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• Suitable SDK to develop quick game?

  - by gRnt

  I'm currently undertaking a personal project at home that I need to turn around inside the next few months (which working full time and still learning programming makes it a tad difficult). I'm looking for suggestions on SDK's or tools (preferably free or that come with games, similar to steam tools) that I can use to develop a "game". I'm OK with coding but have no 3D development skills at all. I've very little experience with mod tools or SDK's at all but I'm hoping someone can point me in the direction of one that does the following: A decent library of prefab 3D models to build scenes. Ability to add scripting to the scene I've used Unity before and would prefer to continue to do so however I really have the worst 3D skills imaginable and can't waste time learning them. I'd be looking for pre-fab items that are both industrial and possibly more lush environments (trees etc). If it makes any difference (due to licencing and what-not) I WILL NOT be selling this game or marketing it in any way and I am a University Student if any places do educations licences. Another alternative would be to source free 3d models elsewhere but again while I'm still learning I have no idea where to look if someone could point me in the right direction I'll do the rest of the digging. Thanks

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• Changes to the LINQ-to-StreamInsight Dialect

  - by Roman Schindlauer

  In previous versions of StreamInsight (1.0 through 2.0), CepStream<> represents temporal streams of many varieties: Streams with ‘open’ inputs (e.g., those defined and composed over CepStream<T>.Create(string streamName) Streams with ‘partially bound’ inputs (e.g., those defined and composed over CepStream<T>.Create(Type adapterFactory, …)) Streams with fully bound inputs (e.g., those defined and composed over To*Stream – sequences or DQC) The stream may be embedded (where Server.Create is used) The stream may be remote (where Server.Connect is used) When adding support for new programming primitives in StreamInsight 2.1, we faced a choice: Add a fourth variety (use CepStream<> to represent streams that are bound the new programming model constructs), or introduce a separate type that represents temporal streams in the new user model. We opted for the latter. Introducing a new type has the effect of reducing the number of (confusing) runtime failures due to inappropriate uses of CepStream<> instances in the incorrect context. The new types are: IStreamable<>, which logically represents a temporal stream. IQStreamable<> : IStreamable<>, which represents a queryable temporal stream. Its relationship to IStreamable<> is analogous to the relationship of IQueryable<> to IEnumerable<>. The developer can compose temporal queries over remote stream sources using this type. The syntax of temporal queries composed over IQStreamable<> is mostly consistent with the syntax of our existing CepStream<>-based LINQ provider. However, we have taken the opportunity to refine certain aspects of the language surface. Differences are outlined below. Because 2.1 introduces new types to represent temporal queries, the changes outlined in this post do no impact existing StreamInsight applications using the existing types! SelectMany StreamInsight does not support the SelectMany operator in its usual form (which is analogous to SQL’s “CROSS APPLY” operator): static IEnumerable<R> SelectMany<T, R>(this IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, IEnumerable<R>> collectionSelector) It instead uses SelectMany as a convenient syntactic representation of an inner join. The parameter to the selector function is thus unavailable. Because the parameter isn’t supported, its type in StreamInsight 1.0 – 2.0 wasn’t carefully scrutinized. Unfortunately, the type chosen for the parameter is nonsensical to LINQ programmers: static CepStream<R> SelectMany<T, R>(this CepStream<T> source, Expression<Func<CepStream<T>, CepStream<R>>> streamSelector) Using Unit as the type for the parameter accurately reflects the StreamInsight’s capabilities: static IQStreamable<R> SelectMany<T, R>(this IQStreamable<T> source, Expression<Func<Unit, IQStreamable<R>>> streamSelector) For queries that succeed – that is, queries that do not reference the stream selector parameter – there is no difference between the code written for the two overloads: from x in xs from y in ys select f(x, y) Top-K The Take operator used in StreamInsight causes confusion for LINQ programmers because it is applied to the (unbounded) stream rather than the (bounded) window, suggesting that the query as a whole will return k rows: (from win in xs.SnapshotWindow() from x in win orderby x.A select x.B).Take(k) The use of SelectMany is also unfortunate in this context because it implies the availability of the window parameter within the remainder of the comprehension. The following compiles but fails at runtime: (from win in xs.SnapshotWindow() from x in win orderby x.A select win).Take(k) The