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• Copy-and-Pasted Test Code: How Bad is This?

  - by joshin4colours

  My current job is mostly writing GUI test code for various applications that we work on. However, I find that I tend to copy and paste a lot of code within tests. The reason for this is that the areas I'm testing tend to be similar enough to need repetition but not quite similar enough to encapsulate code into methods or objects. I find that when I try to use classes or methods more extensively, tests become more cumbersome to maintain and sometimes outright difficult to write in the first place. Instead, I usually copy a big chunk of test code from one section and paste it to another, and make any minor changes I need. I don't use more structured ways of coding, such as using more OO-principles or functions. Do other coders feel this way when writing test code? Obviously I want to follow DRY and YAGNI principles, but I find that test code (automated test code for GUI testing anyway) can make these principles tough to follow. Or do I just need more coding practice and a better overall system of doing things? EDIT: The tool I'm using is SilkTest, which is in a proprietary language called 4Test. As well, these tests are mostly for Windows desktop applications, but I also have tested web apps using this setup as well.

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• Best practice for designing a risk-style board game

  - by jyanks

  I'm just trying to figure out how to set up the code for a game like risk... I would like it to be extensible, so that I can have multiple maps (ie- World, North America, Eurasia, Africa) so hardcoding in the map doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense I'm a bit confused on how/where items should be stored/accessed. Here are the objects I see the game theoretically using: -Countries/Territories -Cities (Can be contained within territories) -Capitols -Connections -Continents -Map -Troops At the moment, I feel like: -A map should have a list of continents and countries. The continents would be more of a 'logical' thing where the continents would just be lists of countries that are checked for bonuses at the start of turns -Countries should have a list of countries that they're connected to for the connections What I can't figure out is: Where do I store the troops? Do I have an object for every single troop or do I just store the number of troops on a country object as an integer? What about capitols and cities? Do those just have a reference to the country they reside in? Is there anything I'm not seeing here that's going to screw me over in the long run with the way that I'm thinking about things now? Any advice would be appreciated.

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• How do you get better working conditions? [closed]

  - by 0A0D

  I work at a business who has a software side and manufacturing side. The software we write is sold as a package along with other hardware that our customers purchase. I basically work in a warehouse. There is one door that seperates the engineers from the warehouse noise. I have asked for noise cancelling walls to be put in. I have asked multiple times over 6 months to be moved up front to one of two vacant sales offices, but they seem reluctant to let an Engineer move into a sales office. In fact, sales are the only ones with windows and they get commission though they make mistakes or overpromise to the customer. So, my question is how can I get better working conditions without necessarily having to leave my current job? It is very hard to work and concentrate. UPDATE I think I can finally close this chapter in my life. I have moved on to a large corporation which follows CMMI religiously and has even started using Agile in many of its projects. Nevertheless, there is organization, respect, and genuine care for the engineers and scientists that work for them. Pierre was right - quitting was the right answer. My life does not nearly have the amount of stress it used to have because I now work for a place that is organized and knows what it wants its engineers to do along with treating them like they should be treated.

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• Pros and Cons between learning to program on Windows and Linux and Macs

  - by Amumu

  I have been studying IT for 2 years and I'm going to graduate soon in this year (if everything goes well). I think it's time for me to choose a path to specialized into some fields of this large industry. Personally, I want to be a game programmer. But to be a game programmer, surely I have to invest my time to study Windows Programming, then DirectX and other programming techniques related to game. On the other hand, Linux seems promising as well. I am not sure about Game Programming on for it, but it seems become an expert for this OS, and by expert it's not about using the OS to become an administrator, but can do further than that, such as understand the OS to its essence and can produce applications for it. However, there's some obstacles in my view for this development path. Many of my friends think that Linux is based on free and open source, and if you follow it, as its name suggested: Free and Open Source, it means we also give away our software free. Otherwise, we will have to find a second job to make living. Currently, I think a viable way to make money on Linux is doing works related to client-server. Another way to developer my career is to become expert in developing business applications for companies. This is more on business, not on specialized IT fields so I am not really interested. Another alternative is programming on mobile devices, such as iPhone, Android and it seems very promising and easier to approach. Another way is to become a computer scientist and research on academic subjects such as AI, human-computer interaction, but this is far beyond my reach, so I won't invest my time on it until I feel I am experienced enough. That's all I can think of for now. I may miss a lot of things, so I need more opinions as input to get the big picture of the industry for my career path.

