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• Should I continue to pursue programming based on my experience?

  - by El Be

  The reason I ask this question is because I am not sure my troubles come from a lack of confidence, or something much deeper like lack of passion. I'm hoping experienced programmers and developers can help identify the cause of my troubles. To be brief my undergraduate major was in Computer Science, but in a small school and I had the highest gpa in my year in computer science. The first time I ever programmed was once in the 5th grade (using logo) and when I was a freshman in college. I enjoyed programming when I was in school. Then I did an internships where I was expected to produce image processing software and program microchips. I was unsuccessful and produced little results and I hated the job, because I had to figure out everything for myself, did not have any help, and there was a lot of pressure to produce results. Although I tried I could not figure out what to do and was stuck all the time and made me dislike the job. When the internship ended I went to a PhD program for computer science at a prestigious computer science school. I had a very hard time with the course, met people who have been programming since they were 6 and made plenty of applications in their spare time (which I never did, although I tried). I even met many sophomores who understood more than I did. The combination of this and other things have made me feel that programming is not for me, but sometimes I consider a career in programming. I still consider programming as a career because of the career potential (not only just because of money). Based on my experience do you believe my confidence has just been shaken and I should continue to prepare for a programming career, or do you see a lack of passion and it would make it tough to continue programming. thank you for reading and for your advice Thank you for everyone's advice so far! Also: I dropped out of the ph.D program for computer science and switched to a master's in computer graphics. Its more applied, but I still find it hard to be motivated (due to either lack of confidence or passion), but since programming is such a big field I am looking for that niche area that I feel good programming in.

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• Code Design question, circular reference across classes?

  - by dsollen

  I have no code here, as this is more of a design question (I assume this is still the best place to ask it). I have a very simple server in java which stores a mapping between certain values and UUID which are to be used by many systems across multiple platforms. It accepts a connection from a client and creates a clientSocket which stores the socket and all the other relevant data unique to that connection. Each clientSocket will run in their own thread and will block on the socket waiting for a read. I expect very little strain on this system, it will rarely get called, but when it does get a call it will need to respond quickly and due to the risk of it having a peak time with multiple calls coming in at once threaded is still better. Each thread has a reference to a Mapper class which stores the mapping of UUID which it's reporting to others (with proper synchronization of course). This all works until I have to add a new UUID to the list. When this happens I want to report to all clients that care about that particular UUID that a new one was added. I can't multicast (limitation of the system I'm running on) so I'm having each socket send the message to the client through the established socket. However, since each thread only knows about the socket it's waiting on I didn't have a clear method of looking up every thread/socket that cares about the data to inform them of the new UUID. Polling is out mostly because it seems a little too convoluted to try to maintain a list of newly added UUID. My solution as of now is to have the 'parent' class which creates the mapper class and spawns all the threads pass itself as an argument to the mapper. Then when the mapper creates a new UUID it can make a call to the parent class telling it to send out updates to all the other sockets that care about the change. I'm concerned that this may be a bad design due to the use of a circular reference; parent has a reference to mapper (to pass it to new ClientSocket threads) and mapper points to parent. It doesn't really feel like a bad design to me but I wanted to check since circular references are suppose to be bad. Note: I realize this means that the thread associated with whatever socket originally received the request that spawned the creation of a UUID is going to pay the 'cost' of outputting to all the other clients that care about the new UUID. I don't care about this; as I said I suspect the client to receive only intermittent messages. It's unlikely for one socket to receive multiple messages at one time, and there won't be that many sockets so it shouldn't take too long to send messages to each of them. Perhaps later I'll fix the fact that I'm saddling higher work load on whatever unfortunate thread gets the first request; but for now I think it's fine.

