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• HTML5 game engine for a 2D or 2.5D RPG style "map walk"

  - by stargazer

  please help me to choose a HTML5 game engine or Javascript libraries I want to do the following in the game: when the game starts a part the huge map (full size of the map: about 7 screens) is shown. The map itself is completely designed in the editor mapeditor.org (or in some comparable editor - if you know a good alternative to mapeditor.org - let me know) and loaded at runtime or at design time. The game engine should support loading of isometric maps (well, in worst case only orthogonal maps will be sufficient) both "tile layer" and "object layer" from mapeditor.org should be supported. Scrolling/performance of this map should be fast enough. The map and the game should be either in 2D (orthogonal map) or in 2.5D (isometric map) The game engine should support movement of sprites with animation. Let say I have a sprite for "human" with animation sequences showing "walking" in 8 directions - it should be imported into game engine and should "walk" on the map without writing a lot of Javascript code. Automatic scrolling of the map the "human" nears the screen border. Collision detection, "solid" objects. The mapeditor.org supports properies on tiles. Let say I assign a "solid" property to some tiles in editor. It should be easy to check this "solid" property in the game engine and implement kind of "solid" behavior, so the animanted sprites do not walk through the walls. Collision detection - it should be easy to implement some custom functionality like "when sprite A is close to sprite B - call this function" Showing "dialogs" or popup windows on top of the map - should be easy to implement. Cross-browser audio support - (it is implemented quite well in construct 2 from scirra, so I'm looking for the comparable audio quality) The game itself is a king of RPG but without fighting scenes and without huge "inventory". The main character just walking on the map, discovers some things, there are dialogs and sounds. The functionality of this example from sprite.js http://batiste.dosimple.ch/sprite.js/tests/mapeditor/map_reader.html is very close to what I'm developing. But I'm not a Javascript guru (and a very lazy guy) and would like to write even less Javascript code as in the example...

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• SlimDX and Parsing .X Files

  - by P. Avery

  I'm trying to parse a .x file using SlimDX. I can create the XFile object and register templates but I'm having problems with the enumeration object. The enumeration object has a child count of 0 for a file I know to have valid data. Here is code to create file, enumeration, and data objects: public void Parse(string filename, string templates, ref Frame aParam) { XFile xfile = null; XFileEnumerationObject enumObj = null; XFileData dataObj = null; // create file object xfile = new XFile(); // register templates if (xfile.RegisterTemplates(XFile.DefaultTemplates).IsFailure) { Console.WriteLine(Result.Last); xfile.Dispose(); return; } // create enumeration object enumObj = xfile.CreateEnumerationObject(filename, System.Runtime.InteropServices.CharSet.Auto); if (enumObj == null) { xfile.Dispose(); return; } // get child count( returns 0 here ) long ncElements = enumObj.ChildCount; for (int i = 0; i < ncElements; ++i) { // never reached... dataObj = enumObj.GetChild(i); if (dataObj.IsReference) continue; try { Parse(dataObj, ref aParam); } catch (Exception e) { e.Write(); } finally { dataObj.Dispose(); } } enumObj.Dispose(); xfile.Dispose(); } ...There are no exceptions thrown by this function...the child count is 0 so the conditional loop breaks right away, the file objects are disposed of and the function returns... Here is .x file...a simple cube: xof 0303txt 0032 Frame Root { FrameTransformMatrix { 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000;; } Frame Cube { FrameTransformMatrix { 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000;; } Mesh Cube{ //Cube Mesh 36; -1.000000; 1.000000; 1.000000;, -1.000000;-1.000000; 1.000000;, 0.999999;-1.000001; 1.000000;, -1.000000;-1.000000;-1.000000;, 1.000000;-1.000000;-1.000000;, 0.999999;-1.000001; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.999999; 1.000000;, -1.000000; 1.000000; 1.000000;, 0.999999;-1.000001; 1.000000;, -1.000000; 1.000000;-1.000000;, -1.000000;-1.000000;-1.000000;, -1.000000; 1.000000; 1.000000;, -1.000000; 1.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.999999; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 1.000000;-1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.999999; 1.000000;, 0.999999;-1.000001; 1.000000;, 1.000000;-1.000000;-1.000000;, -1.000000;-1.000000;-1.000000;, -1.000000;-1.000000; 1.000000;, -1.000000; 1.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 1.000000;-1.000000;, 1.000000;-1.000000;-1.000000;, -1.000000; 1.000000;-1.000000;, 1.000000; 1.000000;-1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.999999; 1.000000;, 1.000000;-1.000000;-1.000000;, -1.000000; 1.000000;-1.000000;, -1.000000; 1.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 1.000000;-1.000000;, -1.000000;-1.000000; 1.000000;, -1.000000;-1.000000;-1.000000;, 0.999999;-1.000001; 1.000000;, 1.000000;-1.000000;-1.000000;, -1.000000;-1.000000;-1.000000;, -1.000000; 1.000000;-1.000000;; 12; 3;0;1;2;, 3;3;4;5;, 3;6;7;8;, 3;9;10;11;, 3;12;13;14;, 3;15;16;17;, 3;18;19;20;, 3;21;22;23;, 3;24;25;26;, 3;27;28;29;, 3;30;31;32;, 3;33;34;35;; MeshNormals { //Mesh Normals 36; 0.000000;-0.000000; 1.000000;, 0.000000;-0.000000; 1.000000;, 0.000000;-0.000000; 1.000000;, -0.000000;-1.000000;-0.000000;, -0.000000;-1.000000;-0.000000;, -0.000000;-1.000000;-0.000000;, -0.000000;-0.000000; 1.000000;, -0.000000;-0.000000; 1.000000;, -0.000000;-0.000000; 1.000000;, -1.000000; 0.000000;-0.000000;, -1.000000; 0.000000;-0.000000;, -1.000000; 0.000000;-0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000; 0.000000;, 1.000000;-0.000001; 0.000000;, 1.000000;-0.000001; 0.000000;, 1.000000;-0.000001; 0.000000;, -1.000000; 0.000000;-0.000000;, -1.000000; 0.000000;-0.000000;, -1.000000; 0.000000;-0.000000;, 0.000000; 0.000000;-1.000000;, 0.000000; 0.000000;-1.000000;, 0.000000; 0.000000;-1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;-0.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;-0.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;-0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000; 0.000000;, -0.000000;-1.000000; 0.000000;, -0.000000;-1.000000; 0.000000;, -0.000000;-1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000;-0.000000;-1.000000;, 0.000000;-0.000000;-1.000000;, 0.000000;-0.000000;-1.000000;; 12; 3;0;1;2;, 3;3;4;5;, 3;6;7;8;, 3;9;10;11;, 3;12;13;14;, 3;15;16;17;, 3;18;19;20;, 3;21;22;23;, 3;24;25;26;, 3;27;28;29;, 3;30;31;32;, 3;33;34;35;; } //End of Mesh Normals MeshMaterialList { //Mesh Material List 1; 12; 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0;; Material Material { 0.640000; 0.640000; 0.640000; 1.000000;; 96.078431; 0.500000; 0.500000; 0.500000;; 0.000000; 0.000000; 0.000000;; TextureFilename {"Yellow.jpg";} } } //End of Mesh Material List MeshTextureCoords UVMap{ //Mesh UV Coordinates 36; 0.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 1.000000;, 0.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;, 1.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;, 0.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 1.000000;, 1.000000; 0.000000;; } //End of Mesh UV Coordinates } //End of Mesh Mesh } //End of Cube } //End of Root Frame

