teams of your developers. Testing Process Testing of smartphone apps has a lot more to do with what happens when you lose connectivity or if the user navigates away from your application. There are a lot more opportunities for the user or the device to perform disruptive acts.  This should be your main testing concentration aside from the main business requirements.  You will need to do things like setting the phone to airplane mode and seeing what the application does in order to weed out any gaps in your handling communication interruptions. Need For Outside Experts Since this is a development area that is new to most companies the need for experts is a lot greater. Whether these are consultants, vendor representatives or just development community forums you will need to establish expert contacts. Nothing is more dangerous for your project timelines than a lack of knowledge.  Make sure you know who to call to avoid lengthy delays in your project because of knowledge gaps. Security Security has to be a major concern for enterprise applications. You aren't dealing with just someone's game standings. You are dealing with a companies intellectual property and competitive advantage. As such you need to start by limiting access to the application itself.  Once the user is in the app you need to ensure that the data is secure at all times.  This includes both local storage and across the wire.  This means if a platform doesn’t natively support encryption for these functions you will need to find alternatives to secure your data.  You also need to keep secret (encryption) keys obfuscated or locked away outside of the application. People can disassemble the code otherwise and break your encryption. Offline Capabilities As we discussed earlier one your biggest concerns is not having connectivity.  Because of this a good portion of your code may be dedicated to handling loss of connection and reconnection situations.  What do you do if you lose the network?  Back up all your transactions and store of any supporting data so that operations can continue off line. In order to support this you will need to determine the available flat file or local data base capabilities of the platform.  Any failed transactions will need to support a retry mechanism whether it is automatic or user initiated.  This also includes your services since they will need to be able to roll back partially completed transactions.  What ever you do, don’t ignore this area when you are designing your system. Deployment Each platform has different deployment capabilities. Some are more suited to enterprise situations than others. Apple's approach is probably the most mature at the moment. Prior to the current generation of smartphone platforms it would have been Windows CE. Windows Phone 7 has the limitation that the app has to be distributed through the same network as public facing applications. You mark them as private which means that they are only accessible by a direct URL. Unfortunately this does not make them undiscoverable (although it is very difficult). This will change with Windows Phone 8 where companies will be able to certify their own applications and distribute them.  Given this Windows Phone applications need to be more diligent with application access in order to keep them restricted to the company's employees. My understanding of the Android deployment schemes is that it is much less standardized then either iOS or Windows Phone. Someone would have to confirm or deny that for me though since I have not yet put the time into researching this platform further. Given my limited exposure to the iOS and Android platforms I have not been able to confirm this, but there are varying degrees of user involvement to install and keep applications updated. At one extreme the user just goes to a website to do the install and in other case they may need to download files and perform steps to install them. Future Bluetooth Today we use Bluetooth for keyboards, mice and headsets.  In the future it could be used to interrogate car computers or manufacturing systems or possibly retail machines by service techs.  This would open smartphones to greater use as a almost a Star Trek Tricorder.  You would get you all your data as well as being able to use it as a universal remote for just about any device or machine. Better corporation controlled deployment At least in the Windows Phone world the upcoming release of Windows Phone 8 will include a private certification and deployment option that is currently not available with Windows Phone 7 (Mango). We currently have to run the apps through the Marketplace certification process and use a targeted distribution method. Platform independent approaches HTML5 and JavaScript with Web Service has become a popular topic lately for not only creating flexible web site, but also creating cross platform mobile applications.  I’m not yet convinced that this lowest common denominator approach is viable in most cases, but it does have it’s place and seems to be growing.  Be sure to keep an eye on it. Summary From my perspective enterprise smartphone applications can offer a great competitive advantage to many companies.  They are not cheap to build and should be approached cautiously.  Understand the factors I have outlined in this series, do you due diligence and see if there is a portion of your business that can benefit from the mobile experience. del.icio.us Tags: Architecture,Smartphones,Windows Phone,iOS,Android

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• Discovering Your Project

  - by Tim Murphy

  The discovery phase of any project is both exciting and critical to the project’s success.  There are several key points that you need to keep in mind as you navigate this process. The first thing you need to understand is who the players in the project are and what their motivations are for the project.  Leaving out a key stakeholder in the resulting product is one of the easiest ways to doom your project to fail.  The better the quality of the input you have at this early phase the better chance you will have of creating a well accepted deliverable. The next task you should tackle is to gather the goals for the project.  Specifically, what does the company expect to get for the money they are about to layout.  This seems like a common sense task, but you would be surprised how many teams to straight to building the system.  Even if you are following an agile methodology I believe that this is critical. Inventorying the resources that already exists gives you an idea what you are going to have to build and what you can leverage at lower risk.  This list should include documentation, servers, code repositories, databases, languages, security systems and supporting teams.  All of these are “resources” that can effect the cost and delivery schedule of your project. Finally, you need to verify what you have found and documented with the stakeholders and subject matter experts.  Documentation that has not been reviewed is actually a list of assumptions and we all know that assumptions are the mother of all screw ups. If you give the discovery phase of your project the attention that it deserves your project has a much better chance of success. I would love to hear what other people find important for this phase.  Please leave comments on this post so we can share the knowledge. del.icio.us Tags: Project discovery,documentation,business analysis,architecture