Take operator in 2.1 is applied to the window rather than the stream: Before After (from win in xs.SnapshotWindow() from x in win orderby x.A select x.B).Take(k) from win in xs.SnapshotWindow() from b in     (from x in win     orderby x.A     select x.B).Take(k) select b Multicast We are introducing an explicit multicast operator in order to preserve expression identity, which is important given the semantics about moving code to and from StreamInsight. This also better matches existing LINQ dialects, such as Reactive. This pattern enables expressing multicasting in two ways: Implicit Explicit var ys = from x in xs          where x.A > 1          select x; var zs = from y1 in ys          from y2 in ys.ShiftEventTime(_ => TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1))          select y1 + y2; var ys = from x in xs          where x.A > 1          select x; var zs = ys.Multicast(ys1 =>     from y1 in ys1     from y2 in ys1.ShiftEventTime(_ => TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1))     select y1 + y2; Notice the product translates an expression using implicit multicast into an expression using the explicit multicast operator. The user does not see this translation. Default window policies Only default window policies are supported in the new surface. Other policies can be simulated by using AlterEventLifetime. Before After xs.SnapshotWindow(     WindowInputPolicy.ClipToWindow,     SnapshotWindowInputPolicy.Clip) xs.SnapshotWindow() xs.TumblingWindow(     TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1),     HoppingWindowOutputPolicy.PointAlignToWindowEnd) xs.TumblingWindow(     TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1)) xs.TumblingWindow(     TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1),     HoppingWindowOutputPolicy.ClipToWindowEnd) Not supported … LeftAntiJoin Representation of LASJ as a correlated sub-query in the LINQ surface is problematic as the StreamInsight engine does not support correlated sub-queries (see discussion of SelectMany). The current syntax requires the introduction of an otherwise unsupported ‘IsEmpty()’ operator. As a result, the pattern is not discoverable and implies capabilities not present in the server. The direct representation of LASJ is used instead: Before After from x in xs where     (from y in ys     where x.A > y.B     select y).IsEmpty() select x xs.LeftAntiJoin(ys, (x, y) => x.A > y.B) from x in xs where     (from y in ys     where x.A == y.B     select y).IsEmpty() select x xs.LeftAntiJoin(ys, x => x.A, y => y.B) ApplyWithUnion The ApplyWithUnion methods have been deprecated since their signatures are redundant given the standard SelectMany overloads: Before After xs.GroupBy(x => x.A).ApplyWithUnion(gs => from win in gs.SnapshotWindow() select win.Count()) xs.GroupBy(x => x.A).SelectMany(     gs =>     from win in gs.SnapshotWindow()     select win.Count()) xs.GroupBy(x => x.A).ApplyWithUnion(gs => from win in gs.SnapshotWindow() select win.Count(), r => new { r.Key, Count = r.Payload }) from x in xs group x by x.A into gs from win in gs.SnapshotWindow() select new { gs.Key, Count = win.Count() } Alternate UDO syntax The representation of UDOs in the StreamInsight LINQ dialect confuses cardinalities. Based on the semantics of user-defined operators in StreamInsight, one would expect to construct queries in the following form: from win in xs.SnapshotWindow() from y in MyUdo(win) select y Instead, the UDO proxy method is referenced within a projection, and the (many) results returned by the user code are automatically flattened into a stream: from win in xs.SnapshotWindow() select MyUdo(win) The “many-or-one” confusion is exemplified by the following example that compiles but fails at runtime: from win in xs.SnapshotWindow() select MyUdo(win) + win.Count() The above query must fail because the UDO is in fact returning many values per window while the count aggregate is returning one. Original syntax New alternate syntax from win in xs.SnapshotWindow() select win.UdoProxy(1) from win in xs.SnapshotWindow() from y in win.UserDefinedOperator(() => new Udo(1)) select y -or- from win in xs.SnapshotWindow() from y in win.UdoMacro(1) select y Notice that this formulation also sidesteps the dynamic type pitfalls of the existing “proxy method” approach to UDOs, in which the type of the UDO implementation (TInput, TOuput) and the type of its constructor arguments (TConfig) need to align in a precise and non-obvious way with the argument and return types for the corresponding proxy method. UDSO syntax UDSO currently leverages the DataContractSerializer to clone initial state for logical instances of the user operator. Initial state will instead be described by an expression in the new LINQ surface. Before After xs.Scan(new Udso()) xs.Scan(() => new Udso()) Name changes ShiftEventTime => AlterEventStartTime: The alter event lifetime overload taking a new start time value has been renamed. CountByStartTimeWindow => CountWindow

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• Long term plan of attack to learn math?