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• SQL Query for Determining SharePoint ACL Sizes

  - by Damon Armstrong

  When a SharePoint Access Control List (ACL) size exceeds more than 64kb for a particular URL, the contents under that URL become unsearchable due to limitations in the SharePoint search engine.  The error most often seen is The Parameter is Incorrect which really helps to pinpoint the problem (its difficult to convey extreme sarcasm here, please note that it is intended).  Exceeding this limit is not unheard of – it can happen when users brute force security into working by continually overriding inherited permissions and assigning user-level access to securable objects. Once you have this issue, determining where you need to focus to fix the problem can be difficult.  Fortunately, there is a query that you can run on a content database that can help identify the issue: SELECT [SiteId],      MIN([ScopeUrl]) AS URL,      SUM(DATALENGTH([Acl]))/1024 as AclSizeKB,      COUNT(*) AS AclEntries FROM [Perms] (NOLOCK) GROUP BY siteid ORDER BY AclSizeKB DESC This query results in a list of ACL sizes and entry counts on a site-by-site basis.  You can also remove grouping to see a more granular breakdown: SELECT [ScopeUrl] AS URL,       SUM(DATALENGTH([Acl]))/1024 as AclSizeKB,      COUNT(*) AS AclEntries FROM [Perms] (NOLOCK) GROUP BY ScopeUrl ORDER BY AclSizeKB DESC

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• Amazon how does their remarkable search work?

  - by JonH

  We are working on a fairly large CRM system /knowledge management system in asp.net. The db is SQL server and is growing in size based on all the various relationships. Upper management keeps asking us to implement search much like amazon does. Right from there search you can specify to search certain objects like outdoor equipment, clothing, etc. and you can even select all. I keep mentioning to upper management that we need to define the various fields to search on. Their response is all fields...they probably look at the search and assume that it is so simple. I'm the guy who has to say hold on guys we are talking about amazon here. My question is how can amazon run a search on an "all" category. Also one of the things management here likes is the dynamic filters. For instance, searching robot brings up filters specific to a robot toy. How can I put management in check and at least come up with search functionality that works like amazon. We are using asp.net, SQL server 2008 and jquery.

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• Project Corndog: Viva el caliente perro!

  - by Matt Christian

  During one of my last semesters in college we were required to take a class call Computer Graphics which tried (quite unsuccessfully) to teach us a combination of mathematics, OpenGL, and 3D rendering techniques.  The class itself was horrible, but one little gem of an idea came out of it.  See, the final project in the class was to team up and create some kind of demo or game using techniques we learned in class.  My friend Paul and I teamed up and developed a top down shooter that, given the stringent timeline, was much less of a game and much more of 3D objects floating around a screen. The idea itself however I found clever and unique and decided it was time to spend some time developing a proper version of our idea.  Project Corndog as it is tentatively named, pits you as a freshly fried corndog who broke free from the shackles of fair food slavery in a quest to escape the state fair you were born in.  Obviously it's quite a serious game with undertones of racial prejudice, immoral practices, and cheap food sold at high prices. The game itself is a top down shooter in the style of 1942 (NES).  As a delicious corndog you will have to fight through numerous enemies including hungry babies, carnies, and the corndog serial-killer himself the corndog eating champion!  Other more engaging and frighteningly realistic enemies await as the only thing between you and freedom. Project Corndog is being developed in Visual Studio 2008 with XNA Game Studio 3.1.  It is currently being hosted on Google code and will be made available as an open source engine in the coming months.

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• How far to go with Domain Driven Design?

  - by synti

  I've read a little about domain driven design and the usage of a rich domain model, as described by Martin Fowler, and I've decided to put it in practice in a personal project, instead of using transaction scripts. Everything went fine until UI implementation started. The thing is some views will use rich components that are backed up by unusual models and, thus, I must transform the domain model into what is used by those components. And that transformation is specially "complex" in the view-to-domain portion, up to the point that some business logic is involved. Wich brings me to the questioning: where should I do these adaptations? So far I've got the following conclusions: Doing it in the presentation layer is good because, well, if that layer imposes restrictions in it's model, then it should be the one to handle them. But it's bad because there'll be some business leakage. If I do it on the services objects (controllers, actions, whatever), then it'd be good because there won't be any change to the domain API just because of presentation layer, but it's bad because then I'd have transaction scripts, wich is not the intended design. Finally, if I do it on the domain model, there'd be no leakage of business logic at all. But in the future I could expect an explosion of the API into a series of methods designed just to handle that view-model <- domain-model adaptation. I hope I could make myself clear on this.

