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• Ubuntu 10.04 hung on unattended apt-get upgrade?

  - by hafichuk

  I'm looking into why our ubuntu web server hung this morning and see that there was some package upgrades a few hours prior to the problem. I was able to ssh into the system and get a snapshot from top: top - 08:13:54 up 210 days, 8:25, 2 users, load average: 433.30, 422.40, 375.70 Tasks: 1192 total, 381 running, 810 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie Cpu(s): 0.5%us, 6.1%sy, 0.0%ni, 93.4%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 49549772k total, 48518392k used, 1031380k free, 960152k buffers Swap: 11595768k total, 279368k used, 11316400k free, 39355664k cached This is a 16 processor system, so I would typically expect a load in the low teens. I tried to restart apache, which didn't work, and subsequently had to do a hard reboot to get it working again (which it is). One thing I found was that the server did an unattended package update. Is it possible that upgrading php or curl (which our web sites use) might have caused apache to stop responding? Here is the snip from the unattended-upgrades.log from this morning: 2012-09-18 06:48:30,076 INFO Initial blacklisted packages: 2012-09-18 06:48:30,076 INFO Starting unattended upgrades script 2012-09-18 06:48:30,077 INFO Allowed origins are: ["['Ubuntu', 'lucid-security']"] 2012-09-18 06:49:37,017 INFO Packages that are upgraded: gnupg-curl php5-dev linux-server dhcp3-common linux-libc-dev php5-curl gpgv gnupg linux-headers-server linux-image-server php5 php5-mysql php-pear php5-cli php5-common libapache2-mod-php5 dhcp3-client 2012-09-18 06:49:37,018 INFO Writing dpkg log to '/var/log/unattended-upgrades/unattended-upgrades-dpkg_2012-09-18_06:49:37.017909.log'

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• What are the options for retraining formally as a software engineer?

  - by Matt Harrison

  I'm a self-taught programmer. I have a good undergraduate degree in Architecture (building, not software). I was always a science/maths kid and got consistency good grades in these subjects. However I became indecisive at undergraduate level and switched between Physics, Chemistry, Art and finally stuck with Architecture mainly out of the desperate need to finish any degree. As soon as I graduated, I ditched architecture and started writing code again professionally. I've been a programmer now for 3 years and I've progressed very quickly. I'm ambitious and I want to work for the top companies in this field at some point and I've realised I need a Computer Science education to be taken seriously (based on job ads for the big tech firms). I've applied for a few MSc programs in Computer Science but they've all rejected me because of my BA. It's just not an option for me to quit my job and go back and do another 3 year undergraduate degree in CS. I know I can study at this level because I've read most of the books on the reading lists for CS courses in the UK that I can find and I have this knowledge now, it's just I can't prove it on an application form. What options are available to me?

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• Fiction that includes BASIC programs [closed]

  - by Clinton Blackmore

  Back in what must've been the mid-80s, when every microcomputer included BASIC and Choose Your Own Adventure Books were really popular, there were some novels that had BASIC programs listed in the text, for you to type in and further enjoy. For example, as I recall, in one of these books, the adventurers were infiltrating an undersea base (and eventually wiped the bad guy's data storage [I do believe it was a hard drive, even though they were uncommon then]). One of the programs involved a game were you piloted a submarine and had to avoid or shoot sharks. The code was in BASIC; minor changes (such as 'CLS' - 'HOME') had to be made for your specific computer, and it used good old 40-column text-mode to display the action. IIRC, the plot never depended upon the programs. My question is, does anyone else recall these sorts of books? Do you know any titles that I could look for, or of any online? I am toying with the idea of writing a story like this (no, not in BASIC!), and would really like to see how it was done, back in the day.