  - by zhenka

  I am a web-developer with a desire to expand my skill-set to mathematics relevant to programming. As 2nd career, I am stuck in college doing some of the requirements while working. I was hoping the my education will teach me the needed skills to apply math, however I am quickly finding it to be too much easily-testable breadth-based approach very inefficient for the time invested. For example in my calculus 2 class, the only remotely useful mind expanding experience I had was volumes and areas under the curve. The rest was just monotonous glorified algebra, which while comes easy to me, could be done by software like wolfram alpha within seconds. This is not my idea of learning math. So here I am a frustrated student looking for a way to improve my understanding of math in a way that focuses on application, understanding and maximally removed needless tedium. However I cannot find a good long term study strategy with this approach in mind. So for those of like mind, how would you go about learning the necessary math without worrying too much about stuff a computer can do much better?

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• Whats the greatest most impressive programing feat you ever witnessed? [closed]

  - by David Reis

  Everyone knows of the old adage that the best programmers can be orders of magnitude better than the average. I've personally seen good code and programmers, but never something so absurd. So the questions is, what is the most impressive feat of programming you ever witnessed or heard of? You can define impressive by: The scope of the task at hand e.g. John single handedly developed the framework for his company, a work comparable in scope to what the other 200 employed were doing combined. Speed e.g. Stu programmed an entire real time multi-tasking app OS on an weekened including its own C compiler and shell command line tools Complexity e.g. Jane rearchitected our entire 10 millon LOC app to work in a cluster of servers. And she did it in an afternoon. Quality e.g. Charles's code had a rate of defects per LOC 100 times lesser than the company average. Furthermore he code was clean and understandable by all. Obviously, the more of these characteristics combined, and the more extreme each of them, the more impressive is the feat. So, let me have it. What's the most absurd feat you can recount? Please provide as much detail as possible and try to avoid urban legends or exaggerations. Post only what you can actually vouch for. Bonus questions: Was the herculean task a one-of, or did the individual regularly amazed people? How do you explain such impressive performance? How was the programmer recognized for such awesome work?

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• How to show or direct a business analyst to a data modelling subject?

  - by AaronLS

  Our business analysts pushed hard to collect data through a spreadsheet. I am the programmer responsible for importing that data. Usually when they push hard for something like this, I never know how well it will work out until a few weeks later when I have time assigned to work on the task of programming the import of the data. I have tried to do as much as possible along the way, named ranges, data validations, etc. But I usually don't have time to take a detailed look at all the data and compare to the destination in the database to determine how well it matches up. A lot of times there will be maybe a little table of items that somehow I have to relate to something else in the database, but there are not natural or business keys present that would allow me to do so. Make the best of this, trying to write something that can compare strings and make a best guess at it and then go through the effort of creating interfaces for a user to match the imported data to the destination. I feel like if the business analyst was actually creating a data model, they would be forced to think about these relationships, and have an appreciation for the need of natural or business keys to be part of the spreadsheet for the purposes of smoothly importing the data. The closest they come to business analysis is a big flat list of fields, and that would be fine if it were like any other data dictionary and include data types+relationships, but it isn't. They are just a bunch of names. No indication of what type of data they might hold, and it is up to me to guess. When I have pushed for more detail, they say that it is just busy work. How can I explain the importance of data modelling? How can I tell them what it is and how to do it? It feels impossible, because they don't have an appreciation for its importance. They do however, usually have an interest in helping out in whatever way they can, it's just this in particular has never gotten a motivated response.

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• Server-side Architecture for Online Game

  - by Draiken

  Hi, basically I have a game client that has communicate with a server for almost every action it takes, the game is in Java (using LWJGL) and right now I will start making the server. The base of the game is normally one client communicating with the server alone, but I will require later on for several clients to work together for some functionalities. I've already read how authentication server should be sepparated and I intend on doing it. The problem is I am completely inexperienced in this kind of server-side programming, all I've ever programmed were JSF web applications. I imagine I'll do socket connections for pretty much every game communication since HTML is very slow, but I still don't really know where to start on my server. I would appreciate reading material or guidelines on where to start, what architecture should the game server have and maybe some suggestions on frameworks that could help me getting the client-server communication. I've looked into JNAG but I have no experience with this kind of thing, so I can't really tell if it is a solid and good messaging layer. Any help is appreciated... Thanks !