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• Recommendations for a web-based help system

  - by ggkmath

  Hi Experts, I'm putting together a fairly large GUI. I'm a tech person, but more on the hardware side, not software. I'm wondering what software package would be best suited to enable me to generate a web-based help-system. Preferably it takes care of a lot of coding, allowing me to focus on the content. For example, the user would click on a link in the GUI when they have a question, that brings them to a web-based Help Guide, for example, providing an overview of how to use the GUI, perhaps a searchable index (key-word based index), table of contents, etc, for navigating through the Help Guide. My first thought was to program everything in XHTML using Dreamweaver, but my layout requirements are fairly modest (just figures and text, maybe a few equations), and I'd prefer not to spend a lot of time concentrating on the programming. Was wondering if any software existed that made generating web-based navigatable pages easy to create/publish. Again, I'm not really a programmer, so if there's something obvious out there, I'm probably not aware of it. Any advice much appreciated! Thanks in advance.

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• Texture2D.GetData fails to return pixel colour data

  - by Chris Charabaruk

  Because I'm using sprite sheets instead of an individual texture per sprite, I need to pass in a Rectangle when calling Texture2D.GetData() in my collision detection for per-pixel tests. Unfortunately, without fail I get an ArgumentException percolated down from an internal method inside the Texture (not Texture2D) class. My code for getting the texture data looks like this: public override Color[] GetPixelData() { Color[] data = new Color[(int)size.Product()]; Rectangle rect = new Rectangle(hframe * (int)size.X, vframe * (int)size.Y, (int)size.X, (int)size.Y); #if DEBUG if (sprite.Bounds.Contains(rect) && sprite.Format == SurfaceFormat.Color) #endif sprite.GetData(0, rect, data, 0, 1); return data; } Even with the check to ensure I'm grabbing a valid rectangle and that the texture format matches what I'm trying to get, I still get that exception, claiming "The size of the data passed in is too large or too small for this resource." Unfortunately, the debugger won't let me check the locals within the Texture.ValidateTotalSize() method where the exception originates. Has anyone else had this problem and knows how to fix it? I'm relying on AABB testing only for now, but that doesn't really work for some of my game's entities due to odd shapes, rotation and scaling.

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• VCE at the VCS!?!?

  - by John Murphy

  VCE stands for Value Chain Execution, VCS stands for Value Chain Summit and in February in San Francisco, VCE will be fully represented at the VCS. The Value Chain Summit is Oracle's first large scale Supply Chain Management event specifically aimed at both current and prospective users of Oracle Supply Chain Management applications. This inaugural event is Feb 4-6, 2013 in downtown San Francisco.  Over 1000 attendees will meet to discuss and see what's new in product releases, what recent business trends are impacting supply chains, how technology is evolving, where supply chains are headed, and what companies are doing about it.  As the market leader in Value Chain Execution applications, VCE sessions and demonstrations will provide attendees direct access to the most sophisticated logistics applications in the world.  Already a user of VCE applications?   That's all the more reason to attend as sessions are specifically designed to address the latest features in the upcoming 6.3 release.  Detailed content will be shared by development and strategy personnel so you can get all the answers you need to improve your use of the VCE applications you currently have deployed.   Please join us in San Francisco in February!  

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• Optimal sprite size for rotations

  - by Panda Pajama

  I am making a sprite based game, and I have a bunch of images that I get in a ridiculously large resolution and I scale them to the desired sprite size (for example 64x64 pixels) before converting them to a game resource, so when draw my sprite inside the game, I don't have to scale it. However, if I rotate this small sprite inside the game (engine agnostically), some destination pixels will get interpolated, and the sprite will look smudged. This is of course dependent on the rotation angle as well as the interpolation algorithm, but regardless, there is not enough data to correctly sample a specific destination pixel. So there are two solutions I can think of. The first is to use the original huge image, rotate it to the desired angles, and then downscale all the reaulting variations, and put them in an atlas, which has the advantage of being quite simple to implement, but naively consumes twice as much sprite space for each rotation (each rotation must be inscribed in a circle whose diameter is the diagonal of the original sprite's rectangle, whose area is twice of that original rectangle, supposing square sprites). It also has the disadvantage of only having a predefined set of rotations available, which may be okay or not depending on the game. So the other choice would be to store a larger image, and rotate and downscale while rendering, which leads to my question. What is the optimal size for this sprite? Optimal meaning that a larger image will have no effect in the resulting image. This is definitely dependent on the image size, the amount of desired rotations without data loss down to 1/256, which is the minimum representable color difference. I am looking for a theoretical general answer to this problem, because trying a bunch of sizes may be okay, but is far from optimal.