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• Approaches to timed puzzle elements

  - by ndg

  I'm working on a side scrolling game that has a number of timed puzzle elements. As a simple example: I have a number of moving platforms that have been setup to transition in a pattern. Ideally I'd like to ensure that as the player first approaches them, they are in an ideal state -- whereby the player can witness the full transition and more experienced players (i.e: speedrunners) can complete the puzzle immediately without having to wait for the current transition to complete. The issue here, in a nutshell, is that because these platforms begin transitioning at the start of the level, it's impossible to correctly calculate when the player is likely to stumble upon them. I've done a fair bit of Googling but haven't managed to turn up any decent resources with regards to solving a problem like this. The obvious solution is to only begin updating the objects when the player (or more likely: the camera) first encounters them. But this becomes difficult when you consider more complicated situations. It seems like potentially the easiest way of handling this is to have an invisible trigger volume that will tell any puzzle elements located inside of it that the player has 'arrived' upon first colliding with the player. But this would mean I'd have to logically group puzzle elements, which could become fairly messy in a hurry. Take, for instance, a puzzle that appears to the right of the screen. It may take the player a number of seconds to reach it. It would look strange if the elements involved were to remain stationary. But by the time the player arrives, it's likely things will be 'out of sync'. I wanted to post here in the hopes that others know of, or have implemented, a decent solution to this problem?

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• Level editor event system, how to translate event to game action

  - by Martino Wullems

  Hello, I've been busy trying to create a level editor for a tile based game i'm working on. It's all going pretty fine, the only thing i'm having trouble with is creating a simple event system. Let's say the player steps on a particulair tile that had the action "teleport" assigned to it in the editor. The teleport string is saved in the tile object as a variable. When creating the tilegrid an actionmanager class scans the action variable and assigns actions to the variable. public static class ActionManager { public static function ParseTileAction(tile:Tile) { switch(tile.action) { case "TELEPORT": //assign action here break; } } } Now this is an collision event, so I guess I should also provide an object to colide with the tile. But what if it would have to count for collision with all objects in the world? Also, checking for collisions in the actionmanager class doesn't seem very efficient. Am I even on the right track here? I'm new to game design so I could be completly off track. Any tips on how handeling and creating events using an editor is usually done would be great. The main problem i'm having is the Thanks in advance.

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• Which algorithm used in Advance Wars type turn based games

  - by Jan de Lange

  Has anyone tried to develop, or know of an algorithm such as used in a typical turn based game like Advance Wars, where the number of objects and the number of moves per object may be too large to search through up to a reasonable depth like one would do in a game with a smaller search base like chess? There is some path-finding needed to to engage into combat, harvest, or move to an object, so that in the next move such actions are possible. With this you can build a search tree for each item, resulting in a large tree for all items. With a cost function one can determine the best moves. Then the board flips over to the player role (min/max) and the computer searches the best player move, and flips back etc. upto a number of cycles deep. Finally it has found the best move and now it's the players turn. But he may be asleep by now... So how is this done in practice? I have found several good sources on A*, DFS, BFS, evaluation / cost functions etc. But as of yet I do not see how I can put it all together.

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• Google Sky Map Turns Your Android Phone into a Digital Telescope

  - by ETC

  Whether you’re an astronomy buff or just somebody looking for a perfect “look how sweet my smartphone is!’ application, Google’s Sky Map application for Android phones is a must have app. If all the application did was show you detailed views of the night sky it would be pretty awesome based on that alone. Where Sky Map dazzles, however, is in linking together the GPS and tilt-sensors on your phone to turn your phone into a sky-watching window. Whatever you point the phone at, the screen displays. Want to see what stars are directly above you despite it being the middle of the day? Point the phone up. Curious what people on the opposite side of the word are seeing? Point the phone down and take a peek right through the Earth. Check out the video below to see the application in action: Google Sky Map is free and works wherever Android does. Google Sky Map [AppBrain] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware The Citroen GT – An Awesome Video Game Car Brought to Life [Video] Final Man vs. Machine Round of Jeopardy Unfolds; Watson Dominates Give Chromium-Based Browser Desktop Notifications a Native System Look in Ubuntu Chrome Time Track Is a Simple Task Time Tracker Google Sky Map Turns Your Android Phone into a Digital Telescope Walking Through a Seaside Village Wallpaper

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• How can I move along an angled collision at a constant speed?

  - by Raven Dreamer

  I have, for all intents and purposes, a Triangle class that objects in my scene can collide with (In actuality, the right side of a parallelogram). My collision detection and resolution code works fine for the purposes of preventing a gameobject from entering into the space of the Triangle, instead directing the movement along the edge. The trouble is, the maximum speed along the x and y axis is not equivalent in my game, and moving along the Y axis (up or down) should take twice as long as an equivalent distance along the X axis (left or right). Unfortunately, these speeds apply to the collision resolution too, and movement along the blue path above progresses twice as fast. What can I do in my collision resolution to make sure that the speedlimit for Y axis movement is obeyed in the latter case? Collision Resolution for this case below (vecInput and velocity are the position and velocity vectors of the game object): // y = mx+c lowY = 2*vecInput.x + parag.rightYIntercept ; ... else { // y = mx+c // vecInput.y = 2(x) + RightYIntercept // (vecInput.y - RightYIntercept) / 2 = x; //if velocity.Y (positive) greater than velocity.X (negative) //pushing from bottom, so push right. if(velocity.y > -1*velocity.x) { vecInput = new Vector2((vecInput.y - parag.rightYIntercept)/2, vecInput.y); Debug.Log("adjusted rightwards"); } else { vecInput = new Vector2( vecInput.x, lowY); Debug.Log("adjusted downwards"); } }

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• Advantages of Singleton Class over Static Class?