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• Presenting the Cloud in a Different Way

  - by BuckWoody

  I had the honor of presenting the Developers at the Portland PASS chapter, and decided to go a different way than just using PowerPoint Slides…. (click on any picture to enlarge) The point is that when you need to get a point across, it’s OK to change tactics to make sure the information sticks. In this case, I decided to make the audience the PowerPoint. I used a few props to show the various paradigms we use to describe what the industry uses for the word “cloud” First, we talked about Infrastructure as a Service. I picked a gentleman who didn’t quite fit the hard hat and safety vest I picked out for him. Notice our “user” as she accesses our “Server” (complete with tray and glass) which has been virtualized.    Software as a service comes next. In this case, the user and potentially even customers just access software (represented here as a Windows ME box…) remotely – everything is virtualized. Finally, Platform as a Service – Yup, Platform shoes as a necklace, and a tie-dye shirt to represent the 70’s – a decade when mainframes used stateless programming as well. Notice also the components of Windows Azure – Compute (Keyboard) Application Fabric (Toy Bus) and Storage (Bucket).   And at the end of the day, it’s all about serving those customers…

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• I need advice on how to best handle an e-commerce situation

  - by Mohamad

  I recently moved to Brazil and started a small subscription based service company. The payment gateway market is under-developed in Brazil, and implementing a local solution is too expensive for me. My requirements are a payment gateway that will automatically process monthly recurrent billing, and that will allow me to manually charge my customers when needed. They would also have to deal with storage and security. I'm leaning towards manually processing payments myself as a restaurant would do, for example, using small swipe machines. Unfortunately, this would require me to store credit card information and I would rather not, but I feel it's my only option. Can anyone give me advice on how to tackle this problem? Do I have other options? If I decide to store credit card information, what should I keep in mind and how should I go about it? I have moderate skills in programming, and through tenacity I can get most things done. I'm afraid that this might be out of my league, however.

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• Why is my wireless significantly slower on Ubuntu 12.04, as compared to windows 7?

  - by user89266

  I'm dual booting 12.04, and Win7. Just a tiny bit of background, I'm starting to get more and more interested in programming and 3d modelling, so I'd like to learn more about ubuntu as a result of those interests. Still a complete newb though! Anyway, When downloading on windows, I get 1.5mb/s easy. Now I swap over to Ubuntu, and it hasn't topped 150 kb/s since I installed it some 6 months ago. I'd downloaded most of my programs on windows, so I never really noticed it, but as I'm committing to ubuntu more, it's starting to hinder me. I'm with Shaw, on their Highspeed 20, which gives me 20 mbps down, and 6mbps up. Speedtest.com shows me varying figures somewhat close to what shaw says they give on both windows and ubuntu, which is to be expected, given that it is shaw afterall... So, I don't know what you guys need to know, and I know even less about how to get it to you. Whatever information you guys need, tell me how to get it, how to get it up here, and i'll get it on here! I thought it might be that I'm using a proprietary driver, when an open sourced one would work better? But I really have no clue. Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks guys!

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• In the days of modern computing, in 'typical business apps' - why does performance matter?

  - by Prog

  This may seem like an odd question to some of you. I'm a hobbyist Java programmer. I have developed several games, an AI program that creates music, another program for painting, and similar stuff. This is to tell you that I have an experience in programming, but not in professional development of business applications. I see a lot of talk on this site about performance. People often debate what would be the most efficient algorithm in C# to perform a task, or why Python is slow and Java is faster, etc. What I'm trying to understand is: why does this matter? There are specific areas of computing where I see why performance matters: games, where tens of thousands of computations are happening every second in a constant-update loop, or low level systems which other programs rely on, such as OSs and VMs, etc. But for the normal, typical high-level business app, why does performance matter? I can understand why it used to matter, decades ago. Computers were much slower and had much less memory, so you had to think carefully about these things. But today, we have so much memory to spare and computers are so fast: does it actually matter if a particular Java algorithm is O(n^2)? Will it actually make a difference for the end users of this typical business app? When you press a GUI button in a typical business app, and behind the scenes it invokes an O(n^2) algorithm, in these days of modern computing - do you actually feel the inefficiency? My question is split in two: In practice, today does performance matter in a typical normal business program? If it does, please give me real-world examples of places in such an application, where performance and optimizations are important.

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• PublishingWeb.ExcludeFromNavigation Missing

  - by Michael Van Cleave

  So recently I have had to make the transition from the SharePoint 2007 codebase to SharePoint 2010 codebase. Needless to say there hasn't been much difficulty in the changeover. However in a set of code that I was playing around with and transitioning I did find one change that might cause some pain to others out there that have been programming against the PublishingWeb object in the Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing namespace. The 2007 snippet of code that work just fine in 2007 looks like: using (SPSite site = new SPSite(url)) using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb()) {      PublishingWeb publishingWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web);     publishingWeb.ExcludeFromNavigation(true, itemID);     publishingWeb.Update(); } The 2010 update to the code looks like: using (SPSite site = new SPSite(url)) using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb()) {     PublishingWeb publishingWeb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web);     publishingWeb.Navigation.ExcludeFromNavigation(true, itemID); //--Had to reference the Navigation object.     publishingWeb.Update(); } The purpose of the code is to keep a page from showing up on the global or current navigation when it is added to the pages library. However you see that the update to the 2010 codebase actually makes more "object" sense. It specifies that you are technically affecting the Navigation of the Publishing Web, instead of the Publishing Web itself. I know that this isn't a difficult problem to fix, but I thought it would be something quick to help out the general public. Michael