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• How to remove a box2d body when collision happens?

  - by Ayham

  I’m still new to java and android programming and I am having so much trouble Removing an object when collision happens. I looked around the web and found that I should never handle removing BOX2D bodies during collision detection (a contact listener) and I should add my objects to an arraylist and set a variable in the User Data section of the body to delete or not and handle the removing action in an update handler. So I did this: First I define two ArrayLists one for the faces and one for the bodies: ArrayList<Sprite> myFaces = new ArrayList<Sprite>(); ArrayList<Body> myBodies = new ArrayList<Body>(); Then when I create a face and connect that face to its body I add them to their ArrayLists like this: face = new AnimatedSprite(pX, pY, pWidth, pHeight, this.mBoxFaceTextureRegion); Body BoxBody = PhysicsFactory.createBoxBody(mPhysicsWorld, face, BodyType.DynamicBody, objectFixtureDef); mPhysicsWorld.registerPhysicsConnector(new PhysicsConnector(face, BoxBody, true, true)); myFaces.add(face); myBodies.add(BoxBody); now I add a contact listener and an update handler in the onloadscene like this: this.mPhysicsWorld.setContactListener(new ContactListener() { private AnimatedSprite face2; @Override public void beginContact(final Contact pContact) { } @Override public void endContact(final Contact pContact) { } @Override public void preSolve(Contact contact,Manifold oldManifold) { } @Override public void postSolve(Contact contact,ContactImpulse impulse) { } }); scene.registerUpdateHandler(new IUpdateHandler() { @Override public void reset() { } @Override public void onUpdate(final float pSecondsElapsed) { } }); My plan is to detect which two bodies collided in the contact listener by checking a variable from the user data section of the body, get their numbers in the array list and finally use the update handler to remove these bodies. The questions are: Am I using the arraylist correctly? How to add a variable to the User Data (the code please). I tried removing a body in this update handler but it still throws me NullPointerException , so what is the right way to add an update handler and where should I add it. Any other advices to do this would be great. Thanks in advance.

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• Is there an excuse for excessively short variable names?

  - by KChaloux

  This has become a large frustration with the codebase I'm currently working in; many of our variable names are short and undescriptive. I'm the only developer left on the project, and there isn't documentation as to what most of them do, so I have to spend extra time tracking down what they represent. For example, I was reading over some code that updates the definition of an optical surface. The variables set at the start were as follows: double dR, dCV, dK, dDin, dDout, dRin, dRout dR = Convert.ToDouble(_tblAsphere.Rows[0].ItemArray.GetValue(1)); dCV = convert.ToDouble(_tblAsphere.Rows[1].ItemArray.GetValue(1)); ... and so on Maybe it's just me, but it told me essentially nothing about what they represented, which made understanding the code further down difficult. All I knew was that it was a variable parsed out specific row from a specific table, somewhere. After some searching, I found out what they meant: dR = radius dCV = curvature dK = conic constant dDin = inner aperture dDout = outer aperture dRin = inner radius dRout = outer radius I renamed them to essentially what I have up there. It lengthens some lines, but I feel like that's a fair trade off. This kind of naming scheme is used throughout a lot of the code however. I'm not sure if it's an artifact from developers who learned by working with older systems, or if there's a deeper reason behind it. Is there a good reason to name variables this way, or am I justified in updating them to more descriptive names as I come across them?

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• Object inheritance and method parameters/return types - Please check my logic

  - by user2368481

  I'm preparing for a test and doing practice questions, this one in particular I am unsure I did correctly: We are given a very simple UML diagram to demonstrate inheritance: I hope this is clear, it shows that W inherits from V and so on: |-----Y V <|----- W<|-----| |-----X<|----Z and this code: public X method1(){....} method2(new Y()); method2(method1()); method2(method3()); The questions and my answers: Q: What types of objects could method1 actually return? A: X and Z, since the method definition includes X as the return type and since Z is a kind of X is would be OK to return either. Q: What could the parameter type of method2 be? A: Since method2 in the code accepts Y, X and Z (as the return from method1), the parameter type must be either V or W, as Y,X and Z inherit from both of these. Q: What could return type of method3 be? A: Return type of method3 must be V or W as this would be consistent with answer 2.