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• What is a 'good number' of exceptions to implement for my library?

  - by Fuzz

  I've always wondered how many different exception classes I should implement and throw for various pieces of my software. My particular development is usually C++/C#/Java related, but I believe this is a question for all languages. I want to understand what is a good number of different exceptions to throw, and what the developer community expect of a good library. The trade-offs I see include: More exception classes can allow very fine grain levels of error handling for API users (prone to user configuration or data errors, or files not being found) More exception classes allows error specific information to be embedded in the exception, rather than just a string message or error code More exception classes can mean more code maintenance More exception classes can mean the API is less approachable to users The scenarios I wish to understand exception usage in include: During 'configuration' stage, which might include loading files or setting parameters During an 'operation' type phase where the library might be running tasks and doing some work, perhaps in another thread Other patterns of error reporting without using exceptions, or less exceptions (as a comparison) might include: Less exceptions, but embedding an error code that can be used as a lookup Returning error codes and flags directly from functions (sometimes not possible from threads) Implemented an event or callback system upon error (avoids stack unwinding) As developers, what do you prefer to see? If there are MANY exceptions, do you bother error handling them separately anyway? Do you have a preference for error handling types depending on the stage of operation?

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• JBox2D applyLinearImpulse doesn't work

  - by Romeo

  So i have this line of code: if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_W)&&canJump()) { body.applyLinearImpulse(new Vec2(0, 30), cam.screenToWorld(body.getPosition())); System.out.println("I can jump!"); } My problem is that the console display I can jump! but the body doesn't do that. Can you explain to me if i do something wrong? Some more code. This function creates my 'hero' the one supposed to jump. private Body setDynamic(float width, float height, float x, float y) { PolygonShape shape = new PolygonShape(); shape.setAsBox(width/2, height/2); BodyDef bd = new BodyDef(); bd.allowSleep = true; bd.position = new Vec2(cam.screenToWorld(new Vec2(x + width / 2, y + height / 2))); bd.type = BodyType.DYNAMIC; bd.userData = new BodyInfo(width, height); Body body = world.createBody(bd); body.createFixture(shape, 10); return body; } And this is the main update loop: if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_A)) { body.setLinearVelocity(new Vec2(-10*delta, body.getLinearVelocity().y)); } else if (input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_D)) { body.setLinearVelocity(new Vec2(10*delta, body.getLinearVelocity().y)); } else { body.setLinearVelocity(new Vec2(0, body.getLinearVelocity().y)); } if(input.isKeyDown(Input.KEY_W)&&canJump()) { body.applyLinearImpulse(new Vec2(0, 30), body.getPosition()); System.out.println("I can jump!"); } world.step(delta * 0.001f, 10, 5); }

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• Ubuntu 12.04 desktop, VNC viewer not refreshing screen

  - by user73279

  I've had this issues across multiple machines and multiple versions of Ubuntu desktop (all 10.04 or later). Usually it happens with an old laptop I've put Ubuntu on but now it's happening on my primary dev machine (a quad-core PC recently upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04 desktop). The problem is this - I can connect to the machine and login with the password, the initial screen looks fine but never refreshes. I can see the monitor for the machine across the room and can see the mouse move and the menus pop up but the image of the screen on the PC in front me running the VNC viewer never updates. So the mouse and keyboard commands are working. Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop Ultra VNC Viewer (also seen with RealVNC's free VNC viewer) Desktop Sharing Static IP on eth0; Dynamic ID on eth1 I think it is an Ubuntu config issue because this PC used to work just fine with 9.04, 10.04, and 11.10 (over the past couple of years). I've also had a couple of laptops that used to have this issue with older Ubuntu's but don't with 12.04. Additional info: The Win7 PC I'm trying to use to control the Ubuntu PC is connected via 2 DLink 8-port gigabit routers. The Ubuntu laptop I usually control via VNC is typically only connected to the network via wireless. The screen refresh is choppy but usable. I've repeated the issue on a Win7 laptop which was connected via ethernet and wireless.

