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• A few questions about how JavaScript works

  - by KayoticSully

  I originally posted on Stack Overflow and was told I might get some better answers here. I have been looking deeply into JavaScript lately to fully understand the language and have a few nagging questions that I can not seem to find answers to (Specifically dealing with Object Oriented programming. I know JavaScript is meant to be used in an OOP manner I just want to understand it for the sake of completeness). Assuming the following code: function TestObject() { this.fA = function() { // do stuff } this.fB = testB; function testB() { // do stuff } } TestObject.prototype = { fC : function { // do stuff } } What is the difference between functions fA and fB? Do they behave exactly the same in scope and potential ability? Is it just convention or is one way technically better or proper? If there is only ever going to be one instance of an object at any given time, would adding a function to the prototype such as fC even be worthwhile? Is there any benefit to doing so? Is the prototype only really useful when dealing with many instances of an object or inheritance? And what is technically the "proper" way to add methods to the prototype the way I have above or calling TestObject.prototype.functionName = function(){} every time? I am looking to keep my JavaScript code as clean and readable as possible but am also very interested in what the proper conventions for Objects are in the language. I come from a Java and PHP background and am trying to not make any assumptions about how JavaScript works since I know it is very different being prototype based. Also are there any definitive JavaScript style guides or documentation about how JavaScript operates at a low level? Thanks!

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• So now Google has said no to old browsers when can the rest of us follow suit?

  - by Richard

  Google recently announced that they will no longer support older browsers on Aug 1st: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13639875 http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/our-plans-to-support-modern-browsers.html For this reason, soon Google Apps will only support modern browsers. Beginning August 1st, we’ll support the current and prior major release of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari on a rolling basis. Each time a new version is released, we’ll begin supporting the update and stop supporting the third-oldest version. There is nothing worse than looking at the patching of code that takes place to support older browsers. If we could all move towards a standards only web (I'm looking at you IE9) then surely we could spend more time programming good web apps and less trying to make them run equally on terrible non standards compliant older browsers. So when can the rest of us expect to be able to tell our clients that we no longer support older browsers? Because it seems that large corporates will continue to run older browsers and even if google chrome frame can be installed without admin privileges (it's coming soon, currently in beta) we can't expect all users to be motivated to do this. I appreciate any thoughts.

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• Using a random string to authenticate HMAC?

  - by mrwooster

  I am designing a simple webservice and want to use HMAC for authentication to the service. For the purpose of this question we have: a web service at example.com a secret key shared between a user and the server [K] a consumer ID which is known to the user and the server (but is not necessarily secret) [D] a message which we wish to send to the server [M] The standard HMAC implementation would involve using the secret key [K] and the message [M] to create the hash [H], but I am running into issues with this. The message [M] can be quite long and tends to be read from a file. I have found its very difficult to produce a correct hash consistently across multiple operating systems and programming languages because of hidden characters which make it into various file formats. This is of course bad implementation on the client side (100%), but I would like this webservice to be easily accessible and not have trouble with different file formats. I was thinking of an alternative, which would allow the use a short (5-10 char) random string [R] rather than the message for autentication, e.g. H = HMAC(K,R) The user then passes the random string to the server and the server checks the HMAC server side (using random string + shared secret). As far as I can see, this produces the following issues: There is no message integrity - this is ok message integrity is not important for this service A user could re-use the hash with a different message - I can see 2 ways around this Combine the random string with a timestamp so the hash is only valid for a set period of time Only allow each random string to be used once Since the client is in control of the random string, it is easier to look for collisions I should point out that the principle reason for authentication is to implement rate limiting on the API service. There is zero need for message integrity, and its not a big deal if someone can forge a single request (but it is if they can forge a very large number very quickly). I know that the correct answer is to make sure the message [M] is the same on all platforms/languages before hashing it. But, taking that out of the equation, is the above proposal an acceptable 2nd best?

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• Where have I been for the last month?

  - by MarkPearl

  So, I have been pretty quiet for the last month or so. True, it has been holiday time and I went to Cape Town for a stunning week of sunshine and blue skies, but the second I got back home I spent the remainder of my holiday on my pc viewing tutorials on www.tekpub.com Craig Shoemaker, who I got in contact with because of his podcast, sent me a 1 month free subscription to the site and it has been really appreciated. I have done a lot of WPF programming in the past, but not any asp.net stuff and so I used the time to get a peek at asp.net mvc2 as well as a bunch of other technologies. I just wished I had more spare time to do the rest of the videos. While I didn’t understand all of what was being shown on the asp.net stuff (it required previous asp.net expertise), the site was a really good jump start to someone wanting to learn a new technology and broaden the horizons and I would highly recommend it, My only gripe is that in South Africa we have limited bandwidth and bandwidth speeds and so I spent a lot of my monthly bandwidth on the site and had to top up with my ISP several times because of the high quality video captures that the site did. I would have preferred to download the video’s, but apparently that is only available to people who have the yearly subscription fee. Other than that, great site and thanks a ton Craig!