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• Tell Us Once&ndash;Final Phase goes live

  - by BizTalk Visionary

  Yesterday the final phase of ‘Tell Us Once’ went live. This completes the 4 1/2 year journey Solidsoft started on this cross government project with the addition of full electronic distribution of data and the most import piece – access for the citizen to use the service on-line. Tell Us Once (TUO) is the award-winning, cross-government programme that lets people inform central government and local authorities just once of a birth or death. In service in over 95% of councils in England, Scotland and Wales, it provides a permanent solution to the long-standing and frustrating issue of people having to notify the government multiple times. Several years ago, research showed that people had to make up to 44 contacts when reporting a death to government bodies and their local authority. The TUO service is offered as a face-to-face interview by the local authority or by telephone to a dedicated telephony service run by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). and a  now a TUO online service for death. From the bereavement section of the  Direct Gov web site the citizen is able to ‘enrich’ the standard death registration data to allow the ‘Tell Us Once’ system inform the various government departments about the death. These include the local council, DVLA, DWP, Passport service and HMRC. For the record this is an excellent example of how an SME working with a large SI partner can deliver success for government in a responsive and agile manner. For me personally it is a proud moment in which a vision I started with a very small team was followed through, extended and finally delivered by an excellent team at Solidsoft.

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• Should the syntax for disabling code differ from that of normal comments?

  - by deltreme

  For several reasons during development I sometimes comment out code. As I am chaotic and sometimes in a hurry, some of these make it to source control. I also use comments to clarify blocks of code. For instance: MyClass MyFunction() { (...) // return null; // TODO: dummy for now return obj; } Even though it "works" and alot of people do it this way, it annoys me that you cannot automatically distinguish commented-out code from "real" comments that clarify code: it adds noise when trying to read code you cannot search for commented-out code for for instance an on-commit hook in source control. Some languages support multiple single-line comment styles - for instance in PHP you can either use // or # for a single-line comment - and developers can agree on using one of these for commented-out code: # return null; // TODO: dummy for now return obj; Other languages - like C# which I am using today - have one style for single-line comments (right? I wish I was wrong). I have also seen examples of "commenting-out" code using compiler directives, which is great for large blocks of code, but a bit overkill for single lines as two new lines are required for the directive: #if compile_commented_out return null; // TODO: dummy for now #endif return obj; So as commenting-out code happens in every(?) language, shouldn't "disabled code" get its own syntax in language specifications? Are the pro's (separation of comments / disabled code, editors / source control acting on them) good enough and the cons ("shouldn't do commenting-out anyway", not a functional part of a language, potential IDE lag (thanks Thomas)) worth sacrificing? Edit I realise the example I used is silly; the dummy code could easily be removed as it is replaced by the actual code.

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• Assigning valid moves on board game

  - by Kunal4536

  I am making a board game in unity 4.3 2d similar to checkers. I have added an empty object to all the points where player can move and added a box collider to each empty object.I attached a click to move script to each player token. Now I want to assign valid moves. e.g. as shown in picture... Players can only move on vertex of each square.Player can only move to adjacent vertex.Thus it can only move from red spot to yellow and cannot move to blue spot.There is another condition which is : if there is the token of another player at the yellow spot then the player cannot move to that spot. Instead it will have to go from red to green spot. How can I find the valid moves of the player by scripting. I have another problem with click to move. When I click all the objects move to that position.But I only want to move a single token. So what can i add to script to select a specific object and then click to move the specific object.Here is my script for click to move. var obj:Transform; private var hitPoint : Vector3; private var move: boolean = false; private var startTime:float; var speed = 1; function Update () { if(Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Mouse0)) { var hit : RaycastHit; // no point storing this really var ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay (Input.mousePosition); if (Physics.Raycast (ray, hit, 10000)) { hitPoint = hit.point; move = true; startTime = Time.time; } } if(move) { obj.position = Vector3.Lerp(obj.position, hitPoint, Time.deltaTime * speed); if(obj.position == hitPoint) { move = false; } } }`

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• Earmarks of a Professional PHP Programmer

  - by Scotty C.