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• Interpreting Others' Source Code

  - by Maxpm

  Note: I am aware of this question. This question is a bit more specific and in-depth, however, focusing on reading the actual code rather than debugging it or asking the author. As a student in an introductory-level computer science class, my friends occasionally ask me to help them with their assignments. Programming is something I'm very proud of, so I'm always happy to oblige. However, I usually have difficulty interpreting their source code. Sometimes this is due to a strange or inconsistent style, sometimes it's due to strange design requirements specified in the assignment, and sometimes it's just due to my stupidity. In any case, I end up looking like an idiot staring at the screen for several minutes saying "Uh..." I usually check for the common errors first - missing semicolons or parentheses, using commas instead of extractor operators, etc. The trouble comes when that fails. I often can't step through with a debugger because it's a syntax error, and I often can't ask the author because he/she him/herself doesn't understand the design decisions. How do you typically read the source code of others? Do you read through the code from top-down, or do you follow each function as it's called? How do you know when to say "It's time to refactor?"

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• How to See Your Current Wi-Fi Connection Speed in Mac OS X

  - by The Geek

  Ever since I’ve been using my new MacBook Air, I’ve been befuddled by how to do some of the simplest tasks in Mac OS X that I would normally do from my Windows laptop—like show the connection speed for the current Wi-Fi network. So am I using Wireless-N or not? Normally, on my Windows 7 laptop, all I’d have to do is hover over the icon, or pop up the list—you can even go into the network details and see just about every piece of data about the network, all from the system tray. Here’s how to see your current connection information on your Mac Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Free Shipping Day is Friday, December 17, 2010 – National Free Shipping Day Find an Applicable Quote for Any Programming Situation Winter Theme for Windows 7 from Microsoft Score Free In-Flight Wi-Fi Courtesy of Google Chrome Peaceful Winter Road at Sunset Wallpaper Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Why Pac-Man’s Ghosts Move the Way They Do

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• Is "as long as it works" the norm?

  - by q303

  Hi, My last shop did not have a process. Agile essentially meant they did not have a plan at all about how to develop or manage their projects. It meant "hey, here's a ton of work. Go do it in two weeks. We're fast paced and agile." They released stuff that they knew had problems. They didn't care how things were written. There were no code reviews--despite there being several developers. They released software they knew to be buggy. At my previous job, people had the attitude as long as it works, it's fine. When I asked for a rewrite of some code I had written while we were essentially exploring the spec, they denied it. I wanted to rewrite the code because code was repeated in multiple places, there was no encapsulation and it took people a long time to make changes to it. So essentially, my impression is this: programming boils down to the following: Reading some book about the latest tool/technology Throwing code together based on this, avoiding writing any individual code because the company doesn't want to "maintain custom code" Showing it and moving on to the next thing, "as long as it works." I've always told myself that next job I'm going to get a better shop. It never happens. If this is it, then I feel stuck. The technologies always change; if the only professional development here is reading the latest MS Press technology book, then what have you built in 10 years but a superficial knowledge of various technologies? I'm concerned about: Best way to have professional standards How to develop meaningful knowledge and experience in this situation

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• Computer science curriculum for non-CS major?

  - by Daniel

  Hi all, I would like to have some ideas for building up my foundation CS skills. I have started programming computers 10 years ago and have made a pretty good career out of it. However, I cannot stop thinking that the path that brought me here was very particular, and if something goes wrong (e.g. I get laid off) it would be harder to find a job here in the US on the same salary level, OR in a top company. The reason I say that is that I am a self-learner; my degree is not in Computer Science so although I master C/C++/Java, I do not have the formal CS and mathematical background that many other software developers (esp. here in the US) have. When I look at job interview questions from Apple, Google, Amazon, I have the impression that I'd flunk those technical interviews at some point. Don't get me wrong, I know my algorithms and data structures, but when things dive too deeply into the CS realm I am in trouble. What can I do to close the gap? I was thinking about a MSc in CS, but will I even UNDERSTAND what's going on there if I'm not a CS undergrad? Should I go back to basics and get a BSc in CS instead? I always tend to go into self-study mode when I want to learn new stuff, but I have the impression that I will need more formal education in CS if I want to have a shot at working at those kinds of companies. Thank you!