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• Why is math taught "backwards"? [closed]

  - by Yorirou

  A friend of mine showed me a pretty practical Java example. It was a riddle. I got excited and quickly solved the problem. After it, he showed me the mathematical explanation of my solution (he proved why is it good), and it was completely clear for me. This seems like natural approach for me: solve problems, and generalize. This is very familiar to me, I do it all the time when I am programming: I write a function. When I have to write a similar function, I generalize the problem, grab the generic parts, and refactor them to a function, and solve the original problems as a specialization of the general function. At the university (or at least where I study), things work backwards. The professors shows just the highest possible level of the solutions ("cryptic" mathematical formulas). My problem is that this is too abstract for me. There is no connection of my previous knowledge (== reality in my sense), so even if I can understand it, I can't really learn it properly. Others are learning these formulas word-by-word, and get good grades, since they can write exactly the same to the test, but this is not an option for me. I am a curious person, I can learn interesting things, but I can't learn just text. My brain is for storing toughts, not strings. There are proofs for the theories, but they are also really hard to understand because of this, and in most of the cases they are omitted. What is the reason for this? I don't understand why is it a good idea to show the really high level of abstraction and then leave the practical connections (or some important ideas / practical motivations) out?

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• Headphones not working in ubuntu 12.04LTS

  - by mursalat

  So after a million warnings about not supported ubuntu OS, last night I finally upgraded to 12.04 - went somewhat smoothly (sadly) After my installation I got all excited with the exciting new look when I login, and all the new shebang, gently I installed chrome and went to youtube to check out some of my music and test flash in the process, now the sound worked awesomely, however when I plugged in my headphones, I could hear only a buzz-like sound when the base drops or there is a loud noise, maybe I didn't hear it from the headphones, but some other source. However sadly my headphones are not working, and I am a noob at fixing these stuff on Ubuntu. I've done loads of programming but when it comes to linux drivers and settings I seem to get frustrated. So I would really appreciate any help people! IN SUMMARY: My headphones are not working, my laptop's internal speakers are working awesome. To be as helpful as I can I have pasted the output from lspci -v to http://pastebin.com/VQNzDkZs I have also checked the volume levels from alsamixer and none are on mute. If you need any more information, please just ask, and I will be checking this post every 3 to 4 hours! Cheers!

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• OpenJDK In The News: AMD and Oracle to Collaborate in the OpenJDK Community [..]

  - by $utils.escapeXML($entry.author)

  During the JavaOne™ 2012 Strategy Keynote, AMD (NYSE: AMD) announced its participation in OpenJDK™ Project “Sumatra” in collaboration with Oracle and other members of the OpenJDK community to help bring heterogeneous computing capabilities to Java™ for server and cloud environments. The OpenJDK Project “Sumatra” will explore how the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), as well as the Java language and APIs, might be enhanced to allow applications to take advantage of graphics processing unit (GPU) acceleration, either in discrete graphics cards or in high-performance graphics processor cores such as those found in AMD accelerated processing units (APUs).“Affirming our plans to contribute to the OpenJDK Project represents the next step towards bringing heterogeneous computing to millions of Java developers and can potentially lead to future developments of new hardware models, as well as server and cloud programming paradigms,” said Manju Hegde, corporate vice president, Heterogeneous Applications and Developer Solutions at AMD. “AMD has an established track record of collaboration with open-software development communities from OpenCL™ to the Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation, and with this initiative we will help further the development of graphics acceleration within the Java community.”“We expect our work with AMD and other OpenJDK participants in Project “Sumatra” will eventually help provide Java developers with the ability to quickly leverage GPU acceleration for better performance,” said Georges Saab, vice president, Software Development, Java Platform Group at Oracle. "We hope individuals and other organizations interested in this exciting development will follow AMD's lead by joining us in Project “Sumatra."Quotes taken from the first press release from AMD mentioning OpenJDK, titled "AMD and Oracle to Collaborate in the OpenJDK Community to Explore Heterogeneous Computing for Java ".

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• Are there design patterns or generalised approaches for particle simulations?

