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• How to perform game object smoothing in multiplayer games

  - by spaceOwl

  We're developing an infrastructure to support multiplayer games for our game engine. In simple terms, each client (player) engine sends some pieces of data regarding the relevant game objects at a given time interval. On the receiving end, we step the incoming data to current time (to compensate for latency), followed by a smoothing step (which is the subject of this question). I was wondering how smoothing should be performed ? Currently the algorithm is similar to this: Receive incoming state for an object (position, velocity, acceleration, rotation, custom data like visual properties, etc). Calculate a diff between local object position and the position we have after previous prediction steps. If diff doesn't exceed some threshold value, start a smoothing step: Mark the object's CURRENT POSITION and the TARGET POSITION. Linear interpolate between these values for 0.3 seconds. I wonder if this scheme is any good, or if there is any other common implementation or algorithm that should be used? (For example - should i only smooth out the position? or other values, such as speed, etc) any help will be appreciated.

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• How to handle sorting of complex objects?

  - by AedonEtLIRA

  How would one sort a list of objects that have more than one sortable element? Suppose you have a simple object Car and car is a defined as such: class Car { public String make; public String model; public int year; public String color; // ... No methods, just a structure / container } I designed a simple framework that would allow for multiple SortOptions to be provided to a Sorter that would then sort the list. interface ISorter<T> { List<T> sort(List<T> items); void addSortOption(ISortOption<T> option); ISortOption<T>[] getSortOptions(); void setSortOption(ISortOption<T> option); } interface ISortOption<T> { String getLabel(); int compare(T t1, T t2); } Example use class SimpleStringSorter extends MergeSorter<String> { { addSorter(new AlphaSorter()); } private static final class AlphaSorter implements ISortOption<String> { // ... implementation of alpha compare and get label } } The issue with this solution is that it is not easily expandable. If car was to ever receive a new field, say, currentOwner. I would need to add the field, then track down the sorter class file, implement a new sort option class then recompile the application for redistribution. Is there an easier more expandable/practical way to sort data like this?

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• Dealing with Fine-Grained Cache Entries in Coherence

  - by jpurdy

  On occasion we have seen significant memory overhead when using very small cache entries. Consider the case where there is a small key (say a synthetic key stored in a long) and a small value (perhaps a number or short string). With most backing maps, each cache entry will require an instance of Map.Entry, and in the case of a LocalCache backing map (used for expiry and eviction), there is additional metadata stored (such as last access time). Given the size of this data (usually a few dozen bytes) and the granularity of Java memory allocation (often a minimum of 32 bytes per object, depending on the specific JVM implementation), it is easily possible to end up with the case where the cache entry appears to be a couple dozen bytes but ends up occupying several hundred bytes of actual heap, resulting in anywhere from a 5x to 10x increase in stated memory requirements. In most cases, this increase applies to only a few small NamedCaches, and is inconsequential -- but in some cases it might apply to one or more very large NamedCaches, in which case it may dominate memory sizing calculations. Ultimately, the requirement is to avoid the per-entry overhead, which can be done either at the application level by grouping multiple logical entries into single cache entries, or at the backing map level, again by combining multiple entries into a smaller number of larger heap objects. At the application level, it may be possible to combine objects based on parent-child or sibling relationships (basically the same requirements that would apply to using partition affinity). If there is no natural relationship, it may still be possible to combine objects, effectively using a Coherence NamedCache as a "map of maps". This forces the application to first find a collection of objects (by performing a partial hash) and then to look within that collection for the desired object. This is most naturally implemented as a collection of entry processors to avoid pulling unnecessary data back to the client (and also to encapsulate that logic within a service layer). At the backing map level, the NIO storage option keeps keys on heap, and so has limited benefit for this situation. The Elastic Data features of Coherence naturally combine entries into larger heap objects, with the caveat that only data -- and not indexes -- can be stored in Elastic Data.