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• Some Problems Can't Be Outsourced

  - by mikef

  More and more companies are becoming attracted to the idea of Infrastructure as a Service (or IaaS). It would seem that you can outsource the provisioning and management of your services, encompassing everything from Email, through to your servers, workstations and software, all the way down to your LAN and internet services. This type of outsourcing can be a very attractive option for companies who have tight budgets who are short of technical skills or don't have the means to provide long-term IT support. Essentially, they can outsource your services at low short-term costs that are knowable and controllable, are quickly and easily scalable, and generate a minimum of hassle for your internal staff. If you want to get a sophisticated IT infrastructure set up in a hurry without the usual high buy-in costs, or the task of finding and hiring the right specialists. It would seem the way to go, particularly when their salesmen are hypnotizing you with oleaginous phrases such as "we are closely aligned with our client organization's core business requirements, providing agile services". It sounds too good to be true, and so it is. Whereas the costs will have initially been calculated on the annual renewal fees and service fees for ongoing support, there are other charges too which aren't so obvious. It can end up costing far more than the conventional solution once you take into account the extra costs, the fees for customization and upgrades. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) only becomes apparent when it is too late to extract the company easily from the arrangement. After a few years, these annual fees can add up to more than the initial cost of implementing a traditional in-house system. Worse than that is that you can then lose your power to determine your priorities: When you become reliant on this company, with its own schedule of priorities, to implement every change, however simple, you have effectively lost control of your technical infrastructure. This will make senior management very nervous. There is definitely a requirement for this sort of service. If you urgently need an exceptionally high class of service or more expertise than you currently possess, then outsourcing is probably for you. You and your IT colleagues will always have something to do, be it user assistance, smoothing out integrations with an external provider, or working on something entirely new. Heck, if you outsource to IBM, the SysAdmins can go along for the ride and polish their expertise. What you need to figure out is how much your time is worth, because time is ultimately all that outsourcing will buy you and your organization. Now you just need to convince your nervous CEO. Cheers, Michael

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• Movement prediction for non-shooters

  - by ShadowChaser

  I'm working on an isometric (2D) game with moderate-scale multiplayer - 20-30 players. I've had some difficulty getting a good movement prediction implementation in place. Right now, clients are authoritative for their own position. The server performs validation and broad-scale cheat detection, and I fully realize that the system will never be fully robust against cheating. However, the performance and implementation tradeoffs work well for me right now. Given that I'm dealing with sprite graphics, the game has 8 defined directions rather than free movement. Whenever the player changes their direction or speed (walk, run, stop), a "true" 3D velocity is set on the entity and a packet it sent to the server with the new movement state. In addition, every 250ms additional packets are transmitted with the player's current position for state updates on the server as well as for client prediction. After the server validates the packet, it gets automatically distributed to all of the other "nearby" players. Client-side, all entities with non-zero velocity (ie/ moving entities) are tracked and updated by a rudimentary "physics" system - basically nothing more than changing the position by the velocity according to the elapsed time slice (40ms or so). What I'm struggling with is how to implement clean movement prediction. I have the nagging suspicion that I've made a design mistake somewhere. I've been over the Unreal, Half-life, and all other movement prediction/lag compensation articles I could find, but they all seam geared toward shooters: "Don't send each control change, send updates every 120ms, server is authoritative, client predicts, etc". Unfortunately, that style of design won't work well for me - there's no 3D environment so each individual state change is important. 1) Most of the samples I saw tightly couple movement prediction right into the entities themselves. For example, storing the previous state along with the current state. I'd like to avoid that and keep entities with their "current state" only. Is there a better way to handle this? 2) What should happen when the player stops? I can't interpolate to the correct position, since they might need to walk backwards or another strange direction if their position is too far ahead. 3) What should happen when entities collide? If the current player collides with something, the answer is simple - just stop the player from moving. But what happens if two entities take up the same space on the server? What if the local prediction causes a remote entity to collide with the player or another entity - do I stop them as well? If the prediction had the misfortune of sticking them in front of a wall that the player has gone around, the prediction will never be able to compensate and once the error gets to high the entity will snap to the new position.