  - by romeovs

  I'm working on a project (for college) in C++. The goal is to write a program that can more or less simulate a beam of particles flying trough the LHC synchrotron. Not wanting to rush into things, me and my team are thinking about how to implement this and I was wondering if there are general design patterns that are used to solve this kind of problem. The general approach we came up with so far is the following: there is a World that holds all objects you can add objects to this world such as Particle, Dipole and Quadrupole time is cut up into discrete steps, and at each point in time, for each Particle the magnetic and electric forces that each object in the World generates are calculated and summed up (luckily electro-magnetism is linear). each Particle moves accordingly (using a simple estimation approach to solve the differential movement equations) save the Particle positions repeat This seems a good approach but, for instance, it is hard to take into account symmetries that might be present (such as the magnetic field of each Quadrupole) and is this thus suboptimal. To take into account such symmetries as that of the Quadrupole field, it would be much easier to (also) make space discrete and somehow store form of the Quadrupole field somewhere. (Since 2532 or so Quadrupoles are stored this should lead to a massive gain of performance, not having to recalculate each Quadrupole field) So, are there any design patterns? Is the World-approach feasible or is it old-fashioned, bad programming? What about symmetry, how is that generally taken into acount?

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• Why does Android make good coding so difficult?

  - by metacircle

  my daily work is writing tools in C#/WPF. After over more than 1 year on the job now, I came to love MVVM, IoC Containers, XAML (and more). It's pure fun to write code, since simple, maintainable and extendable code just comes naturally when you follow a few basic patterns. In my free time I really want to write some apps, mainly for my own personal use. I want to write apps for fun and not to make money or anything, that being said, paying an annual fee to be allowed to use my own apps on my own device is a total no-go for me. So I am not able to code for Windows Phone and am also not able to use Xamarin on Android (which is sad since Visual Studio + Resharper is programmers heaven). So I am stuck with Android "classic" Java development. Everytime I sit down at home to create an app, or improve some of the code I have already written I get annoyed very quick because getting good, decoupled code is just so hard to accomplish. It feels like everything you have to do in Android to create a good architecture is a workaround instead of being the way things are meant to be. Writing the UI in xml is fine, but everything else is one big code mess. Even all the tutorials do all their coding in the code behind. For 'hello world' this is fine, but for anything bigger this gets messy very very quick. This is where the fun for me ends. It's just no fun anymore because I just spend 90% of my time refactoring and thinking of workarounds how to make my code more maintainable with all the restrictions Android puts on me. Am I missing a crucial part or is this just the way Android is meant to be? Do you have any suggestions how to learn 'the fun way' of Android programming.

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• Web dev/programmer with 4.5 yrs experience. Better for career: self-study or master's degree? [closed]

  - by Anonymous Programmer

  I'm a 28 year-old web developer/programmer with 4.5 years of experience, and I'm looking to jump-start my career. I'm trying to decide between self-study and a 1-year master's program in CS at a top school. I'm currently making 65K in a high cost-of-living area that is NOT a hot spot for technology firms. I code almost exclusively in Ruby/Rails, PHP/CodeIgniter, SQL, and JavaScript. I've slowly gained proficiency with Git. Roughly half the time I am architecting/coding, and half the time I am pounding out HTML/CSS for static brochureware sites. I'd like to make more more money while doing more challenging/interesting work, but I don't know where to start. I have an excellent academic record (math major with many CS credits, 3.9+ GPA), GRE scores, and recommendations, so I am confident that I could be admitted to a great CS master's program. On the other hand, there is the tuition and opportunity cost to consider. I feel like there are a number of practical languages/tools/skills worth knowing that I could teach myself - shell scripting, .NET, Python, Node.js, MongoDB, natural language processing techniques, etc. That said, it's one thing to read about a subject and another thing to have experience with it, which structured coursework provides. So, on to the concrete questions: What programming skills/knowledge should I develop to increase my earning potential and make me competitive for more interesting jobs? Will a master's degree in CS from a top school help me develop the above skills/knowledge, and if so, is it preferable to self-study (possibly for other reasons, e.g., the degree's value as a credential)?