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• Question on methods in Object Oriented Programming

  - by mal

  I’m learning Java at the minute (first language), and as a project I’m looking at developing a simple puzzle game. My question relates to the methods within a class. I have my Block type class; it has its many attributes, set methods, get methods and just plain methods. There are quite a few. Then I have my main board class. At the moment it does most of the logic, positioning of sprites collision detection and then draws the sprites etc... As I am learning to program as much as I’m learning to program games I’m curious to know how much code is typically acceptable within a given method. Is there such thing as having too many methods? All my draw functionality happens in one method, should I break this into a few ‘sub’ methods? My thinking is if I find at a later stage that the for loop I’m using to cycle through the array of sprites searching for collisions in the spriteCollision() method is inefficient I code a new method and just replace the old method calls with the new one, leaving the old code intact. Is it bad practice to have a method that contains one if statement, and place the call for that method in the for loop? I’m very much in the early stages of coding/designing and I need all the help I can get! I find it a little intimidating when people are talking about throwing together a prototype in a day too! Can’t wait until I’m that good!

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• Single-Click Checkbox in RadGridView

  - by Anthony Trudeau

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tonyt/archive/2014/06/05/156809.aspxThe Telerik RadGridView for WPF is a flexible visual control for displaying and manipulating tables of data. It’s not without it’s quirks though. I ran into one of those quirks recently. The behavior of the RadGridView requires that you first activate the cell for editing. That enables the editing controls underneath. Although that provides better editing capabilities, it also can be unintuitive. In my case I don’t want my users to have to click a checkbox value twice in order to change the value. This can be solved easily by setting the EditTriggers and AutoSelectOnEdit properties to CellClick and True respectively. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there. You would think you could set those properties in a style with a TargetType of GridViewCheckBoxColumn. You’d be wrong. <!-- This works --> <telerik:GridViewCheckBoxColumn Header="Flag #1"       DataMemberBinding="{Binding Flag1}"       EditTriggers="CellClick" AutoSelectOnEdit="True"/> <!-- This doesn’t work --> <Style TargetType="{x:Type telerik:GridViewCheckBoxColumn}">       <Setter Property="EditTriggers" Value="CellClick" />       <Setter Property="AutoSelectOnEdit" Value="True" /> </Style> Telerik told me that is the correct, expected behavior, because the columns in the RadGridView are not visual elements. Their explanation is that the Style property comes from the base class FrameworkContentElement, but the column objects aren’t visual elements. That may be an implementation truth, but that doesn’t make the behavior correct or expected. It’s unintuitive that the GridViewCheckBoxColumn exposes a Style property that cannot be used properly, but there it is. At least there’s a way to get the desired effect.

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• Should I learn the easier framework as a start? [closed]

  - by gunbuster363

  I've been a programmer for 2 years. I learned Java SE, C from college and learned Cobol from the workplace. I've noticed that there is a hype about framework and I actually don't know what is a framework. It is so cool that my colleague once said you cannot find a new job without knowing something like struct spring hibernate. And we should know Java EE too because it was aimed for enterprise application. I've never code something such as server-client web application, and I think I need to try it out. But which language should I code in? I can't decide between the following 2: 1) Java. It is heavily used by many company so I could easily reuse the experience gained. But Java and its related framework are pretty heavy (for the machine and operation). It is on-demand. 2) ROR. It is cool. The syntax of ruby is simple. I can get a better hand on it. And maybe I can learn the concept easily and possibly correctly. However, not much company here would use it. All the job ads are about J2EE/C#. Should I learn the easy one or the difficult one? Not to mention there are a lot of frameworks out there for Java, which makes the decision much more difficult.

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• Is Apple getting out of the general purpose development platform business?