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• Object oriented wrapper around a dll

  - by Tom Davies

  So, I'm writing a C# managed wrapper around a native dll. The dll contains several hundred functions. In most cases, the first argument to each function is an opaque handle to a type internal to the dll. So, an obvious starting point for defining some classes in the wrapper would be to define classes corresponding to each of these opaque types, with each instance holding and managing the opaque handle (passed to its constructor) Things are a little awkward when dealing with callbacks from the dll. Naturally, the callback handlers in my wrapper have to be static, but the callbacks arguments invariable contain an opaque handle. In order to get from the static callback back to an object instance, I've created a static dictionary in each class, associating handles with class instances. In the constructor of each class, an entry is put into the dictionary, and this entry is then removed in the Destructors. When I receive a callback, I can then consult the dictionary to retrieve the class instance corresponding to the opaque reference. Are there any obvious flaws to this? Something that seems to be a problem is that the existence static dictionary means that the garbage collector will not act on my class instances that are otherwise unreachable. As they are never garbage collected, they never get removed from the dictionary, so the dictionary grows. It seems I might have to manually dispose of my objects, which is something absolutely would like to avoid. Can anyone suggest a good design that allows me to avoid having to do this?

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• What did Rich Hickey mean when he said, "All that specificity [of interfaces/classes/types] kills your reuse!"

  - by GlenPeterson

  In Rich Hickey's thought-provoking goto conference keynote "The Value of Values" at 29 minutes he's talking about the overhead of a language like Java and makes a statement like, "All those interfaces kill your reuse." What does he mean? Is that true? In my search for answers, I have run across: The Principle of Least Knowledge AKA The Law of Demeter which encourages airtight API interfaces. Wikipedia also lists some disadvantages. Kevlin Henney's Imperial Clothing Crisis which argues that use, not reuse is the appropriate goal. Jack Diederich's "Stop Writing Classes" talk which argues against over-engineering in general. Clearly, anything written badly enough will be useless. But how would the interface of a well-written API prevent that code from being used? There are examples throughout history of something made for one purpose being used more for something else. But in the software world, if you use something for a purpose it wasn't intended for, it usually breaks. I'm looking for one good example of a good interface preventing a legitimate but unintended use of some code. Does that exist? I can't picture it.

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• Better solution for boolean mixing?

  - by Ruben Nunez

  Sorry if this question has been asked in the past, but searching Google and here didn't yield relevant results, so here goes. I'm working on a fragment shader that implements both conditional/boolean diffuse and bump mapping (that is to say, you don't need a diffuse texture or a normals texture, and if they're not present, they're simply changed to default values). My current solution is to use a uniform float to say "mix amount". For example, computing the diffuse texel works as: // Compute diffuse amount scaled by vCol // If no texture is present (mDif = 0.0), then DiffuseTexel = vCol // kT[0] is the diffuse texture // vTex is the texture co-ordinates // mDif is the uniform float containing the mix amount (either 0.0 or 1.0) vec4 DiffuseTexel = vCol*mix(vec4(1.0), texture2D(kT[0], vTex), mDif); While that works great and all, I was wondering if there's a better way of doing this, as I will never have any use for in-between values for funky effects. I know that perhaps the best solution is to simply write separate shaders for mDif=0.0 and mDif=1.0, but I'd like a more elegant solution than splicing shaders before compiling or writing multiple shader files and keeping each one updated. Any ideas are greatly appreciated. =)

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• How to get started in coding for JBoss

  - by Mister IT Guru

  I have an idea on how to revamp our internal application, after having accessed the needs of the users, addressing thier current issues, and the like. But I am not a coder. My last application I wrote was in college, in C, (java wasn't invented-ish!) and it was a booking system, with the option to add on other modules, blah blah. I got an A, but I became a system administrator instead, more intrested in designing and maintainend networks and infrastructure, but with the advent of virtualisation, and linux management tools such as puppet I can now manage infrastructure in my sleep! Now I want to write code - to put on my infastructure, and I want to build .... a booking system! This is just to get experience, but I am at a loss as to where to start. Setting up the environment, will take me about a day. Writing the spec, even how I want it to work, I already know, but as for actually coding in a decent manner, I can only guess. If anyone can recommend a book, website, blog, twitter person to follow, or just advice on how to build a kick butt basic jboss app, then please, "I AM READY TO LEARN" :)

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• What are my choices for server side sandboxed scripting?