  Point 1)Singleton We can get the object of singleton and then pass to other methods.Static Class We can not pass static class to other methods as we pass objectsPoint 2) Singleton In future, it is easy to change the logic of of creating objects to some pooling mechanism. Static Class Very difficult to implement some pooling logic in case of static class. We would need to make that class as non-static and then make all the methods non-static methods, So entire your code needs to be changed.Point3:) Singleton Can Singletone class be inherited to subclass? Singleton class does not say any restriction of Inheritence. So we should be able to do this as long as subclass is also inheritence.There's nothing fundamentally wrong with subclassing a class that is intended to be a singleton. There are many reasons you might want to do it. and there are many ways to accomplish it. It depends on language you use.Static Class We can not inherit Static class to another Static class in C#. Think about it this way: you access static members via type name, like this: MyStaticType.MyStaticMember(); Were you to inherit from that class, you would have to access it via the new type name: MyNewType.MyStaticMember(); Thus, the new item bears no relationships to the original when used in code. There would be no way to take advantage of any inheritance relationship for things like polymorphism. span.fullpost {display:none;}

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• The Splendiferous Array of Culinary Tools [Infographic]

  - by ETC

  If your geeking out extends from the workbench to the kitchen counter, you’ll love this swanky infographic detailing the families of utensils in your kitchen drawers and cupboards. The poster showcases everything from scissors to strainers in a retro-style poster. If you can find a culinary tool in your kitchen that isn’t on the chart then you’re obviously a culinary wizard of the highest order. You can hit up the link below to check out the poster in full-size and downloadable glory or head over to the design company that created it here (and pre-order a printed copy for your kitchen). A Complete Guide to Your Kitchen Tools [Fast Co. Design via Design Sponge] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware The Splendiferous Array of Culinary Tools [Infographic] Add a Real-Time Earth Wallpaper App to Ubuntu with xplanetFX The Citroen GT – An Awesome Video Game Car Brought to Life [Video] Final Man vs. Machine Round of Jeopardy Unfolds; Watson Dominates Give Chromium-Based Browser Desktop Notifications a Native System Look in Ubuntu Chrome Time Track Is a Simple Task Time Tracker

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• Entity system and rendering types

  - by Papi75

  I would like to implement entity system in my game and I've got some question about entity system and rendering. Currently, my renderer got two types of elements: Current design Mesh : A default renderable with a Material, a Geometry and a Transformable Sprite : A type of mesh with some methods like "flip" and "setRect" methods and a rect member (With an imposed geometry, a quad) This objects inherit from "Spacial" class. Questions: How can I handle this two types in an entity system? I'm thinking about using "MeshComponent" and "SpriteComponent", but if I do that, an entity could have a Mesh and a Sprite at the same type, it's look stupid, right? I thought the idea to have a parent "rendering" component : "RenderableComponent" for "MeshComponent" and "SpriteComponent" but it will be difficult to handle "cast" in the game (ex: did I need to ask entity-getComponent or SpineComponent, …) Thanks a lot for reading me! My entity system work like that: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entity* entity = world->createEntity(); MeshComponent* mesh = entity->addComponent<MeshComponent>(material); mesh->loadFromFile("monkey.obj"); PhysicComponent* physic = entity->addComponent<PhysicComponent>(); physic->setMass(5.4f); physic->setVelocity( 0.5f, 2.f ); --------------------------------------------------------------------------- class RenderingSystem { private: Scene scene; public: void onEntityAdded( Entity* entity ) { scene.addMesh( entity->getComponent<MeshComponent>() ); } } class PhysicSystem { private: World world; public: void onEntityAdded( Entity* entity ) { world.addBody( entity->getComponent<PhysicComponent>()->getBody() ); } void process( Entity* entity ) { PhysicComponent* physic = entity->getComponent<PhysicComponent>(); } } ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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• Free NOSQL database for use with C# client [closed]

  - by Mitten

  I've never used NOSQL databases before, but so far it seems like the best data storage solution for my project. I am going to implement a datamining application. The data I would like to mine is thousands of documents which cannot be imported into datamining applications. To make to import easier and faster (than importing thousands of documents) I am planning to import these documents into a NOSQL database first and when import NOSQL database into datamining software. At the very least once I have all the data in NOSQL database I should be able to code simplest datamining logic myself. Am I correct that NOSQL databases allow to creates records of data, but they don't mandate all the records to adhere to the same data schema (same column names/types in a classic table oriended SQL databases)? I think for each document I would create a row/entry/object (not sure what is the correct term is in use in NOSQL world) which would be a string id, few (columns) with unstructured text data, and a dozens of columns mostly of datetime and integer types. From its name NOSQL does not support SQL query syntax, but it support locating the object(row/entry?) by its unique id. Does NOSQL support qyuering objects using property=value syntax? Unfortunately most of free NOSQL db only support Java/C++ clients, which free NOSQL db would you recommend for a C# programmer?

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• HTG Projects: Create a Pop Art Sci-Fi Poster with an Inkjet Printer

  - by Eric Z Goodnight

  Looking to decorate your house with some cool artwork? Grab some of your favorite Sci-Fi pics and some surprisingly simple tools, and create a Pop Art style poster in minutes. Through a simple process called “posterization,” you can reduce any graphic into a cool limited graphic with a similar look that Andy Warhol would have used when he created his famous Marylin Monroe image in the sixties. Pick a theme, grab some images, and get ready to decorate your home with a surprisingly easy and surprisingly cool poster any inkjet printer can produce Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Arctic Theme for Windows 7 Gives Your Desktop an Icy Touch Install LibreOffice via PPA and Receive Auto-Updates in Ubuntu Creative Portraits Peek Inside the Guts of Modern Electronics Scenic Winter Lane Wallpaper to Create a Relaxing Mood Access Your Web Apps Directly Using the Context Menu in Chrome The Deep – Awesome Use of Metal Objects as Deep Sea Creatures [Video]

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• links for 2010-06-04

  - by Bob Rhubart

  @biemond: JEJB Transport and manipulating the Java Response in OSB 11g "JEJB Transport works like the EJB Transport," says Oracle ACE Edwin Biemond, "but the request and response objects are not translated to XML so you can't use XQuery etc. To make things not too hard, OSB 11g makes a XML presentation of the request method and its parameters, which you can use in the Proxy Service." (tags: oracleace soa oracle jejb java) @bex: Oracle UCM jQuery Plugin  "This connector allows you to use jQuery to make UCM Service calls through AJAX, and easily display the results,: says Oracle Ace Director Bex Huff. "This is 100% pure JavaScript, no Java, Idoc, or ADF required!" (tags: oracleace ucm oracle otn enterprise2.0) Oracle Solaris Studio Express 6/10 and its Customer Feedback Program are now available (Oracle Developer Tools Blog) "Oracle Solaris Studio Express 6/10 is available on Solaris 10 (SPARC, x86), OEL 5 (x86), RHEL 5 (x86), SuSE 11 (x86) today and will be available for OpenSolaris in the near future," says Pieter Humphrey. (tags: oracle otn solaris sparc liunux) @soatoday: EA and SOA Should Report to COO "So, who gets EA-- the CIO or VP of a Business? I argue neither! After all, a typical EA goal is to connect the Business and IT together to impart better structure and visibility across the enterprise. I firmly believe that neither should own EA so that neither imparts too much of their organization (i.e bias) on the EA process and deliverables. EA needs to be independent, and it's for all the right reasons." -- Orace ACE Director JOrdan Braunstein (tags: oracleace entarch soa)