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• OpenGL - Rendering from part of an index and vertex array depending on an element count

  - by user1423893

  I'm currently drawing my shapes as lines by using a VAO and then assigning the dynamic vertices and indices each frame. // Bind VAO glBindVertexArray(m_vao); // Update the vertex buffer with the new data (Copy data into the vertex buffer object) glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, numVertices * sizeof(VertexPosition), m_vertices.data(), GL_DYNAMIC_DRAW); // Update the index buffer with the new data (Copy data into the index buffer object) glBufferData(GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, numIndices * sizeof(unsigned short), indices.data(), GL_DYNAMIC_DRAW); glDrawElements(GL_LINES, numIndices, GL_UNSIGNED_SHORT, BUFFER_OFFSET(0)); // Unbind VAO glBindVertexArray(0); What I would like to do is draw the lines using only part of the data stored in the index and vertex buffer objects. The vertex buffer has its vertices set from an array of defined maximum size: std::array<VertexPosition, maxVertices> m_vertices; The index buffer has its elements set from an array of defined maximum size: std::array<unsigned short, maxIndices> indices = { 0 }; A running total is kept of the number of vertices and indices needed for each draw call numVertices numIndices Can I not specify that the buffer data contain the entire array and only read from part of it when drawing? For example using the vertex buffer object glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, numVertices * sizeof(VertexPosition), m_vertices.data(), GL_DYNAMIC_DRAW); m_vertices.data() = Entire array is stored numVertices * sizeof(VertexPosition) = Amount of data to read from the entire array Is this not the correct way to approach this? I do not wish to use std::vector if possible.

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• Hidden Gems: Accelerating Oracle Data Integrator with SOA, Groovy, SDK, and XML

  - by Alex Kotopoulis

  On the last day of Oracle OpenWorld, we had a final advanced session on getting the most out of Oracle Data Integrator through the use of various advanced techniques. The primary way to improve your ODI processes is to choose the optimal knowledge modules for your load and take advantage of the optimized tools of your database, such as OracleDataPump and similar mechanisms in other databases. Knowledge modules also allow you to customize tasks, allowing you to codify best practices that are consistently applied by all integration developers. ODI SDK is another very powerful means to automate and speed up your integration development process. This allows you to automate Life Cycle Management, code comparison, repetitive code generation and change of your integration projects. The SDK is easily accessible through Java or scripting languages such as Groovy and Jython. Finally, all Oracle Data Integration products provide services that can be integrated into a larger Service Oriented Architecture. This moved data integration from an isolated environment into an agile part of a larger business process environment. All Oracle data integration products can play a part in thisracle GoldenGate can integrate into business event streams by processing JMS queues or publishing new events based on database transactions. Oracle GoldenGate can integrate into business event streams by processing JMS queues or publishing new events based on database transactions. Oracle Data Integrator allows full control of its runtime sessions through web services, so that integration jobs can become part of business processes. Oracle Data Service Integrator provides a data virtualization layer over your distributed sources, allowing unified reading and updating for heterogeneous data without replicating and moving data. Oracle Enterprise Data Quality provides data quality services to cleanse and deduplicate your records through web services.

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• Impacting the Future through Collaboration at Alliance 14

  - by Jeb Dasteel-Oracle

  We’re hearing good things about the Alliance 14 conference held in Las Vegas by the Higher Education Users Group (HEUG) back in March. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Alliance 14 conferences, they are global events dedicated to enhancing and educating its members and the world on how higher educational institutions can utilize Oracle applications to change how they do business. The HEUG is an all-volunteer organization made up of individuals who collaborate with Oracle as part of the evolving higher education industry. Conference participants network with peers from other institutions (regionally and globally) to share the challenges; discuss solutions and ideas, and collaborate on HEUG strategic initiatives. The HEUG enables each institution to be a part of the ever-changing Oracle landscape. Watch the video below and hear directly from the attendees about their experience with Oracle and how being part of the HEUG has allowed them to  collaborate with one of their most importance resources... and with each other. Oracle is committed to fostering a strong and independent network of user groups worldwide. Currently over 900+ groups provide dynamic forums for customers to share information, experiences and expertise. If you’re interested in more information or joining an Oracle User Group, click and become part of a vibrant network of engaged users finding the best ways to get the most value from their Oracle investment and collaborating to provide a unified feedback voice to Oracle. Catch you next time, Jeb

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• Best Method/Library For Remote Authentication

  - by Mike

  I have a web app that has a REST API interface: http://api.example.com/core that uses API Keys and domain specific keys (key has to be used on the specified domain). I then will have several client sites with ajax forms where we will require users to sign in before being able to submit the form. This form will add data to a table, and submit an email to several recipients along with checking credentials. This form will use an ajax submit to our REST API. All Communication to/from the API is over SSL Ideal Flow: Visitor Fills Form Out -> Enters User/pass -> Submits Form -> ajax request to REST API -> API Verifies credentials -> does CRUD -> sends emails -> returns 200/403 -> perform DOM manipulation based on return code in ajax call Are there any libraries in PHP that currently do something to this similarly? Would OAuth be a good use for this scenario? Languages used are: js/html/css/php/MySQL

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• Architectural approaches to creating a game menu/shell overlay on PC/Linux?