  - by Charles E. Grant

  I've been doing general ANSI C/Console C++/Java/Web development on Mac hardware for about ten years. I make no claims of objective superiority over other platforms, it just satisfies my personal tastes. With the success of the iPhone and the related App store there was some speculation that Apple would get out of the general purpose computer market, and become a closed software ecosystem, focusing on consumer appliances. I pooh-poohed the speculation at the time, but this week Apple announced that a) they were opening an App store for the Mac, b) Java applications would not be eligible for the App store, c) the Apple JVM was being deprecated and might not be available for future releases of OS X. I'm not a Java developer per se, but I work in a research lab that occasionally writes Java applications, and also depends on tools written Java. This has the potential to be a huge pain in the butt for us. As of now, there is no other JVM for OS X that we can point our end users to. Soy Latte and OpenJDK might be appropriate for developers, but the complexity of the installation makes them inappropriate for end users. Eventually I expect Oracle/SUN will produce a replacement JVM for OS X. More worrisome to me is that Apple used to specifically advertise that it was an excellent platform for scientific development, because they supported all major language platforms. Is the deprecation of their JVM a sign that this market no longer interests them?

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• Should I avoid or embrace asking questions of other developers on the job?

  - by T.K.

  As a CS undergraduate, the people around me are either learning or are paid to teach me, but as a software developer, the people around me have tasks of their own. They aren't paid to teach me, and conversely, I am paid to contribute. When I first started working as a software developer co-op, I was introduced to a huge code base written in a language I had never used before. I had plenty of questions, but didn't want to bother my co-workers with all of them - it wasted their time and hurt my pride. Instead, I spent a lot of time bouncing between IDE and browser, trying to make sense of what had already been written and differentiate between expected behavior and symptoms of bugs. I'd ask my co-workers when I felt that the root of my lack of understanding was an in-house concept that I wouldn't find on the internet, but aside from that, I tried to confine my questions to lunch hours. Naturally, there were occasions where I wasted time trying to understand something in code on the internet that had, at its heart, an in-house concept, but overall, I felt I was productive enough during my first semester, contributing about as much as one could expect and gaining a pretty decent understanding of large parts of the product. I was wondering what senior developers felt about that mindset. Should new developers ask more questions to get to speed faster, or should they do their own research for themselves? I see benefits to both mindsets, and anticipate a large variety of responses, but I figure new developers might appreciate your answers without thinking to ask this question.

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• How do I drag my widgets without dragging other widgets?

  - by Cypher

  I have a bunch of drag-able widgets on screen. When I am dragging one of the widgets around, if I drag the mouse over another widget, that widget then gets "snagged" and is also dragged around. While this is kind of a neat thing and I can think of a few game ideas based on that alone, that was not intended. :-P Background Info I have a Widget class that is the basis for my user interface controls. It has a bunch of properties that define it's size, position, image information, etc. It also defines some events, OnMouseOver, OnMouseOut, OnMouseClick, etc. All of the event handler functions are virtual, so that child objects can override them and make use of their implementation without duplicating code. Widgets are not aware of each other. They cannot tell each other, "Hey, I'm dragging so bugger off!" Source Code Here's where the widget gets updated (every frame): public virtual void Update( MouseComponent mouse, KeyboardComponent keyboard ) { // update position if the widget is being dragged if ( this.IsDragging ) { this.Left -= (int)( mouse.LastPosition.X - mouse.Position.X ); this.Top -= (int)( mouse.LastPosition.Y - mouse.Position.Y ); } ... // define and throw other events if ( !this.WasMouseOver && this.IsMouseOver && mouse.IsButtonDown( MouseButton.Left ) ) { this.IsMouseDown = true; this.MouseDown( mouse, new EventArgs() ); } ... // define and throw other events } And here's the OnMouseDown event where the IsDraggable property gets set: public virtual void OnMouseDown( object sender, EventArgs args ) { if ( this.IsDraggable ) { this.IsDragging = true; } } Problem Looking at the source code, it's obvious why this is happening. The OnMouseDown event gets fired whenever the mouse is hovered over the Widget and when the left mouse button is "down" (but not necessarily in that order!). That means that even if I hold the mouse down somewhere else on screen, and simply move it over anything that IsDraggable, it will "hook" onto the mouse and go for a ride. So, now that it's obvious that I'm Doing It Wrong™, how do I do this correctly?

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• How should an undergraduate programmer organize his time learning the maximum possible?