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• How far should an entity take care of its properties values by itself?

  - by Kharlos Dominguez

  Let's consider the following example of a class, which is an entity that I'm using through Entity Framework. - InvoiceHeader - BilledAmount (property, decimal) - PaidAmount (property, decimal) - Balance (property, decimal) I'm trying to find the best approach to keep Balance updated, based on the values of the two other properties (BilledAmount and PaidAmount). I'm torn between two practices here: Updating the balance amount every time BilledAmount and PaidAmount are updated (through their setters) Having a UpdateBalance() method that the callers would run on the object when appropriate. I am aware that I can just calculate the Balance in its getter. However, it isn't really possible because this is an entity field that needs to be saved back to the database, where it has an actual column, and where the calculated amount should be persisted to. My other worry about the automatically updating approach is that the calculated values might be a little bit different from what was originally saved to the database, due to rounding values (an older version of the software, was using floats, but now decimals). So, loading, let's say 2000 entities from the database could change their status and make the ORM believe that they have changed and be persisted back to the database the next time the SaveChanges() method is called on the context. It would trigger a mass of updates that I am not really interested in, or could cause problems, if the calculation methods changed (the entities fetched would lose their old values to be replaced by freshly recalculated ones, simply by being loaded). Then, let's take the example even further. Each invoice has some related invoice details, which also have BilledAmount, PaidAmount and Balance (I'm simplifying my actual business case for the sake of the example, so let's assume the customer can pay each item of the invoice separately rather than as a whole). If we consider the entity should take care of itself, any change of the child details should cause the Invoice totals to change as well. In a fully automated approach, a simple implementation would be looping through each detail of the invoice to recalculate the header totals, every time one the property changes. It probably would be fine for just a record, but if a lot of entities were fetched at once, it could create a significant overhead, as it would perform this process every time a new invoice detail record is fetched. Possibly worse, if the details are not already loaded, it could cause the ORM to lazy-load them, just to recalculate the balances. So far, I went with the Update() method-way, mainly for the reasons I explained above, but I wonder if it was right. I'm noticing I have to keep calling these methods quite often and at different places in my code and it is potential source of bugs. It also has a detrimental effect on data-binding because when the properties of the detail or header changes, the other properties are left out of date and the method has no way to be called. What is the recommended approach in this case?

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• How do I create weapon attachments?

  - by Tron86

  My question is; I am developing a game for XNA and I am trying to create a weapon attachment for my player model. My player model loads the .md3 format and reads tags for attachment points. I am able to get the tag of my model's hand. And I am also able to get the tag of my weapon's handle. Each tag I am able to get the rotation and position of and this is how I am calculating it: Model.worldMatrix = Matrix.CreateScale(Model.scale) * Matrix.CreateRotationX(-MathHelper.PiOver2) * Matrix.CreateRotationY(MathHelper.PiOver2); Pretty simple, the player model has a scale and its orientation(it loads on its side so I just use a 90 degree X axis rotation, and a Y axis rotation to face away from the camera). I then calculate the torso tag on the lower body, which gives me a local coordinate at the waist. Then I take that matrix and calculate the tag_weapon in the upper body. This gives me the hand position in local space. I also get the rotation matrix from that tag that I store for later use. All this seems to work fine. Now I move onto my weapon: Matrix weaponWorld = Matrix.CreateScale(CurrentWeapon.scale) * Matrix.CreateRotationX(-MathHelper.PiOver2) * TagRotationMatrix * Matrix.CreateTranslation(HandTag.Position) * Matrix.CreateRotationY(PlayerRotation) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(CollisionBody.Position) * You may notice the weapon matrix gets rotated by 90 degress on the X axis as well. This is because they load in on their sides. Once again this seems pretty simple and follows the SRT order I keep reading about. My TagRotation matrix is the hand's rotation. HandTag.Position is its position in local space. CreateRotationY(PlayerRotation) is the player's rotation in world space, and the CollisionBody.Position is the player's world location. Everything seems to be in order, and almost works in game. However when the gun spawns and follows the player's hand it seems to be flipped on an axis every couple frames. Almost like the X or Y axis is being inversed then put right back. Its hard to explain and I am totally stumped. Even removing all my X axis fixes does nothing to solve the problem. Hopefully I explained everything enough as I am a bit new to this! Thanks!