  - by Ghopper21

  I'm am working on a collection of games for a custom digital tabletop installation (similar to Microsoft Surface tables). Each game will be an individual executable that runs full-screen. In addition, there needs to be a menu/shell overlay program running simultaneously. The menu/shell will allow users to pause games, switch to other games, check their game history, etc. Some key requirements of the shell: it intercepts all user input (mainly multitouch) first before passing it on to the currently running game (so that it can, for instance, know to pop-up at a "pause" command); can reveal on arbitrary portions of the screen, with the currently running (but presumably paused) game still showing underneath, ideally with its shape/size being dynamic, to allow for creation of an animated in/out drawer effect over the game. I'm currently looking into different architectural approaches to this problem, including Fraps and DirectX overlays, but I'm sure I'm missing some ways to think about this. What are the main approaches I should be considering? (Note the table is currently being run by Windows PC, but it could potentially be a Linux box instead.)

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• where to start and lack of motivation

  - by anoguy

  I have a few questions that have been bothering me for quite a while, maybe you guys can give me some tips. So let me give a very brief explanation about what I am doing at the moment (like someone cares lol). At the moment I am a last year student on computer science. And like most of you already know is that you won't learn deep programming there, you need to learn it yourself. So at the moment I know like the basics of c++, java, html, php. But it's all bits of this and bits of that. I seriously want to dive deeper in the programming world but there are so many programming languages on the web and there is so much information that i don't know where to start any more.. And that's not the biggest issue, I also lost a bit of my motivation for programming and I like to get more motivation for it so that I love what I do (I am also a very lazy person btw, that's also a problem playing here). So can you guys give me some tips for helping me, because I really want to get pumped up and make cool stuff. (sry for my bad english XD)

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• Should I, and how do I incorporate microdata into my asp.net website with 47 pages?

  - by Jason Weber

  I have an asp.net (vb) with 47 pages. The problem is that it's in 10 different languages, although 98% just use English. I have 5 master pages. I've read Google Webmaster Tools, but I'm still confounded. I'm reading about how microdata is the way to go. Does this mean I should put itemtype and itemprop span and div tags in my master pages, or should I do all of my 47 pages (.resx resource files) separately? The main key phrase I want throughout search results is "machine vision". For instance, the first couple sentences on my "about.aspx" page are: <span itemprop="name">USS Vision Inc.</span> (USS) is a privately-owned company with headquarters in <span itemprop="locality">Detroit, Michigan, USA</span>. We design, engineer, produce, and integrate special machine vision error-proofing products and <a href="http://www.ussvision.com/services/" target="_self" itemprop="url">services</a> that create lean factories by improving the quality of manufactured products, and by significantly reducing manufacturing costs through advanced automation. Am I doing this right, or how would I do this if I'm not? Should I use the itemprop="url" or other rich snippets for every link in my website? I mean, do I need to add an itemprop to just about everything, or can I just alter my master pages? Any guidance in this regard to help improve my SEO and SERPS would be greatly appreciated!

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• Using a Vertex Buffer and DrawUserIndexedPrimitives?

  - by MattMcg

  Let's say I have a large but static world and only a single moving object on said world. To increase performance I wish to use a vertex and index buffer for the static part of the world. I set them up and they work fine however if I throw in another draw call to DrawUserIndexedPrimitives (to draw my one single moving object) after the call to DrawIndexedPrimitives, it will error out saying a valid vertex buffer must be set. I can only assume the DrawUserIndexedPrimitive call destroyed/replaced the vertex buffer I set. In order to get around this I must call device.SetVertexBuffer(vertexBuffer) every frame. Something tells me that isn't correct as that kind of defeats the point of a buffer? To shed some light, the large vertex buffer is the final merged mesh of many repeated cubes (think Minecraft) which I manually create to reduce the amount of vertices/indexes needed (for example two connected cubes become one cuboid, the connecting faces are cut out), and also the amount of matrix translations (as it would suck to do one per cube). The moving objects would be other items in the world which are dynamic and not fixed to the block grid, so things like the NPCs who move constantly. How do I go about handling the large static world but also allowing objects to freely move about?