  - by alfa64

  I'm building a public website where users share data and scripts to run over some data. The scripts are run serverside in some sort of sandbox without other interaction this cycle: my Perl program reads from a database a User made script, adds the data to be processed into the script ( ie: a JSON document) then calls the interpreter, it returns the response( a JSON document or plain text), i save it to the database with my perl script. The script should be able to have some access to built in functions added to the scripting language by myself, but nothing more. So i've stumbled upon node.js as a javascript interpreter, and and hour or so ago with Google's V8(does v8 makes sense for this kind of thing?). CoffeeScript also came to my mind, since it looks nice and it's still Javascript. I think javascript is widespread enough and more "sandboxeable" since it doesn't have OS calls or anything remotely insecure ( i think ). by the way, i'm writing the system on Perl and Php for the front end. To improve the question: I'm choosing Javascript because i think is secure and simple enough to implement with node.js, but what other alternatives are for achieving this kind of task? Lua? Python? I just can't find information on how to run a sandboxed interpreter in a proper way.

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• Are long methods always bad?

  - by wobbily_col

  So looking around earlier I noticed some comments about long methods being bad practice. I am not sure I always agree that long methods are bad (and would like opinions from others). For example I have some Django views that do a bit of processing of the objects before sending them to the view, a long method being 350 lines of code. I have my code written so that it deals with the paramaters - sorting / filtering the queryset, then bit by bit does some processing on the objects my query has returned. So the processing is mainly conditional aggregation, that has complex enough rules it can't easily be done in the database, so I have some variables declared outside the main loop then get altered during the loop. varaible_1 = 0 variable_2 = 0 for object in queryset : if object.condition_condition_a and variable_2 > 0 : variable 1+= 1 ..... ... . more conditions to alter the variables return queryset, and context So according to the theory I should factor out all the code into smaller methods, so That I have the view method as being maximum one page long. However having worked on various code bases in the past, I sometimes find it makes the code less readable, when you need to constantly jump from one method to the next figuring out all the parts of it, while keeping the outermost method in your head. I find that having a long method that is well formatted, you can see the logic more easily, as it isn't getting hidden away in inner methods. I could factor out the code into smaller methods, but often there is is an inner loop being used for two or three things, so it would result in more complex code, or methods that don't do one thing but two or three (alternatively I could repeat inner loops for each task, but then there will be a performance hit). So is there a case that long methods are not always bad? Is there always a case for writing methods, when they will only be used in one place?

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• Am I programming too slow?

  - by Jonn

  I've only been a year in the industry and I've had some problems making estimates for specific tasks. Before you close this, yes, I've already read this: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/648/how-to-respond-when-you-are-asked-for-an-estimate and that's about the same problem I'm having. But I'm looking for a more specific gauge of experiences, something quantifiable or probably other programmer's average performances which I should aim for and base my estimates. The answers range from weeks, and I was looking more for an answer on the level of a task assigned for a day or so. (Note that this doesn't include submitting for QA or documentations, just the actual development time from writing tests if I used TDD, to making the page, before having it submitted to testing) My current rate right now is as follows (on ASP.NET webforms): Right now, I'm able to develop a simple data entry page with a grid listing (no complex logic, just Creating and Reading) on an already built architecture, given one full day's (8 hours) time. Adding complex functionality, and Update and Delete pages add another full day to the task. If I have to start the page from scratch (no solution, no existing website) it takes me another full day. (Not always) but if I encounter something new or haven't done yet it takes me another full day. Whenever I make an estimate that's longer than the expected I feel that others think that I'm lagging a lot behind everyone else. I'm just concerned as there have been expectations that when it's just one page it should take me no more than a full day. Yes, there definitely is more room for improvement. There always is. I have a lot to learn. But I would like to know if my current rate is way too slow, just average, or average for someone no longer than a year in the industry.