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• PBCS Hyperion Planning in the Cloud Implementation Workshop

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) opens up opportunities for organizations of all sizes to streamline planning and forecasting, accelerate deployment, and reduce costs. This one-day in-person workshop is delivered by Oracle Development (free to OPN member partners), and will cover the handoff from selling-to-implementing of PBCS. Although the basic building blocks are the same as with on-premises Planning, there is a paradigm shift when it comes to selling and implementing a Cloud Service solution. The value proposition behind Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service is all about the deployment model, how it’s sold and how it gets implemented – simplicity, fast adoption and flexible deployment, without sacrificing first-class functionality. To be successful, the entire cycle from sales to implementation should consistently support this value proposition to your clients. This training event is for OPN member partners whose business roles involve presales, implementation consulting, and support. This workshop briefly reviews the sales approach, as background, with emphasis on partner sales support. The main objective is to learn what is needed to successfully implement Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service once the sales hand off is made – how to leverage your current Hyperion Planning knowledge and use the features designed specifically to build out a Cloud Service solution. This Workshop is being offered at three locations for partners from all countries in EMEA: June 24, 2014: Kista, Sweden June 26, 2014: Reading, United Kingdom June 29-30, 2014 (split days): Dubaï, United Arab Emirates To get more information, to check pre-requisites, and to register, click here. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Crash when using datablocks

  - by scorcher24

  I have really throughly searched the net and could not find any solution for this so I ask for help here. Anyway, I have this datablock in datablocks.cs: datablock t2dSceneObjectDatablock(EnemyShipConfig) { canSaveDynamicFields = "1"; Layer = "3"; size = "64 64"; CollisionActiveSend = "1"; CollisionActiveReceive = "1"; CollisionCallback = true; CollisionLayers = "3"; CollisionDetectionMode = "POLYGON"; CollisionPolyList = "0.00 -0.791 0.756 0.751 -0.746 0.732"; UsesPhysics = "0"; Rotation = "-90"; WorldLimitMode = "KILL"; WorldLimitMax = "880 360"; WorldLimitMin = "-765 -436"; minFireRate = "2000"; maxFireRate = "1200"; laserSpeed = "800"; minSpeed = "100"; maxSpeed = "150"; }; This is an exact reproduction of an object that I have manually edited in the editor. So far, I just used clone() to get as many enemies as I need, while it was out of sight. It is a r-type style shooter, so I need a variable amount of enemies. Since clone() spams my log, I decided to use datablocks, since it is also more flexible. That's what I get when I use clone(): Con::execute - 0 has no namespace: onRemoveFromScene However, once spawning begins, my game freezes and crashes: function SpawnEnemy() { //%spawnedEnemy = EnemyShipMaster.clone(true); %spawnedEnemy = new t2dStaticSprite() { class = "EnemyShip"; sceneGraph = $global_sceneGraph; datablock = "EnemyShipConfig"; imageMap = "starshipImageMap"; layer = 3; }; %speed = getRandom(%spawnedEnemy.minSpeed, %spawnedEnemy.maxSpeed); %y = getRandom(-320, 320); // Set Properties %spawnedEnemy.setPositionX(700); %spawnedEnemy.setPositionY(%y); %spawnedEnemy.setVisible(true); %spawnedEnemy.setLinearVelocityX( -%speed ); %spawnedEnemy.setTimerOn( getRandom( %spawnedEnemy.maxFireRate, %spawnedEnemy.minFireRate ) ); } // Definition of $global_sceneGraph from game.cs: $global_sceneGraph = sceneWindow2D.loadLevel(%level); As I said, it works fine when I use clone() (which is commented out here), but my log gets spammed. I really hope someone can shed some light for me, this is driving me crazy.