  - by nischayn22

  I started programming lately(pre-final year of a CS degree) and now feel like there's a sea of uncovered treasure for me out there. So, I decided to cover as much as is possible before I look out for a job after graduation. So, I started to read books (The C++ Programming Language, Introduction to Algorithms, Cracking the Coding Interview, Programming Pearls,etc ) participate in StackExchange sites, solving problems (InterviewStreet and ProjectEuler), coding for open source, chatting to fellow programmers/mentors and try to learn more and more. Good,then what's the problem?? The problem is I am trying to do many things, but I am doubtful that I am still utilizing my time properly. I am reading many books and sometimes I just leave a book halfway (jumping from one book to another), sometimes I spend way too much time on chatting and also in getting lost somewhere in the huge internet world, and lastly the wasteful burden of attending classes (I don't think my teachers know good enough or I prefer learning on my own) May be some of you had similar situation. How did you organize your time? Or what do you think is the best way to organize it for an undergraduate? Also what mistakes am I making that you can warn me of

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• Messaging with KnockoutJs

  - by Aligned

  MVVM Light has Messaging that helps keep View Models decoupled, isolated, and keep the separation of concerns, while allowing them to communicate with each other. This is a very helpful feature. One View Model can send off a message and if anyone is listening for it, they will react, otherwise nothing will happen. I now want to do the same with KnockoutJs View Models. Here are some links on how to do this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9892124/whats-the-best-way-of-linking-synchronising-view-models-in-knockout http://www.knockmeout.net/2012/05/using-ko-native-pubsub.html ~ this is a great article describing the ko.subscribable type. http://jsfiddle.net/rniemeyer/z7KgM/ ~ shows how to do the subscription https://github.com/rniemeyer/knockout-postbox will be used to help with the PubSub (described in the blog post above) through the Nuget package. http://jsfiddle.net/rniemeyer/mg3hj/ of knockout-postbox   Implementation: Use syncWith for two-way synchronization. MainVM: self.selectedElement= ko.observable().syncWith (“selectedElement”); ElementListComponentVM example: self.selectedElement= ko.observable().syncWith(“selectedElement”); ko.selectedElement.subscribe(function(){ // do something with the seletion change }); ElementVMTwo: self.selectedElement= ko.observable().syncWith (“selectedElement”); // subscribe example ko.postbox.subscribe(“changeMessage”, function(newValue){ }); // or use subscribeTo this.visible = ko.observable().subscribeTo("section", function(newValue) { // do something here }); · Use ko.toJS to avoid both sides having the same reference (see the blog post). · unsubscribeFrom should be called when the dialog is hidden or closed · Use publishOn to automatically send out messages when an observable changes o ko.observable().publishOn(“section”);

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• implementing dynamic query handler on historical data

  - by user2390183

  EDIT : Refined question to focus on the core issue Context: I have historical data about property (house) sales collected from various sources in a centralized/cloud data source (assume info collection is handled by a third party) Planning to develop an application to query and retrieve data from this centralized data source Example Queries: Simple : for given XYZ post code, what is average house price for 3 bed room house? Complex: What is estimated price for an house at "DD,Some Street,XYZ Post Code" (worked out from average values of historic data filtered by various characteristics of the house: house post code, no of bed rooms, total area, and other deeper insights like house building type, year of built, features)? In addition to average price, the application should support other property info ** maximum, or minimum price..etc and trend (graph) on a selected property attribute over a period of time**. Hence, the queries should not enforce the search based on a primary key or few fixed fields In other words, queries can be What is the change in 3 Bed Room house price (irrespective of location) over last 30 days? What kind of properties we can get for X price (irrespective of location or house type) The challenge I have is identifying the domain (BI/ Data Analytical or DB Design or DB Query Interface or DW related or something else) this problem (dynamic query on historic data) belong to, so that I can do further exploration My findings so far I could be wrong on the following, so please correct me if you think so I briefly read about BI/Data Analytics - I think it is heavy weight solution for my problem and has scalability issues. DB Design - As I understand RDBMS works well if you know Data model at design time. I am expecting attributes about property or other entity (user) that am going to bring in, would evolve quickly. hence maintenance would be an issue. As I am going to have multiple users executing query at same time, performance would be a bottleneck Other options like Graph DB (http://www.tinkerpop.com/) seems to be bit complex (they are good. but using those tools meant for generic purpose, make me think like assembly programming to solve my problem ) BigData related solution are to analyse data from multiple unrelated domains So, Any suggestion on the space this problem fit in ? (Especially if you have design/implementation experience of back-end for property listing or similar portals)