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• Overloading methods that do logically different things, does this break any major principles?

  - by siva.k

  This is something that's been bugging me for a bit now. In some cases you see code that is a series of overloads, but when you look at the actual implementation you realize they do logically different things. However writing them as overloads allows the caller to ignore this and get the same end result. But would it be more sound to name the methods more explicitly then to write them as overloads? public void LoadWords(string filePath) { var lines = File.ReadAllLines(filePath).ToList(); LoadWords(lines); } public void LoadWords(IEnumerable<string> words) { // loads words into a List<string> based on some filters } Would these methods better serve future developers to be named as LoadWordsFromFile() and LoadWordsFromEnumerable()? It seems unnecessary to me, but if that is better what programming principle would apply here? On the flip side it'd make it so you didn't need to read the signatures to see exactly how you can load the words, which as Uncle Bob says would be a double take. But in general is this type of overloading to be avoided then?

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• How do I parse a header with two different version [ID3] avoiding code duplication?

  - by user66141

  I really hope you can give me some interesting viewpoints for my situation, because I am not satisfied with my current approach. I am writing an MP3 parser, starting with an ID3v2 parser. Right now I`m working on the extended header parsing, my issue is that the optional header is defined differently in version 2.3 and 2.4 of the tag. The 2.3 version optional header is defined as follows: struct ID3_3_EXTENDED_HEADER{ DWORD dwExtHeaderSize; //Extended header size (either 6 or 8 bytes , excluded) WORD wExtFlags; //Extended header flags DWORD dwSizeOfPadding; //Size of padding (size of the tag excluding the frames and headers) }; While the 2.4 version is defined : struct ID3_4_EXTENDED_HEADER{ DWORD dwExtHeaderSize; //Extended header size (synchsafe int) BYTE bNumberOfFlagBytes; //Number of flag bytes BYTE bFlags; //Flags }; How could I parse the header while minimizing code duplication? Using two different functions to parse each version sounds less great, using a single function with a different flow for each occasion is similar, any good practices for this kind of issues ? Any tips for avoiding code duplication? Any help would be appreciated.

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• Why is rvalue write in shared memory array serialised?

  - by CJM

  I'm using CUDA 4.0 on a GPU with computing capability 2.1. One of my device functions is the following: device void test(int n, int* itemp) // itemp is shared memory pointer { const int tid = threadIdx.x; const int bdim = blockDim.x; int i, j, k; bool flag = 0; itemp[tid] = 0; for(i=tid; i<n; i+=bdim) { // { code that produces some values of "flag" } } itemp[tid] = flag; } Each thread is checking some conditions and producing a 0/1 flag. Then each thread is writing flag at the tid-th location of a shared int array. The write statement "itemp[tid] = flag;" gets serialized -- though "itemp[tid] = 0;" is not. This is causing huge performance lag which technically should not be there -- I want to avoid it. Please help.

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• SharePoint Development: Making that application pool recycle less annoying

  - by Sahil Malik

  SharePoint 2010 Training: more information If you’re like me, you’re easily distracted. What was I talking about again? Oh yes! See, whenever I am writing a farm solution that requires an application pool recycle, I hit CTRL_SHIFT_B to deploy (how to remap CTRL_SHIFT_B to deploy?).Now, I have what, a good 15-20 seconds to goof off and check my gmail/facebook/twitter/IM conversations, right? Sure .. 30 minutes later .. my application pool has died and recycled 3 times on it’s own. Hmm. Clearly, this was becoming a serious issue. So what am I supposed to do here? Well, worry not! Here is what you need to do, Right click\Properties on your SharePoint project, and look for the “SharePoint” tab. Look for post-deployment command line, and add the following post-deployment command line. (Be careful, copy paste exactly as is).   Read full article ....