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• Capture a Query Executed By An Application Or User Against a SQL Server Database in Less Than a Minute

  - by Compudicted

  At times a Database Administrator, or even a developer is required to wear a spy’s hat. This necessity oftentimes is dictated by a need to take a glimpse into a black-box application for reasons varying from a performance issue to an unauthorized access to data or resources, or as in my most recent case, a closed source custom application that was abandoned by a deserted contractor without source code. It may not be news or unknown to most IT people that SQL Server has always provided means of back-door access to everything connecting to its database. This indispensible tool is SQL Server Profiler. This “gem” is always quietly sitting in the Start – Programs – SQL Server <product version> – Performance Tools folder (yes, it is for performance analysis mostly, but not limited to) ready to help you! So, to the action, let’s start it up. Once ready click on the File – New Trace button, or using Ctrl-N with your keyboard. The standard connection dialog you have seen in SSMS comes up where you connect the standard way: One side note here, you will be able to connect only if your account belongs to the sysadmin or alter trace fixed server role. Upon a successful connection you must be able to see this initial dialog: At this stage I will give a hint: you will have a wide variety of predefined templates: But to shorten your time to results you would need to opt for using the TSQL_Grouped template. Now you need to set it up. In some cases, you will know the principal’s login name (account) that needs to be monitored in advance, and in some (like in mine), you will not. But it is VERY helpful to monitor just a particular account to minimize the amount of results returned. So if you know it you can already go to the Event Section tab, then click the Column Filters button which would bring a dialog below where you key in the account being monitored without any mask (or whildcard):  If you do not know the principal name then you will need to poke around and look around for things like a config file where (typically!) the connection string is fully exposed. That was the case in my situation, an application had an app.config (XML) file with the connection string in it not encrypted: This made my endeavor very easy. So after I entered the account to monitor I clicked on Run button and also started my black-box application. Voilà, in a under a minute of time I had the SQL statement captured:

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• Why is everything crashing?

  - by Kopkins

  I've been using Ubuntu for a while now and I love it, I wouldn't think of using another OS unless I can't fix this issue. The install I'm on is only around a month and a half old. I'm running 12.04 64bit on a 8,1 MBP. Up until around 2 weeks ago everything was running smoothly. Around then applications started crashing and weird things started happening. At first I thought it was just certain applications. The first thing to start giving me trouble was compiz. Occasionally compiz will stop decorating windows and lost many other functionalities. running compiz --replace fixes this, but I don't feel like doing it usually once a day. The other thing with this is that after running compiz --replace, my conky window gets lost somewhere and so I run killall conky && conky -c .conkyrc. But this isn't with just a couple applications, it seems like it is proliferating through my system. Last week fontforge started crashing while doing whatever task. So I ended up unable to finish what I was working on to completeness. Didn't find a fix. Today rhythmbox started crashing. Whenever I try to play anything, Rhythmbox becomes unresponsive and needs to be forced to close. When I try to do certain things with the disk utility, it crashes. I get the Ubuntu has experienced an internal error message much more often than I would like. Frequently applications stop appearing in the launcher. Wine almost never does anymore. After not being active for a little while, thunderbird can only fetch my mail after restarting wireless, sudo rmmod b43 && sudo modprobe b43 Occasionally some of my startup apps don't start. What is my best option here? Could they be bugs? I don't want to submit a ton of vague bug reports. Reinstall? switch OS? Thank you to anyone who responds. Kopkins

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• Trying to use stencils in 2D while retaining layer depth