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• Introducing Deep Fried Devcast

  - by Matt Christian

  I've been working on a new podcast for the game development community called the Deep Fried Devcast.  Currently we are in pre-production but should have some episodes up in the near future.  Here is a quick FAQ about the show: What is the Deep Fried Devcast? The Deep Fried Devcast is a bi-weekly show all about game development.  The show will feature developer interviews, a focus on the technical aspects of game development (programming, technical design), the business of team game development (time management, project management), and other areas focused around the actual development of games. Wait, no game design?  No game discussions?! Calm down, calm down.  Although the focus of the podcast is on the technical aspects of game dev, there will be episodes and content focused on all areas of the gaming industry, including discussion on design, story, recent game releases, games we've been playing, etc...  Anything could show up in the Deep Fried Devcast and nothing is off limits. How can I help? We're always looking for new content ideas, emails, and anything you want to send us (within some kind of reason!).  You can even be a guest host if you want!  Email us at: deepfrieddevcast [AT] gmail [DOT] com Where's the podcast?! We're still recording it!  Don't worry, it will be up soon.  Keep an eye on www.deepfrieddevcast.com for the latest updates (that will be up soon too!).

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• XNA calculate normals for linesegment

  - by Gerhman

  I am quite new to 3D graphical programming and thus far only understand that normal somehow define the direction in which a vertex faces and therefore the direction in which light is reflected. I have now idea how they are calculated though, only that they are defined by a Vector3. For a visualizer that I am creating I am importing a bunch of coordinate which represent layer upon layer of line segments. At the moment I am only using a vertex buffer and adding the start and end point of each line and then rendering a linelist. The thing is now that I need to calculate the normal for the vertices of these line segments so that I can get some realistic lighting. I have no idea how to calculate these normal but I know they all face sideways and not up or down. To calculate them all I have are the start and end positions of each line segment. The below image is a representation of what I think I need to do in the case of an example layer: The red arrows represent the normal that should be calculates, the blue text represent the coordinates of the vertices and the green numbers represent their indices. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could please explain to me how I should calculate these normal.

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• How does a one-man developer do its games' sounds?

  - by Gustavo Maciel

  Before anything, that's not a "oh, where can I find resources?" question. Well, I've been curious about one thing in the indie games industry. For the development of the game, such tasks like game design, art, sketches, code programming and etc can be easily done by just one person. You can just take up a paper and pencil and you're a game designer. You can just take software like Photoshop or Paint and you're an artist, a scanner and you're a sketcher, a compiler and you're a programmer. For sound it's different. You may tell me: Well, follow the line, take a lot of instruments and record it. But all we know that things don't work this way. I can list up some changes for us: External noises are a big problem, sound effects can't be made with instruments, it can't sound like a recorded and clipped sound. Well I can imagine how they do this in large companies, with such big studios and etc. But to summarise, my question is: What's the best way for a one-man indie to do all its sound? Does he have to synthesize everything? Record and buy some crazy program for editing sounds?

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• Full screen blackout using allegro in codeblocks

  - by Armando Ortiz

  I'm very interested in game programming and I'm taking my first steps alone. So I installed allegro. Although Dev-C++ didn't work, Code::Blocks compiled successfully. I started out with this basic program: #include <allegro.h> int main(){ allegro_init(); install_keyboard(); set_gfx_mode( GFX_AUTODETECT, 640, 480, 0, 0); readkey(); return 0; } END_OF_MAIN(); The problem comes in when I try to run it. It opens the little window as always, but rapidly blacks out my whole screen. I press any key and it takes me back to the little window telling me that it finished, which means the program worked. But I try any other program with allegro, like: #include <allegro.h> int x = 10; int y = 10; int main(){ allegro_init(); install_keyboard(); set_gfx_mode( GFX_AUTODETECT, 640, 480, 0, 0); while ( !key[KEY_ESC] ){ clear_keybuf(); acquire_screen(); textout_ex( screen, font, " ", x, y, makecol( 0, 0, 0), makecol( 0, 0, 0) ); if (key[KEY_UP]) --y; else if (key[KEY_DOWN]) ++y; else if (key[KEY_RIGHT]) ++x; else if (key[KEY_LEFT]) --x; textout_ex( screen, font, "@", x, y, makecol( 255, 0, 0), makecol( 0, 0, 0) ); release_screen(); rest(50); } return 0; } END_OF_MAIN(); And the same thing happens over and over again! Is there something I'm doing wrong?