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, June 26, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, June 26, 2011Popular ReleasesDroid Builder: Droid Builder - 1.0.4194.38898: Support new type of patch package. Support plugin framework.Mosaic Project: Mosaic Alpha build 254: - Added horizontal scroll by mouse in fullscreen mode - Widgets now have fixed size - Reduced spacing between widgets - Widgets menu is scrollable by mouse now and not overlapping back button on small screens.Net Image Processor: v1.0: Initial release of the library containing the core architecture and two filters. To install, extract the library to somewhere sensible then reference as a file from your project in Visual Studio.Usage Agent: Usage Agent 9.0.8: Latest release. Changes include: - Fixes for Optus - Usage Delta statistic for BigPond - Eliminated the need for UAC prompt at every startupjQuery List DragSort: jQuery List DragSort 0.4.3: Fix item not dropping correctly on Chrome and jQuery 1.6KinectNUI: Jun 25 Alpha Release: Initial public version. No installer needed, just run the EXE.TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v3.3 [v1.0.5 Compatible]: I have added support for all the new items in Terraria v1.0.5. I have also added the ability to put your character in hardcore mode or take them out via a simple checkbox on the stats tab. If you come across any bugs, please let me know immediately.Media Companion: MC 3.409b-1 Weekly: This weeks release is part way through a major rewrite of the TVShow code. This means that a few TV related features & functions are not fully operational at the moment. The reason for this release is so that people can see if their particular issue has been fixed during the week. Some issues may not be able to be fully checked due to the ongoing TV code refactoring. So, I would strongly suggest that you put this version into a separate folder, copy your settings folder across & test MC that...Terraria World Viewer: Version 1.5: Update June 24th Made compatible with the new tiles found in Terraria 1.0.5Kinect Earth Move: KinectEarthMove sample code: Sample code releasedThis is a sample code for Kinect for Windows SDK beta, which was demonstrated on Channel 9 Kinect for Windows SKD beta launch event on June 17 2011. Using color image and skeleton data from Kinect and user in front of Kinect can manipulate the earth between his/her hands.NetOffice - The easiest way to use Office in .NET: NetOffice Release 0.9b: Changes: - fix critical issue 262334 (AccessViolationException while using events in a COMAddin) - remove x64 Assemblies (not necessary) Includes: - Runtime Binaries and Source Code for .NET Framework:......v2.0, v3.0, v3.5, v4.0 - Tutorials in C# and VB.Net:..............................................................COM Proxy Management, Events, etc. - Examples in C# and VB.Net:............................................................Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access - COMAddi...MiniTwitter: 1.70: MiniTwitter 1.70 ???? ?? ????? xAuth ?? OAuth ??????? 1.70 ??????????????????????????。 ???????????????? Twitter ? Web ??????????、PIN ????????????????????。??????????????????、???????????????????????????。Total Commander SkyDrive File System Plugin (.wfx): Total Commander SkyDrive File System Plugin 0.8.7b: Total Commander SkyDrive File System Plugin version 0.8.7b. Bug fixes: - BROKEN PLUGIN by upgrading SkyDriveServiceClient version 2.0.1b. Please do not forget to express your opinion of the plugin by rating it! Donate (EUR)SkyDrive .Net API Client: SkyDrive .Net API Client 2.0.1b (RELOADED): SkyDrive .Net API Client assembly has been RELOADED in version 2.0.1b as a REAL API. It supports the followings: - Creating root and sub folders - Uploading and downloading files - Renaming and deleting folders and files Bug fixes: - BROKEN API (issue 6834) Please do not forget to express your opinion of the assembly by rating it! Donate (EUR)Mini SQL Query: Mini SQL Query v1.0.0.59794: This release includes the following enhancements: Added a Most Recently Used file list Added Row counts to the query (per tab) and table view windows Added the Command Timeout option, only valid for MSSQL for now - see options If you have no idea what this thing is make sure you check out http://pksoftware.net/MiniSqlQuery/Help/MiniSqlQueryQuickStart.docx for an introduction. PK :-]HydroDesktop - CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System Desktop Application: 1.2.591 Beta Release: 1.2.591 Beta Releasepatterns & practices: Project Silk: Project Silk Community Drop 12 - June 22, 2011: Changes from previous drop: Minor code changes. New "Introduction" chapter. New "Modularity" chapter. Updated "Architecture" chapter. Updated "Server-Side Implementation" chapter. Updated "Client Data Management and Caching" chapter. Guidance Chapters Ready for Review The Word documents for the chapters are included with the source code in addition to the CHM to help you provide feedback. The PDF is provided as a separate download for your convenience. Installation Overview To ins...DropBox Linker: DropBox Linker 1.3: Added "Get links..." dialog, that provides selective public files links copying Get links link added to tray menu as the default option Fixed URL encoding .NET Framework 4.0 Client Profile requiredDotNetNuke® Community Edition: 06.00.00 Beta: Beta 1 (Build 2300) includes many important enhancements to the user experience. The control panel has been updated for easier access to the most important features and additional forms have been adapted to the new pattern. This release also includes many bug fixes that make it more stable than previous CTP releases. Beta ForumsBlogEngine.NET: BlogEngine.NET 2.5 RC: BlogEngine.NET Hosting - Click Here! 3 Months FREE – BlogEngine.NET Hosting – Click Here! This is a Release Candidate version for BlogEngine.NET 2.5. The most current, stable version of BlogEngine.NET is version 2.0. Find out more about the BlogEngine.NET 2.5 RC here. If you want to extend or modify BlogEngine.NET, you should download the source code. To get started, be sure to check out our installation documentation. If you are upgrading from a previous version, please take a look at ...New Projects6_6_6_w_m_s_open: jwervxsdfcfcf: cfcfChairforce hackathon project: project for hackathonDot Net Nuke Ajax Modules: This is a small collection of modules I think on once in a while which intend to improve a little dnn's user experience.Gnosis Game Engine: A simple game engine for the XNA 4.0 frame work that I am working on, mostly as a learning experience. I found that XNA game engines either require you to pay or are XNA 4.0 incompatible, and so this is my solution to that problem.KA_WindowsPhone7_Samples: Sample Code for Windows Phone 7 from http://kevinashley.comKinect MIDI Controller: This tool allows you to use a Kinect Sensor as a MIDI Controller for your Digital Audio Workbench. The tool is written in C#, and uses Microsoft Kinect SDK. Mosaic Project: Mosaic is an application that brings Metro UI to your desktop by live widgets.Movie Gate: A movie database that is also able to play the movies with your favorit media player.Musical Collective: An open-source web service that enables Musicians to collaborate on songs. Written in ASP.NET MVC (C#).NcADS-MVC: Clasificados MVCPokeTD: Ein kleines 2D Pokemon Tower-Defense Spiel. Es ist in C# und XNA geschrieben.PRO-TOKOL: PRO-TOKOL Server is a Programmable Logic Controller communication driver. The project is 100% coded in .NET Managed code. So, the dll can be included in any .NET project. The project uses the Microsoft Workflow Foundation to implement the DF1 Receiver and Transmitter logic.ShumaDaf: small project for display movies info directly from file structure using mymovies.xml. program create one simple xml file and display it!Silverlight Policy Service: The windows service act as a server and listens on TCP port 943 using IPv4 and IPv6. The socket policy included in the project allows all silverlight client applications to connect to TCP ports 4502-4506.SkinObject Module Wrapper: The SkinObject Module Wrapper is a DotNetNuke module that will allow you to add any DNN SkinObject to a page dinamically as if it was a DNN Module. Without any skin modification you can now inject new SkinObjects to you pages, configure the properties and change them on the fly.SkyNet0.3: Program that one should not be able to close.Team Zero Game One: SVN for the personal project(s) of Team Zero - Game One. We are creating a free game in HTML5 canvas using the CAKE api, found here: http://code.google.com/p/cakejs/ The game is about programming a small robot to move through a maze, sneaking past guards and other obstacles, using event-based programming. We've seen a number of games that allow you to "program" a character, and thought it would be interesting to do a different take on it. The game is still in early production, and actively ...Test-Driven Scaffolding (TDS): TDS helps developers of C# function members (methods, indexers, etc.) to quickly write drivers for code under development; these can easily be converted later to NUnit tests. TDS consists of C# code that can be pasted into a new or existing project and removed when no longer needed.Usage Agent: The Usage Agent toolset is designed to help manage your ISP data usage without having to log into your ISP usage page. It can optionally monitor your network card throughput and produce reports on usage. Developed in VB.NET.