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• OAuth2 vs Public API

  - by Adam Tannon

  My understanding of OAuth (2.0) is that its a software stack and protocol to allow 2+ web apps to share information about a single end user. User A is a member of Site B and Site C; Site B wants to fetch some data from Site C about User A, and this is where OAuth steps in. So first off, if this assessment is incorrect, please begin by clarifying this for me and correcting me! Assuming I'm on the right track, then I guess I'm not seeing the need for OAuth to begin with (!). I'm sure I'm just not seeing the "forest through the trees" here, but the way I see it, couldn't Site C just expose a public API that Site B could use to fetch the same data (sans OAuth)? If Site C required user credentials to access the data, could this public API just use HTTPS for secure transport and require username/password as a part of each API call? Again, I'm sure I'm missing something, but I'm just not understanding why I would need OAuth when a secure, public API written and exposed by Site C seems more than capable of delivering what Site B needs regarding User A. In general, I'm looking for a set of guidelines to go by when deciding to choose between using OAuth for my web apps or just writing my own web service ( exposing public API). Thanks in advance!

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• Turn Based Event Algorithm

  - by GamersIncoming

  I'm currently working on a small roguelike in XNA, which sees the player in a randomly generated series of dungeons fending off creeps, as you might expect. As with most roguelikes, the player makes a move, and then each of the creeps currently active on screen will make a move in turns, until all creeps have updated, and it return's to the player's go. On paper, the simple algorithm is straightforward: Player takes turn Turn Number increments For each active creep, update Position Once all active creeps have updated, allow player to take next turn However, when it comes to actually writing this in more detail, the concept becomes a bit more tricky for me. So my question comes as this: what is the best way to handle events taking turns to trigger, where the completion of each last event triggers the next, when dealing with a large number of creeps (probably stored as an array of an enemy object), and is there an easier way to create some kind of engine that just takes all objects that need updating and chains them together so their updates follow suit? I'm not asking for code, just algorithms and theory in the direction of objects triggering updates one after the other, in a turn based manner. Thanks in advance. Edited: Here's the code I currently have that is horrible :/ if (player.getTurnOver() && updateWait == 0) { if (creep[creepToUpdate].getActive()) { creep[creepToUpdate].moveObject(player, map1); updateWait = 10; } if (creepToUpdate < creep.Length -1) { creepToUpdate++; } else { creepToUpdate = 0; player.setTurnOver(false); } } if (updateWait > 0) { updateWait--; }

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• Retrofit WebForms with ASP.NET MVC - NoVa Code Camp 2010.2 Demo

  - by Soe Tun

  Thank you to everyone who attended my Retrofit WebForms with ASP.NET MVC session at NoVa Code 2010.2. It was a fun event for me and I hope you had a great time and learned something from it. I wish I had more time to go over some more important topics in more detail. I *promise* I will be writing blog post series about it since I'll have some vacation time during the December holidays to cover some topics that I didn't get to cover in detail.   Please note that the ".bak" file included in the zip file is a SQL Server Database backup file. You have to restore it on your Database server to run it with the source code demo.   Please feel free to ask me about the demo project through Twitter or from this blog post. I'll be glad to help you out. If you want me to give this presentation at your .NET User Group, please let me know and I'll be honored to speak there also.   Again, thank you all and have a great holiday season. Here is the download link to my Demo project Zip file with the PowerPoint presentation in it. Please let me know if the link doesn't work.

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• Deciding on a company-wide javascript strategy [on hold]

  - by drogon

  Our company is moving most of its software from thick-client winforms apps to web apps. We are using asp.net mvc on the server side. Most of the developers are brand new to the web and need to become efficient and knowledgeable at writing client-side web code (javascript). We are deciding on a number of things and would appreciate feedback on the following: Angular.js or Backbone.js? Backbone (w/ Underscore) is certainly more light weight, but requires more custom development. Angular seems to be a full-fledged framework, but would require everyone to embrace it and probably a longer learning curve(??). (Note: I know nothing about Angular at this point) Require.js or script includes w/ MVC bundleconfig? Require.js makes development "feel like" c# (importing namespaces). But, integrating the build/minification process can be a pain (especially the configuration). Bundling via mvc requires developers to worry more about which scripts to include but has less overall development friction. Typescript vs Javascript Regardless of frameworks, our developers are going to need to learn the basics. Typescript is more like c# and MAY be easier for c# developers to understand. However, learning TypeScript before javascript may hinder their mastery of javascript at the expense of efficiency.