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• Consultations with ATG Development at OpenWorld 2014

  - by Steven Chan (Oracle Development)

  Our OpenWorld 2014 San Francisco conference is about six weeks away.  We have a great lineup of sessions this year.  Our EBS Applications Technology track sessions are listed here, and we'll have a more-detailed article about those soon. One of the advantages of attending OpenWorld is that you can meet face-to-face with senior staff in ATG Development.  You can use these meetings to discusss your questions, requirements, plans, and deployment architectures with us. There are several options for doing this: At general sessions: collar the speaker of your choice after his or her presentation. At the Meet The Experts sessions:  these are first-come first-served round-table discussions Setting up private meetings via your Oracle account manager The last option is best if you have lots of in-depth questions or confidential details about your implementation that cannot be discussed in front of other customers.  Many of this blog's experts, including me, will be attending OpenWorld this year.  If you'd like to meet with us privately, please contact your Oracle account manager to arrange that as soon as possible.  My calendar, in particular, is already starting to fill up.  It is often completely full by the time OpenWorld starts. See you there!

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• Please, tell us how you made Agile work for you?

  - by Paul

  I've been seeing many questions related to Agile. There seems to be confusion between the people who are doing Agile successfully, and those of us who don't understand it. So I'm wondering if some of the successful teams would be willing to give the result of us some examples of how you succeeded. Some of the things I know I wonder What steps did you use? (ie. Talk to users, mock up, tests, code, testing, (whatever)) Tools that helped you? Did you generate any artifacts, other than a working implementation? How did you prevent spaghetti architecture / code? How do you pass along to new team members, or is the team stable for the project How did you determine exit criteria, or was it open ended. (Scope of project?) Did you do this as contracting? How did you develop a contract up-front? Did the business do any up front work? Or did they come to the table with "We want to implement a "bleh bleh blah"? What types of tests did you use? Unit, Integration, UAT? Or did the process make some/all of those unnecessary? Bonus: Do you have an situations / links to "How To" Agile articles, books, etc? Wiki, describes what but not how (to the uninitiated) At least to me, not a duplicate

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• What is the breakdown of jobs in game development?

  - by Destry Ullrich

  There's a project I'm trying to start for Indie Game Development; specifically, it's going to be a social networking website that lets developers meet through (It's a secret). One of the key components is showing what skills members have. Question: I need to know what MAJOR game development roles are not represented in the following list, keeping in mind that many specialist roles are being condensed into more broad, generalist roles: Art Animator (Characters, creatures, props, etc.) Concept Artist (2D scenes, environments, props, silhouettes, etc.) Technical Artist (UI artists, typefaces, graphic designers, etc.) 3D Artist (Modeling, rigging, texture, lighting, etc.) Audio Composer (Scores, music, etc.) Sound Engineer (SFX, mood setting, audio implementation, etc.) Voice (Dialog, acting, etc.) Design Creative Director (Initial direction, team management, communications, etc.) Gameplay Designer (Systems, mechanics, control mapping, etc.) World Designer (Level design, aesthetics, game progression, events, etc.) Writer (Story, mythos, dialog, flavor text, etc.) Programming Engine Programming (Engine creation, scripting, physics, etc.) Graphics Engineer (Sprites, lighting, GUI, etc.) Network Engineer (LAN, multiplayer, server support, etc.) Technical Director (I don't know what a technical director would even do.) Post Script: I have an art background, so i'm not familiar with what the others behind game creation actually do. What's missing from this list, and if you feel some things should be changed around how so?