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• Day 6 - Game Menuing Woes and Future Screen Sneak Peeks

  - by dapostolov

  So, after my last post on Day 5 I dabbled with my game class design. I took the approach where each game objects is tightly coupled with a graphic. The good news is I got the menu working but not without some hard knocks and game growing pains. I'll explain later, but for now...here is a class diagram of my first stab at my class structure and some code...   Ok, there are few mistakes, however, I'm going to leave it as is for now... As you can see I created an inital abstract base class called GameSprite. This class when inherited will provide a simple virtual default draw method:        public virtual void DrawSprite(SpriteBatch spriteBatch)         {             spriteBatch.Draw(Sprite, Position, Color.White);         } The benefits of coding it this way allows me to inherit the class and utilise the method in the screen draw method...So regardless of what the graphic object type is it will now have the ability to render a static image on the screen. Example: public class MyStaticTreasureChest : GameSprite {} If you remember the window draw method from Day 3's post, we could use the above code as follows...         protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime)         {             GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue);             spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteBlendMode.AlphaBlend);             foreach(var gameSprite in ListOfGameObjects)            {                 gameSprite.DrawSprite(spriteBatch);            }             spriteBatch.End();             base.Draw(gameTime);         } I have to admit the GameSprite object is pretty plain as with its DrawSprite method... But ... we now have the ability to render 3 static menu items on the screen ... BORING! I want those menu items to do something exciting, which of course involves animation... So, let's have a peek at AnimatedGameSprite in the above game diagram. The idea with the AnimatedGameSprite is that it has an image to animate...such as ... characters, fireballs, and... menus! So after inheriting from GameSprite class, I added a few more options such as UpdateSprite...         public virtual void UpdateSprite(float elapsed)         {             _totalElapsed += elapsed;             if (_totalElapsed > _timePerFrame)             {                 _frame++;                 _frame = _frame % _framecount;                 _totalElapsed -= _timePerFrame;             }         }  And an overidden DrawSprite...         public override void DrawSprite(SpriteBatch spriteBatch)         {             int FrameWidth = Sprite.Width / _framecount;             Rectangle sourcerect = new Rectangle(FrameWidth * _frame, 0, FrameWidth, Sprite.Height);             spriteBatch.Draw(Sprite, Position, sourcerect, Color.White, _rotation, _origin, _scale, SpriteEffects.None, _depth);         } With these two methods...I can animate and image, all I had to do was add a few more lines to the screens Update Method (From Day 3), like such:             float elapsed = (float) gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds;             foreach (var item in ListOfAnimatedGameObjects)             {                 item.UpdateSprite(elapsed);             } And voila! My images begin to animate in one spot, on the screen... Hmm, but how do I interact with the menu items using a mouse...well the mouse cursor was easy enough... this.IsMouseVisible = true; But, to have it "interact" with an image was a bit more tricky...I had to perform collision detection!             mouseStateCurrent = Mouse.GetState();             var uiEnabledSprites = (from s in menuItems                                    where s.IsEnabled                                    select s).ToList();             foreach (var item in uiEnabledSprites)             {                 var r = new Rectangle((int)item.Position.X, (int)item.Position.Y, item.Sprite.Width, item.Sprite.Height);                 item.MenuState = MenuState.Normal;                 if (r.Intersects(new Rectangle(mouseStateCurrent.X, mouseStateCurrent.Y, 0, 0)))                 {                     item.MenuState = MenuState.Hover;                     if (mouseStatePrevious.LeftButton == ButtonState.Pressed                         && mouseStateCurrent.LeftButton == ButtonState.Released)                     {                         item.MenuState = MenuState.Pressed;                     }                 }             }             mouseStatePrevious = mouseStateCurrent; So, basically, what it is doing above is iterating through all my interactive objects and detecting a rectangle collision and the object , plays the state animation (or static image).  Lessons Learned, Time Burned... So, I think I did well to start, but after I hammered out my prototype...well...things got sloppy and I began to realise some design flaws... At the time: I couldn't seem to figure out how to open another window, such as the character creation screen Input was not event based and it was bugging me My menu design relied heavily on mouse input and I couldn't use keyboard. Mouse input, is tightly bound with graphic rendering / positioning, so its logic will have to be in each scene. Menu animations would stop mid frame, then continue when the action occured again. This is bad, because...what if I had a sword sliding onthe screen? Then it would slide a quarter of the way, then stop due to another action, then render again mid-slide... it just looked sloppy. Menu, Solved!? To solve the above problems I did a little research and I found some great code in the XNA forums. The one worth mentioning was the GameStateManagementSample. With this sample, you can create a basic "text based" menu system which allows you to swap screens, popup screens, play the game, and quit....basic game state management... In my next post I'm going to dwelve a bit more into this code and adapt it with my code from this prototype. Text based menus just won't cut it for me, for now...however, I'm still going to stick with my animated menu item idea. A sneak peek using the Game State Management Sample...with no changes made... Cool Things to Mention: At work ... I tend to break out in random conversations every-so-often and I get talking about some of my challenges with this game (or some stupid observation about something... stupid) During one conversation I was discussing how I should animate my images; I explained that I knew I had to use the Update method provided, but I didn't know how (at the time) to render an image at an appropriate "pace" and how many frames to use, etc.. I also got thinking that if a machine rendered my images faster / slower, that was surely going to f-up my animations. To which a friend, Sheldon,  answered, surely the Draw method is like a camera taking a snapshot of a scene in time. Then it clicked...I understood the big picture of the game engine... After some research I discovered that the Draw method attempts to keep a framerate of 60 fps. From what I understand, the game engine will even leave out a few calls to the draw method if it begins to slow down. This is why we want to put our sprite updates in the update method. Then using a game timer (provided by the engine), we want to render the scene based on real time passed, not framerate. So even the engine renders at 20 fps, the animations will still animate at the same real time speed! Which brings up another point. Why 60 fps? I'm speculating that Microsoft capped it because LCD's dont' refresh faster than 60 fps? On another note, If the game engine knows its falling behind in rendering...then surely we can harness this to speed up our games. Maybe I can find some flag which tell me if the game is lagging, and what the current framerate is, etc...(instead of coding it like I did last time) Sheldon, suggested maybe I can render like WoW does, in prioritised layers...I think he's onto something, however I don't think I'll have that many graphics to worry about such a problem of graphic latency. We'll see. People to Mention: Well,as you are aware I hadn't posted in a couple days and I was surprised to see a few emails and messenger queries about my game progress (and some concern as to why I stopped). I want to thank everyone for their kind words of support and put everyone at ease by stating that I do intend on completing this project. Granted I only have a few hours each night, but, I'll do it. Thank you to Garth for mailing in my next screen! That was a nice surprise! The Sneek Peek you've been waiting for... Garth has also volunteered to render me some wizard images. He was a bit shocked when I asked for them in 2D animated strips. He said I was going backward (and that I have really bad Game Development Lingo). But, I advised Garth that I will use 3D images later...for now...2D images. Garth also had some great game design ideas to add on. I advised him that I will save his ideas and include them in the future design document (for the 3d version?). Lastly, my best friend Alek, is going to join me in developing this game. This was a project we started eons ago but never completed because of our careers. Now, priorities change and we have some spare time on our hands. Let's see what trouble Alek and I can get into! Tonight I'll be uploading my prototypes and base game to a source control for both of us to work off of. D.