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• Full Portfolio of x86 Systems On Display at Oracle OpenWorld

  - by kgee

  This OpenWorld, Oracle’s x86 hardware team will have two hardware demos, showcasing the new X3 systems, as well as several other x86 solutions such as the ZFS Storage Appliance, Oracle Database Appliance and the Carrier Grade NETRA systems. These two demos are located in the South Hall in Oracle’s booth 1133 and Intel’s booth 1101.  The Intel booth will feature additional demos including 3D demos of each server, a static architectural demo, the Oracle x86 Grand Prix video game and the Intel Theatre featuring several presentations by Intel’s partners. Oracle’s Intel Theatre Schedule and Topics Include:Monday 1. 10:30 a.m. - Engineered to Work Together: Oracle x86 Systems in the Data Center2. 12:30 a.m. - The Oracle NoSQL Database on the Intel Platform.3. 1:30 p.m. - Accelerate Your Path to Cloud with Oracle VM4. 3:30 p.m. - Why Oracle Linux is the Best Linux for Your Intel Based Systems5. 4:30 p.m. - Accelerate Your Path to Cloud with Oracle VMTuesday 1. 10:00 a.m. - Speed of thought” Analytics using In-Memory Analytics2. 1:30 a.m. - A Storage Architecture for Big Data:  "It’s Not JUST Hadoop"3. 2:00 a.m. - Oracle Optimized Solution for Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure.4. 2:30 p.m. - Configuring Storage to Optimize Database Performance and Efficiency.5. 3:30 p.m. - Total Cloud Control for Oracle's x86 SystemsWednesday 1. 10:00 a.m. - Big Data Analysis Using R-Programming Language2. 11:30 a.m. - Extreme Performance Overview, The Oracle Exadata Database Machine3. 1:30 p.m. - Oracle Times Ten In-Memory Database Overview

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-06-20

  - by Bob Rhubart

  New book: Oracle WebLogic Server 12c: First Look Congratulations to Michel Schildmeijer on the publication of his new book. Call for Nominations: Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Awards 2012 - Win a free pass to #OOW12 These awards honor customers for their cutting-edge solutions using Oracle Fusion Middleware. Either a customer, their partner, or an Oracle representative can submit the nomination form on behalf of the customer. Submission deadline: July 17. Winners receive a free pass to Oracle OpenWorld 2012 in San Francisco. ODTUG Kscope12 - June 24-28 - San Antonio, TX San Antonio, TX, June 24-28, 2012 Kscope12, sponsored by ODTUG, is your home for Application Express, BI and Oracle EPM, Database Development, Fusion Middleware, and MySQL training by the best of the best! Eclipse and Oracle Fusion Development - Free Virtual Event, July 10th Get more out of Eclipse with these useful resources. How to Create Multiple Internal Repositories for Oracle Solaris 11 | Albert White Albert White shows you how to create and manage internal repositories for release, development, and support versions of Solaris 11. Social Technology and the Potential for Organic Business Networks | Michael Fauscette "An organic business network driven company is the antithesis of a hierarchical, rigid, reactive, process-constrained, and siloed organization." Cloud Bursting between AWS and Rackspace | High Scalability Nati Shalom explains "cloud bursting," an interesting hybrid cloud model. Born-again cloud advocates finally see the light | David Linthicum "I can't help but wish that we keep an open mind about the next technology evolution when it begins and get religion earlier," says Linthicum. How to know that a method was run, when you didn’t write that method | RedStack Middleware A-Team blogger Mark Nelson shares a useful tip for those working with ADF. Thought for the Day "There does not now, nor will there ever exist, a programming language in which it is the least bit hard to write bad programs." — L. Flon Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

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• Finding a way to simplify complex queries on legacy application

  - by glenatron

  I am working with an existing application built on Rails 3.1/MySql with much of the work taking place in a JavaScript interface, although the actual platforms are not tremendously relevant here, except in that they give context. The application is powerful, handles a reasonable amount of data and works well. As the number of customers using it and the complexity of the projects they create increases, however, we are starting to run into a few performance problems. As far as I can tell, the source of these problems is that the data represents a tree and it is very hard for ActiveRecord to deterministically know what data it should be retrieving. My model has many relationships like this: Project has_many Nodes has_many GlobalConditions Node has_one Parent has_many Nodes has_many WeightingFactors through NodeFactors has_many Tags through NodeTags GlobalCondition has_many Nodes ( referenced by Id, rather than replicating tree ) WeightingFactor has_many Nodes through NodeFactors Tag has_many Nodes through NodeTags The whole system has something in the region of thirty types which optionally hang off one or many nodes in the tree. My question is: What can I do to retrieve and construct this data faster? Having worked a lot with .Net, if I was in a similar situation there, I would look at building up a Stored Procedure to pull everything out of the database in one go but I would prefer to keep my logic in the application and from what I can tell it would be hard to take the queried data and build ActiveRecord objects from it without losing their integrity, which would cause more problems than it solves. It has also occurred to me that I could bunch the data up and send some of it across asynchronously, which would not improve performance but would improve the user perception of performance. However if sections of the data appeared after page load that could also be quite confusing. I am wondering whether it would be a useful strategy to make everything aware of it's parent project, so that one could pull all the records for that project and then build up the relationships later, but given the ubiquity of complex trees in day to day programming life I wouldn't be surprised if there were some better design patterns or standard approaches to this type of situation that I am not well versed in.