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• Emulate Historical Figures i.e. Einstein - Is this possible using linguistic logic for my http://www.ustimeline.com Education System

  - by Johnnylight

  After hearing about the success of IBM's Watson I started thinking perhaps emulating human language is now possible? My goal is to create Virtual Historical characters to represent the main characters in my Adventur-Cation The Great American Adventure program such as Einstein or Crazy Horse. The goal is to build an intelligent system capable of indexing the internet and storing the data using a schema using modern knowledge on linguistic theory (phonemes, morphemes, syntax) to build a system capable to returning a semantically sound response very similar to the response made by the same person if still alive today. The goal would be to use the same engine/system for all characters. Each characters would have their own digital representation and voice, and would organize data differently based on tags/keywords stored about the individual. Imagine a Max Headroom Einstein. Based on the success of Watson, I believe something like this may now be possible. Would be an interesting way to study history and would be a vehicle of entertainment as well. Can anyone confirm if this has already been attempted? Is anyone interested in exploring this using Cognitive Science, Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, Historical data captured on the internet, and Linguistic theory?

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• OSB, Service Callouts and OQL

  - by Sabha

  Oracle Fusion Middleware customers use Oracle Service Bus (OSB) for virtualizing Service endpoints and implementing stateless service orchestrations. Behind the performance and speed of OSB, there are a couple of key design implementations that can affect application performance and behavior under heavy load. One of the heavily used feature in OSB is the Service Callout pipeline action for message enrichment and invoking multiple services as part of one single orchestration. Overuse of this feature, without understanding its internal implementation, can lead to serious problems. This series will delve into OSB internals, the problem associated with usage of Service Callout under high loads, diagnosing it via thread dump and heap dump analysis using tools like ThreadLogic and OQL (Object Query Language) and resolving it. The first section in the series will mainly cover the threading model used internally by OSB for implementing Route Vs. Service Callouts. The second section of the "OSB, Service Callouts and OQL" blog posting will delve into thread dump analysis of OSB server and detecting threading issues relating to Service Callout and using Heap Dump and OQL to identify the related Proxies and Business services involved. The final section of the series will focus on the corrective action to avoid Service Callout related OSB serer hangs. Before we dive into the solution, we need to briefly discus about Work Managers in WLS. Please refer to the blog posting for more details.

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• Square game map rendered as sphere with OpenGL

  - by Roflha

  Okay so I have been trying to find a good way to do this for a while now and so far I have nothing. For a hobby project of mine I have created a finite voxel world (similar to minecraft), but as I said, mine is finite. When you reach the edge of it, you are sent to the other side. That is all working fine along with rendering the far side of the map, but I want to be able to render this grid as a sphere. Looking down from above, the world is a square. I basically want to be able to represent a portion of that square as a sphere, as if you were looking at a planet. Right now I am experimenting with taking a circular section of the map, and rendering that, but it look to flat (no curvature around the edges). My question then, is what would be the best way to add some curvature to the edges of a 2d circle to make it look like a hemisphere. However, I am not overly attached to this implementation so if somebody has some other idea for representing the square as a planet, I am all ears.

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• How-To: Run CMSDK against a RAC cluster