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• I Admit I Misspoke

  - by Patrick Liekhus

  OK.  I admit it.  The last post I hade mentioned that we moved the XAF DSL to the Entity Framework.  This has caused a lot of confusion.  I meant to say that we have used the ADO.NET Entity Data Model extensions.  This is the design surface that can be tailored to create Entity Framework. We leveraged the code generation within the ADO.NET Entity Data Model (EDMX) file to generate XAF/XPO classes.  This allows you to visually create the entity model, set a few XAF properties and then generate the business objects from there.  I am presenting all these topics at the Kansas City Developers Conference on June 19th.  I will post the presentation after the conference.  I have a full presentation that will demonstrate the power of the ADO.NET Entity Data Model extensions, create a small project and then add the OData layer to XAF to connect to the PowerPivot in Excel 2010. The latest code can be found at http://efxaf.codeplex.com. More details to come soon.  Sorry for the confusion in the last post. Thanks again.

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• Entity Framework with large systems - how to divide models?

  - by jkohlhepp

  I'm working with a SQL Server database with 1000+ tables, another few hundred views, and several thousand stored procedures. We are looking to start using Entity Framework for our newer projects, and we are working on our strategy for doing so. The thing I'm hung up on is how best to split the tables into different models (EDMX or DbContext if we go code first). I can think of a few strategies right off the bat: Split by schema We have our tables split across probably a dozen schemas. We could do one model per schema. This isn't perfect, though, because dbo still ends up being very large, with 500+ tables / views. Another problem is that certain units of work will end up having to do transactions that span multiple models, which adds to complexity, although I assume EF makes this fairly straightforward. Split by intent Instead of worrying about schemas, split the models by intent. So we'll have different models for each application, or project, or module, or screen, depending on how granular we want to get. The problem I see with this is that there are certain tables that inevitably have to be used in every case, such as User or AuditHistory. Do we add those to every model (violates DRY I think), or are those in a separate model that is used by every project? Don't split at all - one giant model This is obviously simple from a development perspective but from my research and my intuition this seems like it could perform terribly, both at design time, compile time, and possibly run time. What is the best practice for using EF against such a large database? Specifically what strategies do people use in designing models against this volume of DB objects? Are there options that I'm not thinking of that work better than what I have above? Also, is this a problem in other ORMs such as NHibernate? If so have they come up with any better solutions than EF?

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• Give Chromium-Based Browser Desktop Notifications a Native System Look in Ubuntu

  - by Asian Angel

  Desktop notifications from Chromium-based browsers are an awesome feature, but they do not blend in well at all with the native system theming in Ubuntu. Now you can fix that small problem using the wonderful Chromify-OSD extension created by Marco Ceppi. Once you get the extension installed you can give it a quick test run using the link and information we have listed below. As you can see in the image above the new notification style looks absolutely wonderful. Chromify-OSD (Chrome Web Store) [via OMG! Ubuntu!] You can test the new look of the notifications for yourself using the following webpage. Keep in mind that the extension needs to be installed first before this will work though. Note: Enter the following image URL into the Icon Blank (http://www.rgraph.net/images/logo.png) or the URL for an appropriate image, otherwise the notification may not work properly during your test. Chromify Sample HTML5 Notification Test Page The wallpaper shown in the screenshot above can be downloaded here: anime sport [DesktopNexus] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware The Citroen GT – An Awesome Video Game Car Brought to Life [Video] Final Man vs. Machine Round of Jeopardy Unfolds; Watson Dominates Give Chromium-Based Browser Desktop Notifications a Native System Look in Ubuntu Chrome Time Track Is a Simple Task Time Tracker Google Sky Map Turns Your Android Phone into a Digital Telescope Walking Through a Seaside Village Wallpaper

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• Designing a Database Application with OOP