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• Thanks All the readers and community and Happy new year to all of you.

  - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama

  This is my first blog post for new year 2011 and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the readers for making my blog very successful and accepting me a community member. As year 2010 has lots of up down in IT filed it was recession period and now we almost recovered from it. Personally year 2010 has been very successful to me as I have been awarded as Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for visual C#. And It was one of the greatest achievement of my life. I would like to take this opportunity to thanks Microsoft for this and thanks all friends specially Jacob Sebastian who has given me guidance any time I required it. I have been also awarded dzone most valuable blogger this year and it was a nice surprise from dzone. I would like thanks dzone for this. Once again I am wishing you happy new year and may this year will bring success to all of you. One more thing I have found that I have met lots of people who is quite intelligent and exceptional developers and IT professionals but they are not blogging their stuff. I would say please my blog post a why a developer should write blog and Start blogging immediately because unless and until you don’t blog community will not know what you are doing.  Till then happy blogging and programming ... Stay tuned for more..

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• Graduate expectations versus reality

  - by Bobby Tables

  When choosing what we want to study, and do with our careers and lives, we all have some expectations of what it is going to be like. Now that I've been in the industry for almost a decade, I've been reflecting a bit on what I thought (back when I was studying Computer Science) programming working life was going to be like, and how it's actually turning out to be. My two biggest shocks (or should I say, broken expectations) by far are the sheer amount of maintenance work involved in software, and the overall lack of professionalism: Maintenance: At uni, we were all told that the majority of software work is maintenance of existing systems. So I knew to expect this in the abstract. But I never imagined exactly how overwhelming this would turn out to be. Perhaps it's something I mentally glazed over, and hoped I'd be building cool new stuff from scratch a lot more. But it really is the case that most jobs are overwhelmingly maintenance, bug fixing, and support oriented. Lack of professionalism: At uni, I always had the impression that commercial software work is very process-oriented and stringently engineered. I had images of ISO processes, reams of technical documentation, every feature and bug being strictly documented, and a generally professional environment. It came as a huge shock to realise that most software companies operate no differently to a team of students working on a large semester-long project. And I've worked in both the small agile hack shop, and the medium sized corporate enterprise. While I wouldn't say that it's always been outright "unprofessional", it definitely feels like the software industry (on the whole) is far from the strong engineering discipline that I expected it to be. Has anyone else had similar experiences to this? What are the ways in which your expectations of what our profession would be like were different to the reality?

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• 2D platformers: why make the physics dependent on the framerate?

  - by Archagon

  "Super Meat Boy" is a difficult platformer that recently came out for PC, requiring exceptional control and pixel-perfect jumping. The physics code in the game is dependent on the framerate, which is locked to 60fps; this means that if your computer can't run the game at full speed, the physics will go insane, causing (among other things) your character to run slower and fall through the ground. Furthermore, if vsync is off, the game runs extremely fast. Could those experienced with 2D game programming help explain why the game was coded this way? Wouldn't a physics loop running at a constant rate be a better solution? (Actually, I think a physics loop is used for parts of the game, since some of the entities continue to move normally regardless of the framerate. Your character, on the other hand, runs exactly [fps/60] as fast.) What bothers me about this implementation is the loss of abstraction between the game engine and the graphics rendering, which depends on system-specific things like the monitor, graphics card, and CPU. If, for whatever reason, your computer can't handle vsync, or can't run the game at exactly 60fps, it'll break spectacularly. Why should the rendering step in any way influence the physics calculations? (Most games nowadays would either slow down the game or skip frames.) On the other hand, I understand that old-school platformers on the NES and SNES depended on a fixed framerate for much of their control and physics. Why is this, and would it be possible to create a patformer in that vein without having the framerate dependency? Is there necessarily a loss of precision if you separate the graphics rendering from the rest of the engine? Thank you, and sorry if the question was confusing.

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