  - by frank.closheim

  Using CMSDK in a production environment often requires a robust, reliable and failover enabled repository. When using Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) with your CMSDK repository you need to have a specific configuration in place to support such a setup. This post will explain the configuration steps required when running CMSDK 9.0.4.6 with Oracle WebLogic Server (WLS).In the previous CMSDK 9.0.4.2 version a RAC enabled connect string looked like this: (DESCRIPTION = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = rac1)(PORT = 1521))(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = rac2)(PORT = 1521))(LOAD_BALANCE = NO)(FAILOVER = ON)(CONNECT_DATA =(SERVICE_NAME = rac)(failover_mode = (type=select)(method=basic)))CMSDK 9.0.4.6 makes use of data sources to connect to the underlying database. These data sources are configured inside your Application Server, such as Oracle WebLogic Server.In Oracle WebLogic Server 10.3.4, a single data source implementation has been introduced to support an RAC cluster. It responds to Fast Application Notification (FAN) events to provide Fast Connection Failover (FCF), Runtime Connection Load-Balancing (RCLB), and RAC instance graceful shutdown. XA affinity is supported at the global transaction Id level. The new feature is called WebLogic Active GridLink for RAC; which is implemented as the GridLink data source within WebLogic Server.This GridLink data source also works with Oracle Single Client Access Name (SCAN). SCAN is a feature used in RAC environments that provides a single name for clients to access any Oracle Database running in a cluster. You can think of SCAN as a cluster alias for databases in the cluster. The benefit is that the client’s connect information does not need to change if you add or remove nodes or databases in the cluster.The CMSDK 9.0.4.6 documentation describes how to create a regular JDBC data source named jdbc/OracleDS. Please refer to the following document which describes in detail how to create a GridLink data source in WLS.

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• What is the best way to exploit multicores when making multithread games?

  - by Keeper

  Many people suggest to write a program, and then start optimizing it. But I think that when it's coming to multithreading with multicore, a little think ahead is required. I've read about using threads, and experienced it myself during some courses at the university (still a student). The big question is simple, but a bit abstract: What thread related steps in game design do I need to take, before implementation? Now trying to be more specific. Let's say, as an example, that I'm making a small board game (like Monopoly) that I want to be multithreaded. My goal Is that this multithreaded game will exploit the best of the multicore system, lets say 4-6 cores (like in i7 processors). My answer to this question at the moment is, one thread for each of these four basic components: GUI User Input / Output AI (computer rival) Other game related calculations (like shortest path from A to B, or level up status change) I'm not an expert (yet!), and I'm sure there are better answers out there. Any suggestion, answer, different approach will be helpful. Some thoughts: Maybe splitting the main database is a good way.. (or total disaster.. )

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• How to visualize code?

  - by gablin

  I've mostly only had to read my own code. As such, I've had no need to visualize the code as I already know how each and every class and module communicate with one another. But the few times I've had to read someone else's code - let us now assume we are talking about at least one larger module which contains several internal classes - I've almost always found myself wishing "This would have been so much easier to understand if I could just visualize it!" So what are the common methods or tools for enabling this? Which do you use, and why do you prefer them over the others? I've heard stuff like UML, module and class diagrams, but I imagine there are more. Furthermore, any of these is most likely better than anything I can devise on my own. EDIT: For those who answer with "Use pen and paper and just draw it": This isn't very helpful unless you explain this further. What exactly am I supposed to draw? A box for each class? Should I include the public methods? What about its fields? How should I draw connections that explain how one class uses another? What about modules? What if the language isn't object-oriented but functional or logical, or even just imperative (C, for instance)? What about global variables and functions? Is there an already-standardized way of drawing this, or do I need to think up of a method of my own? You get the drift.

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• The advantages & disadvantages to be had from using a Web Framework?

  - by JHarley1

  Hello, This question is focused on extracting the advantages and disadvantages of using Web based Frameworks: such as Cake PHP, Zend, jQuery, ASP.NET). This question is completely language agnostic. Let me start with the notion of "Standing on the shoulders of Giants". Advantages: Empowers Developers - by taking features that would have previously have taken 100's of lines of code and compressing them into one simple function call empowers developers to integrate more complex features into their Web Sites. Allow for Quicker development of applications - this is very relevant for people that need websites created in a very small window (has anyone any examples of this?) Lower Costs - allows programmers to pass cost savings onto the customer, a whole new range of customers generated that wanted a website but previously could not afford the higher development costs. Disadvantages: Lost Understanding - by relying on the features of a framework a developer is in danger of loosing understanding on how things work (underneath the hood). The configuration cliff - once you go further than the configuration of your framework your productivity drops right off, it can be difficult to implement features outside of a frameworks configuration. Developer tramlines - you (the developer) has to do things the way that the developer want you to do things. Security issues - giving people these tools to develop professional looking websites fast is a potential risk, people can quickly create professional looking websites for fraudulent companies. I wonder what people make of my points, and whether any body disagrees with them? Also if people have additional points I would be grateful. Many Thanks, J

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• How to implement behavior in a component-based game architecture?