  - by Tim C

  I often develop SQL database applications using Linq, and my methodology is to build model classes to represent each table, and each table that needs inserting or updating gets a Save() method (which either does an InsertOnSubmit() or SubmitChanges(), depending on the state of the object). Often, when I need to represent a collection of records, I'll create a class that inherits from a List-like object of the atomic class. ex. public class CustomerCollection : CoreCollection<Customer> { } Recently, I was working on an application where end-users were experiencing slowness, where each of the objects needed to be saved to the database if they met a certain criteria. My Save() method was slow, presumably because I was making all kinds of round-trips to the server, and calling DataContext.SubmitChanges() after each atomic save. So, the code might have looked something like this foreach(Customer c in customerCollection) { if(c.ShouldSave()) { c.Save(); } } I worked through multiple strategies to optimize, but ultimately settled on passing a big string of data to a SQL stored procedure, where the string has all the data that represents the records I was working with - it might look something like this: CustomerID:34567;CurrentAddress:23 3rd St;CustomerID:23456;CurrentAddress:123 4th St So, SQL server parses the string, performs the logic to determine appropriateness of save, and then Inserts, Updates, or Ignores. With C#/Linq doing this work, it saved 5-10 records / s. When SQL does it, I get 100 records / s, so there is no denying the Stored Proc is more efficient; however, I hate the solution because it doesn't seem nearly as clean or safe. My real concern is that I don't have any better solutions that hold a candle to the performance of the stored proc solution. Am I doing something obviously wrong in how I'm thinking about designing database applications? Are there better ways of designing database applications?

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• Affect movieclip scale from a .as doc to another

  - by Madcowe

  I've been working on a game following a tutorial on the internet, the game is an avoider where you have the Avatar, that has to avoid the objects that fall. The way it is made is: I have a DocumentClass which addChild's the screen you should be seeing and removeChild's the screen that you were. For example: first it loads the menuScreen, then when you press play unloads menu and loads playscreen. When you die it loads the gameoverScreen and loads the playscreen. And from the gameOverScreen you can press the SHOP button to go to the shop. From here on I'm on my own and not following any tutorials. The shop has a button that is supposed to alter the Avatar's X and Y scale to 0.5, but the problem is: how do I make that work? I tried creating a sharedObject.data.avatarSize, on the store's size button the code would be something like: sharedObject.data.avatarSize *= 0.5; And on the AvoiderGame.as, which is the most of the actual game, on the part where the avatar is created I tried putting this after it's creation: scaleX.avatar = sharedObject.data.avatarSize; scaleY.avatar = sharedObject.data.avatarSize; This did not work since it gives me the error 1009 saying can't access something that is null. I tried this before "using" the sharedObject: if( sharedObject.data.avatarSize == null ) { sharedObject.data.avatarSize = 1; } But it did not work... So now I'm not sure on what to do. I know we should reduce global variables as much as we can but how do I do it? Also, if it helps, I'm using Flash CS5 and working with AS3.0

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• What are the consequences of immutable classes with references to mutable classes?

  - by glenviewjeff

  I've recently begun adopting the best practice of designing my classes to be immutable per Effective Java [Bloch2008]. I have a series of interrelated questions about degrees of mutability and their consequences. I have run into situations where a (Java) class I implemented is only "internally immutable" because it uses references to other mutable classes. In this case, the class under development appears from the external environment to have state. Do any of the benefits (see below) of immutable classes hold true even by only "internally immutable" classes? Is there an accepted term for the aforementioned "internal mutability"? Wikipedia's immutable object page uses the unsourced term "deep immutability" to describe an object whose references are also immutable. Is the distinction between mutability and side-effect-ness/state important? Josh Bloch lists the following benefits of immutable classes: are simple to construct, test, and use are automatically thread-safe and have no synchronization issues do not need a copy constructor do not need an implementation of clone allow hashCode to use lazy initialization, and to cache its return value do not need to be copied defensively when used as a field make good Map keys and Set elements (these objects must not change state while in the collection) have their class invariant established once upon construction, and it never needs to be checked again always have "failure atomicity" (a term used by Joshua Bloch) : if an immutable object throws an exception, it's never left in an undesirable or indeterminate state