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• That Tool is cURLy

  When you just use IE, Firefox or Chrome it can be easy to forget that HTTP is about more then just going to check the latest tech news at Engadget. It is a full and rich protocol, and a great way to experience that richness is the powerful command line utility cURL. cURL has a lot of options, but the syntax starts out simple. You can retrieve the contents of a web page with a simple curl http://blogs.claritycon.com/. The results should be the full text of the web page, tags and all. From there, you can use X to specify the HTTP verb to use, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH, etc and d to specify the payload of a POST or PUT. I have found cURL to be incredibly useful for two scenarios. First, as a good way to test basic web services. Second, while working a bit with CouchDB and another document based database, cURL has helped me learn more about RESTful APIs, including different verbs and response codes. cURL is a mainstay in our environments and programming languages precisely because it is simple, powerful and discoverable. I encourage more .NET developers to take a look, bask on the command line for a while and enjoy the plain text of the web. And this excellent logo:     -- Relevant Links -- Its not always the case with manuals, but the manual for cURL is quite useful: http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manual.html To make your command line look a little nicer (and more powerful) on Windows, check out Console and add some transparency effects: http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Event handler generation in Visual Studio 2012

  - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama

  This post will be a part of Visual Studio 2012 feature series There are lots of new features there in visual studio 2012. Event handler generation is one of them. In earlier version of visual studio there was no way to create event handler from source view directly.  Now visual studio 2012 have event handler generation functionality. So if you are editing an event view in source view intellisense will display add new event handler template and once you click on it. It will create a new event handler in the cs file. It will also put a eventhandler name against event name so you don’t need to write that. So, let’s take a simple example of button click event so once I write onclick attribute their smart intellisense will pop up . Now once you click on <Create New Event> It will create event handler in .cs file like following. It will also put submitButton_Click on onClick attribute. Hope you liked it. Stay tuned for more. Till then happy programming..