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• Floating point undesirable in highly critical code?

  - by Kirt Undercoffer

  Question 11 in the Software Quality section of "IEEE Computer Society Real-World Software Engineering Problems", Naveda, Seidman, lists fp computation as undesirable because "the accuracy of the computations cannot be guaranteed". This is in the context of computing acceleration for an emergency braking system for a high speed train. This thinking seems to be invoking possible errors in small differences between measurements of a moving object but small differences at slow speeds aren't a problem (or shouldn't be), small differences between two measurements at high speed are irrelevant - can there be a problem with small roundoff errors during deceleration for an emergency braking system? This problem has been observed with airplane braking systems resulting in hydroplaning but could this actually happen in the context of a high speed train? The concern about fp errors seems to not be well-founded in this context. Any insight? The fp is used for acceleration so perhaps the concern is inching over a speed limit? But fp should be just fine if they use a double in whatever implementation language. The actual problem in the text states: During the inspection of the code for the emergency braking system of a new high speed train (a highly critical, real-time application), the review team identifies several characteristics of the code. Which of these characteristics are generally viewed as undesirable? The code contains three recursive functions (well that one is obvious). The computation of acceleration uses floating point arithmetic. All other computations use integer arithmetic. The code contains one linked list that uses dynamic memory allocation (second obvious problem). All inputs are checked to determine that they are within expected bounds before they are used.

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• Possible to draw a select portion of a render target? (in XNA)

  - by TheBroodian

  I'm going to try to do this in reverse fashion and skip straight to the punch line, and then give the back story afterward: Is it possible to, after drawing a scene to a RenderTarget2D, only draw a select portion of the RenderTarget2D, if I don't want the entire thing? I'm using xTile to manage world data in my game (it's a great piece of work, colinvella [xTile's author] has made an amazing product), and for the most part it works great. xTile supports parallax effects in its layers to add some wonderful depth to 2d scenes, which was great, until I implemented a dynamic split-screen system into my game. Wanted to make a co-op game that wouldn't require players to be in close proximity to each other, so I made it so that if the players separate too far apart, the singular full-screen viewport 'snaps-apart', and is replaced by two split-screen viewports, which then smoothly transition to their respective player targets. The effect is pretty smooth aside from the part where the parallax backgrounds become skewed once the viewports split, because xTile's ratio for handling parallax effects is dependent upon viewport size. This is unfortunate, because the effect would otherwise be really snazzy, but the backgrounds become pretty heavily affected when the game goes from single-viewport to multi-viewport. So, Colinvella suggests using rendertargets to record the scene at full viewport size, and then only drawing a portion of it. But as far as I can tell, that isn't even possible? That being said, I've never even used render targets before, so I'm still learning, hence the question here.

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• 3D space game development

  - by user1693061

  I want to develop a 3D game (sci-fi type with spaceships) which can be played on multiplayer mode and by multiplayer i mean around 10 players for start as it will be a personal testing project and mostly educational. I have been searching for some days about the available languages and engines but i am kinda confused. Since i have been learning Java for my 1st year in I.T university and i have pretty good understanding i thought i would go with the Java language and develop that game on an applet so it could be played on a browser. After going through an applet game tutorial i understood how graphics work on an applet. So.. 1st question: Could an applet carry the burden of a 3D game especially on multiplayer? My thinking: It's a space game so the graphics should not be such a big problem since it wont be that crowded with entities apart from ships, planets and some effects. If the java applet is not the way for my project i would't mind "developing it on desktop"(i mean not making it a browser game). 2nd question: Should i use Unity engine for my purpose(space game)? If not name other language/engine combo.

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• Good books or tutorials on building projects without an IDE?

  - by CodexArcanum

  While I'm certainly under no illusions that building software without an IDE is possible, I don't actually know much about doing it well. I've been using graphical tools like Visual Studio or Code::Blocks so long that I'm pretty well lost without them. And that really stinks when I want to change environments or languages. I couldn't really do anything in D until someone made a Visual Studio plugin, and now that I'm trying to do more development on Mac, I can't use D again because the XCode plugins don't work. I'm sick of being lost when I see a .make file and having no idea what I'm supposed to do with a folder full of source files. People can't be compiling them one by one using the console and then linking them one by one. You'd spend more time typing file names than code. So what are the automation and productivity tools of the non-IDE user? How do you manage a project when you're writing all the code in emacs or vim or nano or whatever? I would love it if there was a book or a guide online that spells some of this out.

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