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• Code Reuse is (Damn) Hard

  - by James Michael Hare

  Being a development team lead, the task of interviewing new candidates was part of my job.  Like any typical interview, we started with some easy questions to get them warmed up and help calm their nerves before hitting the hard stuff. One of those easier questions was almost always: “Name some benefits of object-oriented development.”  Nearly every time, the candidate would chime in with a plethora of canned answers which typically included: “it helps ease code reuse.”  Of course, this is a gross oversimplification.  Tools only ease reuse, its developers that ultimately can cause code to be reusable or not, regardless of the language or methodology. But it did get me thinking…  we always used to say that as part of our mantra as to why Object-Oriented Programming was so great.  With polymorphism, inheritance, encapsulation, etc. we in essence set up the concepts to help facilitate reuse as much as possible.  And yes, as a developer now of many years, I unquestionably held that belief for ages before it really struck me how my views on reuse have jaded over the years.  In fact, in many ways Agile rightly eschews reuse as taking a backseat to developing what's needed for the here and now.  It used to be I was in complete opposition to that view, but more and more I've come to see the logic in it.  Too many times I've seen developers (myself included) get lost in design paralysis trying to come up with the perfect abstraction that would stand all time.  Nearly without fail, all of these pieces of code become obsolete in a matter of months or years. It’s not that I don’t like reuse – it’s just that reuse is hard.  In fact, reuse is DAMN hard.  Many times it is just a distraction that eats up architect and developer time, and worse yet can be counter-productive and force wrong decisions.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of reusable code when it makes sense.  These are in the few cases where you are designing something that is inherently reusable.  The problem is, most business-class code is inherently unfit for reuse! Furthermore, the code that is reusable will often fail to be reused if you don’t have the proper framework in place for effective reuse that includes standardized versioning, building, releasing, and documenting the components.  That should always be standard across the board when promoting reusable code.  All of this is hard, and it should only be done when you have code that is truly reusable or you will be exerting a large amount of development effort for very little bang for your buck. But my goal here is not to get into how to reuse (that is a topic unto itself) but what should be reused.  First, let’s look at an extension method.  There’s many times where I want to kick off a thread to handle a task, then when I want to reign that thread in of course I want to do a Join on it.  But what if I only want to wait a limited amount of time and then Abort?  Well, I could of course write that logic out by hand each time, but it seemed like a great extension method: 1: public static class ThreadExtensions 2: { 3: public static bool JoinOrAbort(this Thread thread, TimeSpan timeToWait) 4: { 5: bool isJoined = false; 6:  7: if (thread != null) 8: { 9: isJoined = thread.Join(timeToWait); 10:  11: if (!isJoined) 12: { 13: thread.Abort(); 14: } 15: } 16: return isJoined; 17: } 18: } 19:  When I look at this code, I can immediately see things that jump out at me as reasons why this code is very reusable.  Some of them are standard OO principles, and some are kind-of home grown litmus tests: Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) – The only reason this extension method need change is if the Thread class itself changes (one responsibility). Stable Dependencies Principle (SDP) – This method only depends on classes that are more stable than it is (System.Threading.Thread), and in itself is very stable, hence other classes may safely depend on it. It is also not dependent on any business domain, and thus isn't subject to changes as the business itself changes. Open-Closed Principle (OCP) – This class is inherently closed to change. Small and Stable Problem Domain – This method only cares about System.Threading.Thread. All-or-None Usage – A user of a reusable class should want the functionality of that class, not parts of that functionality.  That’s not to say they most use every method, but they shouldn’t be using a method just to get half of its result. Cost of Reuse vs. Cost to Recreate – since this class is highly stable and minimally complex, we can offer it up for reuse very cheaply by promoting it as “ready-to-go” and already unit tested (important!) and available through a standard release cycle (very important!). Okay, all seems good there, now lets look at an entity and DAO.  I don’t know about you all, but there have been times I’ve been in organizations that get the grand idea that all DAOs and entities should be standardized and shared.  While this may work for small or static organizations, it’s near ludicrous for anything large or volatile. 1: namespace Shared.Entities 2: { 3: public class Account 4: { 5: public int Id { get; set; } 6:  7: public string Name { get; set; } 8:  9: public Address HomeAddress { get; set; } 10:  11: public int Age { get; set;} 12:  13: public DateTime LastUsed { get; set; } 14:  15: // etc, etc, etc... 16: } 17: } 18:  19: ... 20:  21: namespace Shared.DataAccess 22: { 23: public class AccountDao 24: { 25: public Account FindAccount(int id) 26: { 27: // dao logic to query and return account 28: } 29:  30: ... 31:  32: } 33: } Now to be fair, I’m not saying there doesn’t exist an organization where some entites may be extremely static and unchanging.  But at best such entities and DAOs will be problematic cases of reuse.  Let’s examine those same tests: Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) – The reasons to change for these classes will be strongly dependent on what the definition of the account is which can change over time and may have multiple influences depending on the number of systems an account can cover. Stable Dependencies Principle (SDP) – This method depends on the data model beneath itself which also is largely dependent on the business definition of an account which can be very inherently unstable. Open-Closed Principle (OCP) – This class is not really closed for modification.  Every time the account definition may change, you’d need to modify this class. Small and Stable Problem Domain – The definition of an account is inherently unstable and in fact may be very large.  What if you are designing a system that aggregates account information from several sources? All-or-None Usage – What if your view of the account encompasses data from 3 different sources but you only care about one of those sources or one piece of data?  Should you have to take the hit of looking up all the other data?  On the other hand, should you have ten different methods returning portions of data in chunks people tend to ask for?  Neither is really a great solution. Cost of Reuse vs. Cost to Recreate – DAOs are really trivial to rewrite, and unless your definition of an account is EXTREMELY stable, the cost to promote, support, and release a reusable account entity and DAO are usually far higher than the cost to recreate as needed. It’s no accident that my case for reuse was a utility class and my case for non-reuse was an entity/DAO.  In general, the smaller and more stable an abstraction is, the higher its level of reuse.  When I became the lead of the Shared Components Committee at my workplace, one of the original goals we looked at satisfying was to find (or create), version, release, and promote a shared library of common utility classes, frameworks, and data access objects.  Now, of course, many of you will point to nHibernate and Entity for the latter, but we were looking at larger, macro collections of data that span multiple data sources of varying types (databases, web services, etc). As we got deeper and deeper in the details of how to manage and release these items, it quickly became apparent that while the case for reuse was typically a slam dunk for utilities and frameworks, the data access objects just didn’t “smell” right.  We ended up having session after session of design meetings to try and find the right way to share these data access components. When someone asked me why it was taking so long to iron out the shared entities, my response was quite simple, “Reuse is hard...”  And that’s when I realized, that while reuse is an awesome goal and we should strive to make code maintainable, often times you end up creating far more work for yourself than necessary by trying to force code to be reusable that inherently isn’t. Think about classes the times you’ve worked in a company where in the design session people fight over the best way to implement a class to make it maximally reusable, extensible, and any other buzzwordable.  Then think about how quickly that design became obsolete.  Many times I set out to do a project and think, “yes, this is the best design, I can extend it easily!” only to find out the business requirements change COMPLETELY in such a way that the design is rendered invalid.  Code, in general, tends to rust and age over time.  As such, writing reusable code can often be difficult and many times ends up being a futile exercise and worse yet, sometimes makes the code harder to maintain because it obfuscates the design in the name of extensibility or reusability. So what do I think are reusable components? Generic Utility classes – these tend to be small classes that assist in a task and have no business context whatsoever. Implementation Abstraction Frameworks – home-grown frameworks that try to isolate changes to third party products you may be depending on (like writing a messaging abstraction layer for publishing/subscribing that is independent of whether you use JMS, MSMQ, etc). Simplification and Uniformity Frameworks – To some extent this is similar to an abstraction framework, but there may be one chosen provider but a development shop mandate to perform certain complex items in a certain way.  Or, perhaps to simplify and dumb-down a complex task for the average developer (such as implementing a particular development-shop’s method of encryption). And what are less reusable? Application and Business Layers – tend to fluctuate a lot as requirements change and new features are added, so tend to be an unstable dependency.  May be reused across applications but also very volatile. Entities and Data Access Layers – these tend to be tuned to the scope of the application, so reusing them can be hard unless the abstract is very stable. So what’s the big lesson?  Reuse is hard.  In fact it’s damn hard.  And much of the time I’m not convinced we should focus too hard on it. If you’re designing a utility or framework, then by all means design it for reuse.  But you most also really set down a good versioning, release, and documentation process to maximize your chances.  For anything else, design it to be maintainable and extendable, but don’t waste the effort on reusability for something that most likely will be obsolete in a year or two anyway.

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