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• Why is CS never a topic of conversation of the layman? [closed]

  - by hydroparadise

  Granted, every profession has it's technicalities. If you are an MD, you better know the anatomy of the human body, and if you are astronomer, you better know your calculus. Yet, you don't have to know these more advance topics to know that smoking might give you lung cancer because of carcinogens or the moon revolves around the earth because of gravity (thank you Discovery Channel). There's sort of a common knowledge (at least in more developed countries) of these more advanced topics. With that said, why are things like recursive descent parsing, BNF, or Turing machines hardly ever mentioned outsided 3000 or 4000 level classes in a university setting or between colleagues? Even back in my days before college in my pursuit of knowledge on how computers work, these very important topics (IMHO) never seem to get the light of day. Many different sources and sites go into "What is a processor?" or "What is RAM?", or "What is an OS?". You might get lucky and discover something about programming languages and how they play a role in how applications are created, but nothing about the tools for creating the language itself. To extend this idea, Dennis Ritchie died shortly after Steve Jobs, yet Dennis Ritchie got very little press compared to Steve Jobs. So, the heart of my question: Does the public in general not care to hear about computer science topics that make the technology in their lives work, or does the computer science community not lend itself to the general public to close the knowledge gap? Am I wrong to think the general public has the same thirst for knowledge on how things work as I do? Please consider the question carefully before answering or vote closing please.

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• How do 2D physics engines solve the problem of resolving collisions along tiled walls/floors in non-grid-based worlds?

  - by ssb

  I've been working on implementing my SAT algorithm which has been coming along well, but I've found that I'm at a wall when it comes to its actual use. There are plenty of questions regarding this issue on this site, but most of them either have no clear, good answer or have a solution based on checking grid positions. To restate the problem that I and many others are having, if you have a tiled surface, like a wall or a floor, consisting of several smaller component rectangles, and you traverse along them with another rectangle with force being applied into that structure, there are cases where the object gets caught on a false collision on an edge that faces the inside of the shape. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I could possibly solve this without having to resort to a grid-based system, and I realized that physics engines do this properly. What I want to know is how they do this. What do physics engines do beyond basic SAT that allows this kind of proper collision resolution in complex environments? I've been looking through the source code to Box2D trying to find out how they do it but it's not quite as easy as looking at a Collision() method. I think I'm not good enough at physics to know what they're doing mathematically and not good enough at programming to know what they're doing programmatically. This is what I aim to fix.

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• Is there a (family of) monotonically non-decreasing noise function(s)?

  - by Joe Wreschnig

  I'd like a function to animate an object moving from point A to point B over time, such that it reaches B at some fixed time, but its position at any time is randomly perturbed in a continuous fashion, but never goes backwards. The objects move along straight lines, so I only need one dimension. Mathematically, that means I'm looking for some continuous f(x), x ? [0,1], such that: f(0) = 0 f(1) = 1 x < y ? f(x) = f(y) At "most" points f(x + d) - f(x) bears no obvious relation to d. (The function is not uniformly increasing or otherwise predictable; I think that's also equivalent to saying no degree of derivative is a constant.) Ideally, I would actually like some way to have a family of these functions, providing some seed state. I'd need at least 4 bits of seed (16 possible functions), for my current use, but since that's not much feel free to provide even more. To avoid various issues with accumulation errors, I'd prefer the function not require any kind of internal state. That is, I want it to be a real function, not a programming "function".

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• How do you proactively guard against errors of omission?

  - by Gabriel

  I'll preface this with I don't know if anyone else who's been programming as long as I have actually has this problem, but at the very least, the answer might help someone with less xp. I just stared at this code for 5 minutes, thinking I was losing my mind that it didn't work: var usedNames = new HashSet<string>(); Func<string, string> l = (s) => { for (int i = 0; ; i++) { var next = (s + i).TrimEnd('0'); if (!usedNames.Contains(next)) { return next; } } }; Finally I noticed I forgot to add the used name to the hash set. Similarly, I've spent minutes upon minutes over omitting context.SaveChanges(). I think I get so distracted by the details that I'm thinking about that some really small details become invisible to me - it's almost at the level of mental block. Are there tactics to prevent this? update: a side effect of asking this was fixing the error it would have for i 9 (Thanks!) var usedNames = new HashSet<string>(); Func<string, string> name = (s) => { string result = s; if(usedNames.Contains(s)) for (int i = 1; ; result = s + i++) if (!usedNames.Contains(result)) break; usedNames.Add(result); return result; };