  - by Steve

  This is a screen of what's going on just so you can get a frame of reference. http://i935.photobucket.com/albums/ad199/fobwashed/tilefloors.png The problem I'm running into is that my game is slowing down due to the amount of texture swapping I'm doing during my draw call. Since walls, characters, floors, and all objects are on their respective sprite sheet containing those types, per tile draw, the loaded texture is swapping no less than 3 to 5+ times as it cycles and draws the sprites in order to layer properly. Now, I've tried throwing all common objects together into their respective lists, and then using layerDepth drawing them that way which makes things a lot better, but the new problem I'm running into has to do with the way my doors/windows are drawn on walls. Namely, I was using stencils to clear out a block on the walls that are drawn in the shape of the door/window so that when the wall would draw, it would have a door/window sized hole in it. This is the way my draw was set up for walls when I was going tile by tile rather than grouped up common objects. first it would check to see if a door/window was on this wall. If not, it'd skip all the steps and just draw normally. Otherwise end the current spriteBatch Clear the buffers with a transparent color to preserve what was already drawn start a new spritebatch with stencil settings draw the door area end the spriteBatch start a new spritebatch that takes into account the previously set stencil draw the wall which will now be drawn with a hole in it end that spritebatch start a new spritebatch with the normal settings to continue drawing tiles In the tile by tile draw, clearing the depth/stencil buffers didn't matter since I wasn't using any layerDepth to organize what draws on top of what. Now that I'm drawing from lists of common objects rather than tile by tile, it has sped up my draw call considerably but I can't seem to figure out a way to keep the stencil system to mask out the area a door or window will be drawn into a wall. The root of the problem is that when I end a spriteBatch to change the DepthStencilState, it flattens the current RenderTarget and there is no longer any depth sorting for anything drawn further down the line. This means walls always get drawn on top of everything regardless of depth or positioning in the game world and even on top of each other as the stencil has to happen once for every wall that has a door or window. Does anyone know of a way to get around this? To boil it down, I need a way to draw having things sorted by layer depth while also being able to stencil/mask out portions of specific sprites.

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• How to appear very professional on my first freelance project?

  - by iamserious

  I need some help on appearing very professional on my first freelance project. How / What should you do to achieve this? Background: I started as a full time web developer 18 months ago, two promotions later I am now a senior software engineer. I've never had any problems with designing / developing / coding a complicated system. I thought I could use some help for Christmas and I started bidding for a project and now I have one - from a very reputable lawyers association in London. I have no problem dealing with the actual implementation of the system, but I have no idea how to appear professional throughout the whole process. About the project: This lawyers association are starting a distant training courses and in addition to having a website to show off all their clients etc, they want a students area where their students would log in, download course materials allocated to them etc.. and an admin section where they assign courses to students / create new ones / upload materials etc.. Questions breakdown: 1) How should I start with the requirement gathering? Is using scrum a good idea, or should I use something like Volere Template - and what should I do with it? should I submit a copy to the client etc.. 2) How often should I meet the client? Would once a fortnight would be good? 3) What are the processes / protocols that I need to follow so that they would be satisfied with me and think that I am very professional 4) How much should I charge for the product? 5) How should I get a quote / contract / receipt for the whole project? 6) What are the steps that professional freelancers go through, during the life cycle of a project? My Research so far Looking at How much should I charge doesn't help.. I live in London, zone 1, though I have no idea how much a project of this size would cost. Help on this would be appreciated. How to be professional articles talks about the work / time management etc and not the actual process, what would real people do etc.. it's like academia theory, but not practical. If this needs revising, please let me know, do not close it because of whatever reason, I will edit the question or details to fit the needs. Thanks for reading a lengthy question.