  I'm a 19 year old student who really REALLY enjoys programming, and I'm hoping to glean from your years of experience here. At present, I'm studying PHP every chance I get, and have been for about 3 years, although I've never taken any formal classes. I'd love to some day be a programmer full time, and make a good career of it. My question to you is this: What do you consider to be the earmarks or traits of a professional programmer? Mainly in the field of PHP, but other, more generalized qualifications are also more than welcome, as I think PHP is more of a hobbyist language and may not be the language of choice in the eyes of potential employers. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Above all, I don't want to wast time on something that isn't worth while. I'm currently feeling pretty confident in my knowledge of PHP as a language, and I know that I could build just about anything I need and have it "work", but I feel sorely lacking in design concepts and code structure. I can even write object oriented code, but in my personal opinion, that isn't worth a hill of beans if it isn't organized well. For this reason, I bought Matt Zandstra's book "PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practice" and have been reading that a little every day. Anyway, I'm starting to digress a little here, so back to the original question. What advice would you give to an aspiring programmer who wants to make an impact in this field? Also, on a side note, I've been working on a project with a friend of mine that would give a fairly good idea of where I'm at coding wise. I'm gonna give a link, I don't want anyone to feel as though I'm pushing or spamming here, so don't click it if you don't want to. But if you are interested on giving some feedback there as well, you can see the code on github. I'm known as The Craw there. https://github.com/PureChat/PureChat--Beta-/tree/

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• Is there such thing as a "theory of system integration"?

  - by Jeff

  There is a plethora of different programs, servers, and in general technologies in use in organizations today. We, programmers, have lots of different tools at our disposal to help solve various different data, and communication challenges in an organization. Does anyone know if anyone has done an serious thinking about how systems are integrated? Let me give an example: Hypothetically, let's say I own a company that makes specialized suits a'la Iron Man. In the area of production, I have CAD tools, machining tools, payroll, project management, and asset management tools to name a few. I also have nice design space, where designers show off their designs on big displays, some touch, some traditional. Oh, and I also have one of these new fangled LEED Platinum buildings and it has number of different computer controlled systems, like smart window shutters that close when people are in the room, a HVAC system that adjusts depending on the number of people in the building, etc. What I want to know is if anyone has done any scientific work on trying to figure out how to hook all these pieces together, so that say my access control system is hooked to my payroll system, and my phone system allowing my never to swipe a time card, and to have my phone follow me throughout the building. This problem is also more than a technology challenge. Every technology implementation enables certain human behaviours, so the human must also be considered as a part of the system. Has anyone done any work in how effectively weave these components together? FYI: I am not trying to build a system. I want to know if anyone has thoroughly studied the process of doing a large integration project, how they develop their requirements, how they studied the human behaviors, etc.

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• When module calling gets ugly

  - by Pete

  Has this ever happened to you? You've got a suite of well designed, single-responsibility modules, covered by unit tests. In any higher-level function you code, you are (95% of the code) simply taking output from one module and passing it as input to the next. Then, you notice this higher-level function has turned into a 100+ line script with multiple responsibilities. Here is the problem. It is difficult (impossible) to test that script. At least, it seems so. Do you agree? In my current project, all of the bugs came from this script. Further detail: each script represents a unique solution, or algorithm, formed by using different modules in different ways. Question: how can you remedy this situation? Knee-jerk answer: break the script up into single-responsibility modules. Comment on knee-jerk answer: it already is! Best answer I can come up with so far: create higher-level connector objects which "wire" modules together in particular ways (take output from one module, feed it as input to another module). Thus if our script was: FooInput fooIn = new FooInput(1, 2); FooOutput fooOutput = fooModule(fooIn); Double runtimevalue = getsomething(fooOutput.whatever); BarInput barIn = new BarInput( runtimevalue, fooOutput.someOtherValue); BarOutput barOut = barModule(BarIn); It would become with a connector: FooBarConnectionAlgo fooBarConnector = new fooBarConnector(fooModule, barModule); FooInput fooIn = new FooInput(1, 2); BarOutput barOut = fooBarConnector(fooIn); So the advantage is, besides hiding some code and making things clearer, we can test FooBarConnectionAlgo. I'm sure this situation comes up a lot. What do you do?