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• What's wrong with cplusplus.com?

  - by Kerrek SB

  This is perhaps not a perfectly suitable forum for this question, but let me give it a shot, at the risk of being moved away. There are several references for the C++ standard library, including the invaluable ISO standard, MSDN, IBM, cppreference, and cplusplus. Personally, when writing C++ I need a reference that has quick random access, short load times and usage examples, and I've been finding cplusplus.com pretty useful. However, I've been hearing negative opinions about that website frequently here on SO, so I would like to get specific: What are the errors, misconceptions or bad pieces of advice given by cplusplus.com? What are the risks of using it to make coding decisions? Let me add this point: I want to be able to answer questions here on SO with accurate quotes of the standard, and thus I would like to post immediately-usable links, and cplusplus.com would have been my choice site were it not for this issue. Update: There have been many great responses, and I have seriously changed my view on cplusplus.com. I'd like to list a few choice results here; feel free to suggest more (and keep posting answers). As of June 29, 2011: Incorrect description of some algorithms (e.g. remove). Information about the behaviour of functions is sometimes incorrect (atoi), fails to mention special cases (strncpy), or omits vital information (iterator invalidation). Examples contain deprecated code (#include style). Inexact terminology is doing a disservice to learners and the general community ("STL", "compiler" vs "toolchain"). Incorrect and misleading description of the typeid keyword.

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• I'm applying for a position at a startup. To whom should I address my cover letter?

  - by sapphiremirage

  One of the co-founders answered questions about the company when the job was posted, but I feel like I shouldn't assume that he's the one who is in charge of hiring. Since it's relatively new and has a lot of name overlap with other things already on the web, it's hard to find any information about the company online, much less the name of their hiring manager. I'm not even certain that they do have a hiring manager, since I seem to remember that they are just an 8 person team. I've heard that "To whom it may concern" is tacky, and normally I would say something along the lines of "Dear Head of Human Resources", but that clearly doesn't work in this case. Any idea what my salutation should be? Later Edits: Final Version: To Joe Programmer and/or the AwesomeStartup.com hiring team, (+ a few words in first paragraph explaining why I am addressing Joe Programmer) I've already sent the email, so nothing you say here will save me. However, feel free to comment on my decision if you think your words be useful to future generations. Old Version (left here because some people responded to it): To the hiring manager for internships at Awesomestartup.com, Additionally, because so many people made comments about the content of my letter: I did spent several hours writing the cover letter itself and making sure that it was awesome. After spending such a long time working on the important part, I asked this question because I wanted to make sure that it wouldn't get passed over by some human who was having a bad day and decided that my salutation was inappropriate. Not likely when the most likely reader of that email is a programmer type, I know, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt not to be sloppy.

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• Most suited technology for browser games?

  - by Tingle

  I was thinking about making a 2D MMO which I would in the long run support on various plattforms like desktop, mac, browser, android and ios. The server will be c++/linux based and the first client would go in the browser. So I have done some research and found that webgl and flash 11 support hardware accelerated rendering, I saw some other things like normal HTML5 painting. So my question is, which technology should I use for such a project? My main goal would be that the users have a hassle free experience using what there hardware can give them with hardware acceleration. And the client should work on the most basic out-of-the-box pc's that any casual pc or mac user has. And another criteria would be that it should be developer friendly. I've messed with webgl abit for example and that would require writing a engine from scratch - which is acceptable but not preferred. Also, in case of non-actionscript, which kind language is most prefered in terms of speed and flexability. I'm not to fond of javascript due to the garbage collector but have learned to work around it. Thank you for you time.