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• Maintaining C/C++/Java skills as a web developer

  - by wwwuser

  When I was in college I learned how to program in C, C++, and Java. Currently, I'm a web developer using front end and back end technologies (HTML/CSS/JS, PHP, MYSQL). While the sorting algorithms and OOP concepts that I learned in college can be applied to web development, I'm looking for ways to keep up my knowledge of all languages. I enjoy programming in C-Style (C/C++/Java) languages and front-end/back-end technologies. Unfortunately, there aren't many options to use C-style languages to build websites. However, I would like to keep up my knowledge and skills in the languages I learned in college as I know they will continue to help me with my growth. What resources are available to keep challenging myself in C-style languages that are relevant to web development? Would contract work for C-style languages be beneficial? Are there sites that offer algorithm challenges? Any help is appreciated. I'm also interested in how others that have asked themselves this have solved this problem.

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• Project Management Software / 1 maybe 2 developers

  - by Ominus

  I am looking for software that I can use to "manage" multiple projects (5 - 10). Here are the features I would like but any recommendation is welcome. Bug/Feature tracking on a per project basis. Some way to keep all documents, diagrams, specs, requirements, in one place with the project. Better yet a tool where all these things or most of them could be authored. Task management during the development phase with milestones and estimates/actuals. Git integration I have been doing contract work and i have been doing really well for myself as far as getting projects but its becoming VERY hard to manage everything in an efficient manner. I am trying to learn about best practices when it comes to software programming methodologies and the more I read the more i realize that I am just managing these projects poorly. I am getting things done but the more I take on the less "solid" everything is. I am afraid if I don't get some good solid tools/practices in place I am going to do my customers and myself a disservice. The problem is that there are SO many options that its hard to weed through them all. I was at a point today where I had decided that I would just code my own (there is some irony here)! Obviously everyone has their likes dislikes I would love to hear from some of you lone programmers and how you manage everything since our needs aren't exactly the same thing that a large team might need. I also want a solution that can scale to 2 maybe 3 developers if I end up hiring some people to help with my work load. Thanks again for your usual insights!

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• Series On Embedded Development (Part 3) - Runtime Optionality

  - by Darryl Mocek

  What is runtime optionality? Runtime optionality means writing and packaging your code in such a way that all of the features are available at runtime, but aren't loaded and used if the feature isn't used. The code is separate, and you can even remove the code to save persistent storage if you know the feature will not be used. In native programming terms, it's splitting your application into separate shared libraries so you only have to load what you're using, which means it only impacts volatile memory when enabled at runtime. All the functionality is there, but if it's not used at runtime, it's not loaded. A good example of this in Java is JVMTI, Java's Virtual Machine Tool Interface. On smaller, embedded platforms, these libraries may not be there. If the libraries are not there, there's no effect on the runtime as long as you don't try to use the JVMTI features. There is a trade-off between size/performance and flexibility here. Putting code in separate libraries means loading that code will take longer and it will typically take up more persistent space. However, if the code is rarely used, you can save volatile memory by including it in a separate library. You can also use this method in Java by putting rarely-used code into one or more separate JAR's. Loading a JAR and parsing it takes CPU cycles and volatile memory. Putting all of your application's code into a single JAR means more processing for that JAR. Consider putting rarely-used code in a separate library/JAR.

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• Persisting high score table in flash game without a network. (Featuring: HttpListenerException)

  - by bearcdp

  Hi everyone, this question is very programming-centric, but it's for a game so I figured I might as well post it here. I'm doing polishing work on a GGJ '11 game because it will be shown at an indie arcade tomorrow afternoon, and they're expecting our final build in the morning. We'd like to have a high score table that displays during attract mode, but since it's Flash (Flixel) it would require some networking, Mochi, or something to keep a record of these scores. Only problem is the machine we'd be running on probably won't have network access. As a quick solution, I thought I'd just write up a dinky little high score server in C#/.NET that could take basic GET requests for submitting scores and getting the score list. We're talking REAL basic, like blocking while waiting for an incoming request, run & forget console app, etc. There's no guarantee that our .swf won't get reloaded, and we'd like the scores to persist, so this server would pretty much exists to keep a safe copy of the scores that the game can add to and request, and occasionally the server will write the scores to a flat text file. But, HttpListener is giving me Error Code 87 'The parameter is incorrect.' Have any idea what I'm doing wrong? Or better yet, am I barking up the wrong tree and missing an obviously simpler solution? This is all I've got so far in my Main(): HttpListener listener = new HttpListener(); listener.Prefixes.Add("http://localhost:66666/"); listener.Start(); The exception happens at listener.Start(); and the stack trace is: at System.Net.HttpListener.AddAllPrefixes() at System.Net.HttpListener.Start() at WOSEBCE_ScoreServer.Program.Main(String[] args) in C:\Users\Michael\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\VS2010 Projects\WOSEBCE_ScoreServer\WOSEBCE_ScoreServer\Program.cs:line 24 at System.AppDomain._nExecuteAssembly(RuntimeAssembly assembly, String[] args) at System.AppDomain.ExecuteAssembly(String assemblyFile, Evidence assemblySecurity, String[] args) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.HostingProcess.HostProc.RunUsersAssembly() at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(Object state) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean ignoreSyncCtx) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state) at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