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• Alternatives to Pessimistic Locking in Cluster Applications

  - by amphibient

  I am researching alternatives to database-level pessimistic locking to achieve transaction isolation in a cluster of Java applications going against the same database. Synchronizing concurrent access in the application tier is clearly not a solution in the present configuration because the same database transaction can be invoked from multiple JVMs concurrently. Currently, we are subject to occasional race conditions which, due to the optimistic locking we have in place via Hibernate, cause a StaleObjectStateException exception and data loss. I have a moderately large transaction within the scope of my refactoring project. Let's describe it as updating one top-level table row and then making various related inserts and/or updates to several of its child entities. I would like to insure exclusive access to the top-level table row and all of the children to be affected but I would like to stay away from pessimistic locking at the database level for performance reasons mostly. We use Hibernate for ORM. Does it make sense to start a single (perhaps synchronous) message queue application into which this method could be moved to insure synchronized access as opposed to each cluster node using its own, which is a clear race condition hazard? I am mentioning this approach even though I am not confident in it because both the top-level table row and its children could also be updated from other system calls, not just the mentioned transaction. So I am seeking to design a solution where the top-level table row and its children will all somehow be pseudo-locked (exclusive transaction isolation) but at the application and not the database level. I am open to ideas and suggestions, I understand this is not a very cut and dried challenge.

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• Eclipse and Oracle Fusion Development - Free Virtual Event, July 10th

  - by Carlos Chang

    Below is one of many sessions covering Oracle Fusion Development.  It's a free virtual event on July 10. Live chats with Oracle's technical staff.  Check it out! Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse - ADF Development Oracle ADF Development has never been easier in Eclipse. During this session we will explore best practices to use standard Java EE technologies like EJBs and JPA to build rich ADF applications based on ADF Data Controls, Task Flows, and ADF Faces components all within Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse (OEPE) 12c. We will also look at how OEPE’s AppXRay technology enables developers to understand and visualize dependency relationships between ADF components, xml descriptors, and Java objects in order to drive validation, content assist, and refactoring. Free Virtual Developer Day - Fusion Middleware Development Join a free online developer day where you can learn about the various components that make up the Oracle Fusion Development platform including ADF, ADF Mobile, Oracle WebCenter Portal, Business Intelligence and more. Online seminars and hands-on labs available directly from your browser. Join us on July 10!  Register here. 

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• How should I load level data in java?

  - by Matthew G.

  I'm setting up my engine for a certain action/arcade game to have a set of commands that would look something like this. Set landscape to grass Create rocks at ... Create player at X, Y Set goal to "Get to point X Y" Spawn enemy at X, Y I'd then have each object knowing what it has to do, and acting on its own. I've been thinking about how to store this data. External data files could be parsed by a level class, and certain objects can be spawned through that. I could also create a base level class and extend it for each level, but that'd create a large amount of classes. Another idea is to have one level parser class, but have a case for each level. This would be extremely silly and bulky, but I mention it because I found that I did this at 2 AM last night. I'm finally getting why I have to plan out my inheritances, though. RIP project. I might be completely missing another option.

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• Which Graphics/Geometry abstraction to choose?

  - by Robz

  I've been thinking about the design for a browser app on the HTML5 canvas that simulates a 2D robot zooming around, sensing the world around it. I decided to do this from scratch just for fun. I need shapes, like polygons, circles, and lines in order to model the robot and the world it lives in. These shapes need to be drawn with different appearance attributes, like border/fill style/width/color. I also need to have geometry functions to detect intersections and containment for the robot's sensors and so that the robot doesn't go inside stuff. One idea for functions is to have two totally separate libraries, one to implement graphics (like drawShape(context, shape)) and one for geometry operations (like shapeIntersectsShape(shape1, shape2)). Or, in a more object-oriented approach, the shape objects themselves could implement methods to do their own graphics (shape.draw(context)) and geometry operations (shape1.intersects(shape2)). Then there is the data itself: whether the data to draw a shape and the data to do geometric operations on that shape should be encapsulated within the same object, or be separate structures (where one would contain the other, or both be contained inside another structure). How do existing applications that do graphics/geometry stuff deal with this? Is there one model that is best, or is each good for certain applications? Should the fact that I'm using Javascript instead of a more classical language change how I approach the design?

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• Do we have enough time to build an electric car future?