  - by ghostonline

  I am starting to implement player and enemy AI in a game, but I am confused about how to best implement this in a component-based game architecture. Say I have a following player character that can be stationary, running and swinging a sword. A player can transit to the swing sword state from both the stationary and running state, but then the swing must be completed before the player can resume standing or running around. During the swing, the player cannot walk around. As I see it, I have two implementation approaches: Create a single AI-component containing all player logic (either decoupled from the actual component or embedded as a PlayerAIComponent). I can easily how to enforce the state restrictions without creating coupling between individual components making up the player entity. However, the AI-component cannot be broken up. If I have, for example, an enemy that can only stand and walk around or only walks around and occasionally swing a sword, I have to create new AI-components. Break the behavior up in components, each identifying a specific state. I then get a StandComponent, WalkComponent and SwingComponent. To enforce the transition rules, I have to couple each component. SwingComponent must disable StandComponent and WalkComponent for the duration of the swing. When I have an enemy that only stands around, swinging a sword occasionally, I have to make sure SwingComponent only disables WalkComponent if it is present. Although this allows for better mix-and-matching components, it can lead to a maintainability nightmare as each time a dependency is added, the existing components must be updated to play nicely with the new requirements the dependency places on the character. The ideal situation would be that a designer can build new enemies/players by dragging components into a container, without having to touch a single line of engine or script code. Although I am not sure script coding can be avoided, I want to keep it as simple as possible. Summing it all up: Should I lob all AI logic into one component or break up each logic state into separate components to create entity variants more easily?

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• Games without a(n explicit) game loop

  - by Davy8

  Most game development happens with a main game loop. Are there any good articles/blog posts/discussions about games without a game loop? I imagine they'd mostly be web games, but I'd be interested in hearing otherwise. (As a side note, I think it's really interesting that the concept is almost exclusively used in gaming as far as I'm aware, perhaps that may be another question.) Edit: I realize there's probably a redraw loop somewhere. I guess what I really mean is a loop that is hidden to you. Frames are something you as the developer are not concerned with as you're working on a higher level of abstraction. E.g. someLootItem.moveTo(inventory, someAnimatationType) and that will move from the loot box to your inventory using the specified animation type without the game developer having to worry about the implementation details of that animation. Maybe that's how "real" games end up working, but from reading most tutorials they seem to imply a much more granular level of control is used, but that might just be an artifact of being a tutorial.

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• Design in "mixed" languages: object oriented design or functional programming?

  - by dema80

  In the past few years, the languages I like to use are becoming more and more "functional". I now use languages that are a sort of "hybrid": C#, F#, Scala. I like to design my application using classes that correspond to the domain objects, and use functional features where this makes coding easier, more coincise and safer (especially when operating on collections or when passing functions). However the two worlds "clash" when coming to design patterns. The specific example I faced recently is the Observer pattern. I want a producer to notify some other code (the "consumers/observers", say a DB storage, a logger, and so on) when an item is created or changed. I initially did it "functionally" like this: producer.foo(item => { updateItemInDb(item); insertLog(item) }) // calls the function passed as argument as an item is processed But I'm now wondering if I should use a more "OO" approach: interface IItemObserver { onNotify(Item) } class DBObserver : IItemObserver ... class LogObserver: IItemObserver ... producer.addObserver(new DBObserver) producer.addObserver(new LogObserver) producer.foo() //calls observer in a loop Which are the pro and con of the two approach? I once heard a FP guru say that design patterns are there only because of the limitations of the language, and that's why there are so few in functional languages. Maybe this could be an example of it? EDIT: In my particular scenario I don't need it, but.. how would you implement removal and addition of "observers" in the functional way? (I.e. how would you implement all the functionalities in the pattern?) Just passing a new function, for example?

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