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• How to decide how backward-compatible my new Mac OS X application should be?

  - by haimg

  I'm currently contemplating writing an OS X version of my Windows software. My Windows application still supports Windows XP, and I know that if I drop support for it now, our customers will cry bloody murder. I'm new to OS X development, and as I learn the technology, APIs, etc., I realized that if I'm going to provide comparable level of backward compatibility (e.g. down to OS X 10.5), I would not be able to use many things that look very useful and relevant in my case (ARC, XPC communications, many others). This is quite different from Windows, in my opinion, where there are very little changed between Windows XP and Windows 7 from desktop application developer's standpoint. So, on one hand, it seems like a complete waste to stick to 2007 or 2009-level API in 2012. On the other hand, according to NetMarketShare report and Stat Owl report Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 market share is still 11% and 35%-40% respectively. However, I'm not sure if these older OS users are my target audience (buyers of software utilities) if they didn't bother to upgrade their OS... My question: Are there any other reasons I should take into account when deciding if I target 10.5 or 10.6 or 10.7 for a new application?

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• Companies and Ships

  - by TechnicalWriting

  I have worked for small, medium, large, and extra large companies and they have something in common with ships. These metaphors have been used before, I know, but I will have a go at them.The small company is like a speed boat, exciting and fast, and can turn on a dime, literally. Captain and crew share a lot of the work. A speed boat has a short range and needs to refuel a lot. It has difficulty getting through bad weather. (Small companies often live quarter to quarter. By the way, if a larger company is living quarter to quarter, it is taking on water.)The medium company is is like a battleship. It can maneuver, has a longer range, and the crew is focused on its mission. Its main concern are the other battleships trying to blow it out of the water, but it can respond quickly. Bad weather can jostle it, but it can get through most storms.The large company is like an aircraft carrier; a floating city. It is well-provisioned and can carry a specialized load for a very long range. Because of its size and complexity, it has to be well-organized to be effective and most of its functions are specialized (with little to no functional cross-over). There are many divisions and layers between Captain and crew. It is not very maneuverable; it has to set its course well in advance and have a plan of action.The extra large company is like a cruise liner. It also has to be well-organized and changes in direction are often slow. Some of the people are hard at work behind the scenes to run the ship; others can be along for the ride. They sail the same routes over and over again (often happily) with the occasional cosmetic face-lift to the ship and entertainment. It should stay in warm, friendly waters and avoid risky speed through fields of ice bergs.I have enjoyed my career on the various Ships of Technical Writing, but I get the most of my juice from the battleship where I am closer to the campaign and my contributions have the greater impact on success.Mark Metcalfewww.linkedin.com/in/MarkMetcalfe

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• new email alias for ASK ADR

  - by user12842161

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• Explaining Asteroids Movement code

  - by Moaz ELdeen

  I'm writing an Asteroids Atari clone, and I want to figure out how the AI for the asteroids is done. I have came across that piece of code, but I can't get what it does 100% if ((float)rand()/(float)RAND_MAX < 0.5) { m_Pos.x = -app::getWindowWidth() / 2; if ((float)rand()/(float)RAND_MAX < 0.5) m_Pos.x = app::getWindowWidth() / 2; m_Pos.y = (int) ((float)rand()/(float)RAND_MAX * app::getWindowWidth()); } else { m_Pos.x = (int) ((float)rand()/(float)RAND_MAX * app::getWindowWidth()); m_Pos.y = -app::getWindowHeight() / 2; if (rand() < 0.5) m_Pos.y = app::getWindowHeight() / 2; } m_Vel.x = (float)rand()/(float)RAND_MAX * 2; if ((float)rand()/(float)RAND_MAX < 0.5) { m_Vel.x = -m_Vel.x; } m_Vel.y =(float)rand()/(float)RAND_MAX * 2; if ((float)rand()/(float)RAND_MAX < 0.5) m_Vel.y = -m_Vel.y;

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