  - by julien.groues

  A recent article from Greenbang has posed the question 'Do we have enough time to build an electric car future?'. The writer discusses that, although the future of transport might lie with electric cars, there is concern regarding whether we'll be able to build the market and infrastructure required to support them, before carbon and oil constraints create difficulties in powering the vehicles. Of course, the increasing use of Electric vehicles (EVs) is going to put excessive pressure on energy grids, as large volumes of electricity will need to be directed to charging points, which in turn must handle fluctuating demand at peak times. EVs are increasing in popularity as a sustainable method of transport to reduce carbon consumption, and electric utilities will have the opportunity, and the challenge, to quickly determine the best methods to fuel these vehicles and accommodate the associated increases in demand for energy. Critically, efficient software is required to provide diagnostic and predictive capabilities related to EV refuelling - for example, anticipated electricity flow will need to be addressed as the number of EVs on the road increases, and electricity will need to be directed to specific areas on-demand as vehicles attempt to recharge en-mass. But a smart grid infrastructure can meet these demands, intelligently. The implementation of a smart grid is not in the distant future, it is an achievable reality for utilities via simple installation of new software and technologies, which can be done incrementally for those facing existing legacy systems or concerned with upfront costs. The smart grid is integral to the monitoring and control of energy use as well as the future-proofing of the energy grid. A smart grid will be critical to meeting the electricity requirements of new EVs and will ensure their successful deployment by providing a reliable foundation for the data handling required to record and manage electricity distribution - from recording and assessing energy usage, to analysing data and sharing information with consumers via green billing. http://www.greenbang.com/do-we-have-enough-time-to-build-an-electric-car-future_14248.html

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• Turning a problem into a data

  - by Fogmeister

  OK, I have an app that I'm creating but I'm just really not sure about how to approach the problem. The idea is fairly simple. I'm just not sure how to wrap it in a data model (or even if I should). TBH I feel like I'm making it more complicated than it needs to be. How it works. The app will have circles along the top in a row that need to be connected to circles along the bottom in a row. 10 circles at the top. 10 at the bottom. One connection per pair of dots. Anyway, I can get the dots to connect I'm just not sure how to wrap it in a data model so that I can analyse what has been connected and see if it is right or not. The circles will be questions and answers. I can make an array of question objects with a question and answer properties. I can then display these as the dot pairs. I'm just not sure how to record which questions have been connected to which answers. It is valid for a user to connect a wrong answer as they all get checked at the end. I was thinking of using SpriteKit but this isn't a restriction. I could use UIKit or something else. TBH, this question is fairly language free as I'm just after a way of modelling it.

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• Supporting and testing multiple versions of a software library in a Maven project

  - by Duncan Jones

  My company has several versions of its software in use by our customers at any one time. My job is to write bespoke Java software for the customers based on the version of software they happen to be running. I've created a Java library that performs many of the tasks I regularly require in a normal project. This is a Maven project that I deploy to our local Artifactory and pull down into other Maven projects when required. I can't decide the best way to support the range of software versions used by our customers. Typically, we have about three versions in use at any one time. They are normally backwards compatible with one another, but that cannot be guaranteed. I have considered the following options for managing this issue: Separate editions for each library version I make a separate release of my library for each version of my company software. Using some Maven cunningness I could automatically produce a tested version linked to each of the then-current company software versions. This is feasible, but not without its technical challenges. The advantage is that this would be fairly automatic and my unit tests have definitely executed against the correct software version. However, I would have to keep updating the versions supported and may end up maintaining a large collection of libraries. One supported version, but others tested I support the oldest software version and make a release against that. I then perform tests with the newer software versions to ensure it still works. I could try and make this testing automatic by having some non-deployed Maven projects that import the software library, the associated test JAR and override the company software version used. If those projects build, then the library is compatible. I could ensure these meta-projects are included in our CI server builds. I welcome comments on which approach is better or a suggestion for a different approach entirely. I'm leaning towards the second option.

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• Silverlight Cream Top Posted Authors September, 2010 to February, 2011

  - by Dave Campbell

  It's a bit past the first of March, and it's now time to recognize devs that have a large number of posts in Silverlight Cream. Ground Rules I pick what posts are on the blog Only posts that go in the database are included The author has to appear in SC at least 4 of the 6 months considered I averaged the monthly posts and am only showing Authors with an average greater than 1. Here are the Top Posted Authors at Silverlight Cream for September 1, 2010 through February 28, 2011: It is my intention to post a new list sometime shortly after the 1st of every month to recognize the top posted in the previous 6 months, so next up is March 1! Some other metrics for Silverlight Cream: At the time of this posting there are 7672 articles aggregated and searchable by partial Author, partial Title, keywords (in the synopsis), or partial URL. There are also 118 tags by which the articles can be searched. This is an increase of 368 posts over last month. At the time of this posting there are 984 articles tagged wp7dev. This is an increase of 201 posts over last month, or 54% of the posts added. Stay in the 'Light!

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