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• Mobile development, recommended computer configuration?

  - by MikaelW

  Hi, For the last 4 weeks, I have been trying to get into mobile development. Done a couple of tutorials, read some books, developed a couple of dummy Android apps. The thing is my computer is a 5 years old laptop, it is slow and time has come to replace it and I’m looking at different offers online. Have you got any recommendations? Is there any must-have that should make my developer life easier in the future? Is there anything specific that may be useful at a more advanced stage of development that I just can’t think of right now on the hardware side? (I mean apart from good proc, lots of RAM, many USB ports...) One thing I can think of is to have three OS on the same workstation: Windows, Unix and MacOS (so far I focused on android/java/eclipse but am interested in Iphone/objC/xcode as well) but that’s more on the software side. Anyway, would be grateful for any recommendations. Thanks in advance! Mikael PS: I’m quite free on the budget side of things PPS: I'm aware it's not really a programming question but will still be of interest to some programmers here.

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• Physics-perfect (or somewhere near) 3d sound engine

  - by passcod

  I'm new to game programming, although I have some years of experience in console/web development. My problem is not so much that I can't find what I'm looking for, it's just that I don't have the terminology to actually perform a successful search. I am looking for a physics engine which has great focus on sounds. In fact, I do not care at all for anything else. What I mean is better explained by an example: Suppose a 1st person type game. You are facing North, and someone somewhere around you throws a flute at you (nevermind the absurdity of the situation). The flute spins while it is on its way, making sounds through its holes. There is a wind of say, 5 knots South. I imagine a physics engine will be capable of calculating the trajectory of the flute, as well as the direction it takes after it hits. What I want is for the physics engine to calculate the precise sounds it will make, from any listener's perspective. Does any such engine exists? If there are several, which one would be best for the example above?

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• Trying to wrap my head around class structure for domain-specific language

  - by svaha

  My work is mostly in embedded systems programming in C, and the proper class structure to pull this off eludes me. Currently we communicate via C# and Visual Basic with a large collection of servos, pumps, and sensors via a USB-to-CAN hid device. Right now, it is quite cumbersome to communicate with the devices. To read the firmware version of controller number 1 you would use: SendCan(Controller,1,ReadFirmwareVersion) or SendCan(8,1,71) This sends three bytes on the CAN bus: (8,1,71) Connected to controllers are various sensors. SendCan(Controller,1,PassThroughCommand,O2Sensor,2,ReadO2) would tell Controller number 1 to pass a command to O2 Sensor number 2 to read O2 by sending the bytes 8,1,200,16,2,0 I would like to develop a domain-specific language for this setup. Instead of commands issued like they are currently, commands would be written like this: Controller1.SendCommand.O2Sensor2.ReadO2 to send the bytes 8,1,200,16,0 What's the best way to do this? Some machines have 20 O2 Sensors, others have 5 controllers, so the numbers and types of controllers and sensors, pumps, etc. aren't static.

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• getting started as a web developer [closed]

  - by kmote

  I have over 10 years of programming experience building (Windows-based) desktop applications and utilities (VC++, C#, Python). My goal over the next year is to start transitioning to web application development. I want to teach myself the fundamental tools and technologies that would be considered essential for building professional, online, interactive, visually-stunning, data-driven web apps -- the kind described in Google's recently released "Field Guide: Building Great Web Applications". So my question is, what are the primary, most commonly-used technologies that seasoned professionals will need in their tool belt in the coming years? My plan was to start coming up to speed in Javascript, HTML5, & CSS, and then to do a deep dive into ASP.NET and Ajax, along with SQL DBs. (I was surprised to not be able to find a single book at Amazon with a broad, general scope like this, which caused me to start second-guessing this approach.) So, seasoned professionals: am I on the right track? Are there some glaring omissions in my list? Or some unnecessary inclusions? I would welcome any book suggestions along these lines as well.

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