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• Separating logic and data in browser game

  - by Tesserex

  I've been thinking this over for days and I'm still not sure what to do. I'm trying to refactor a combat system in PHP (...sorry.) Here's what exists so far: There are two (so far) types of entities that can participate in combat. Let's just call them players and NPCs. Their data is already written pretty well. When involved in combat, these entities are wrapped with another object in the DB called a Combatant, which gives them information about the particular fight. They can be involved in multiple combats at once. I'm trying to write the logic engine for combat by having combatants injected into it. I want to be able to mock everything for testing. In order to separate logic and data, I want to have two interfaces / base classes, one being ICombatantData and the other ICombatantLogic. The two implementers of data will be one for the real objects stored in the database, and the other for my mock objects. I'm now running into uncertainties with designing the logic side of things. I can have one implementer for each of players and NPCs, but then I have an issue. A combatant needs to be able to return the entity that it wraps. Should this getter method be part of logic or data? I feel strongly that it should be in data, because the logic part is used for executing combat, and won't be available if someone is just looking up information about an upcoming fight. But the data classes only separate mock from DB, not player from NPC. If I try having two child classes of the DB data implementer, one for each entity type, then how do I architect that while keeping my mocks in the loop? Do I need some third interface like IEntityProvider that I inject into the data classes? Also with some of the ideas I've been considering, I feel like I'll have to put checks in place to make sure you don't mismatch things, like making the logic for an NPC accidentally wrap the data for a player. Does that make any sense? Is that a situation that would even be possible if the architecture is correct, or would the right design prohibit that completely so I don't need to check for it? If someone could help me just layout a class diagram or something for this it would help me a lot. Thanks. edit Also useful to note, the mock data class doesn't really need the Entity, since I'll just be specifying all the parameters like combat stats directly instead. So maybe that will affect the correct design.

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• How to have an Arduino wait until it receives data over serial?

  - by SonicDH

  So I've wired up a little robot with a sound shield and some sensors. I'm trying to write a sketch that will let check the sensors. What I'd like for it to do is print out a little menu over serial, wait until the user sends a selection, jump to the function that matches their selection, then (once the function is done) jump back and print the menu again. Here's what I've written, but I'm not a that good of a coder, so it doesn't work. Where am I going wrong? #include <Servo.h> Servo steering; Servo throttle; int pos = 0; int val = 0; void setup(){   Serial.begin(9600);   throttle.write(90);   steering.write(90);   pinMode(A0, INPUT);   pinMode(7, INPUT);   char ch = 0; } void loop(){   Serial.println("Menu");   Serial.println("--------------------");   Serial.println("1. Motion Readout");   Serial.println("2. Distance Readout");   Serial.println("3. SD Directory Listing");   Serial.println("4. Sound Test");   Serial.println("5. Car Test");   Serial.println("--------------------");   Serial.println("Type the number and press enter");   while(char ch = 0){   ch = Serial.read();}   char ch;   switch(ch)   {     case '1':     motion();   }    ch = 0; } //menu over, lets get to work. void motion(){   Serial.println("Haha, it works!"); } I'm pretty sure a While loop is the right thing to do, but I'm probably implementing it wrong. Can anyone shed some light on this?

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• Ubuntu 12.4.1 failing in vm both Vbox and Vmware on new HP Envy 4t-1000

  - by Chas

  Brand new to Linux, getting frustrated trying to get an environment up with Ubuntu. My primary goal is to learn Linux and Apache/PHP development. I need to keep my Windows OS as main on my machine for work, so i'm trying to virtualize Ubuntu 12.4.1 without luck (many attempts). I have a new HP Envy 4t-1000 with 16gb ram, and 32 gb ssd caching with 500gb spindle hard drive. Graphics card is an Intel HD 3000 with AMD Radeon 7670M. With installing Ubuntu desktop in VBox, I'm getting this result: https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=51939 With VMware workstation 7 (patched), I complete the install of Ubuntu, it reboots, purple desktop briefly flashes then it drops to command line. I bought a beginning Ubuntu book, and it recommends trying to manually configure graphics if this happens. So I tried doing a safe boot holding shift - I get to the first screen (GRUB) loads fine, and I choose recovery mode. After choosing the recovery mode, I get the recovery mode options, and can arrow down to what the book suggests 'Run in fail safe graphic mode.' Once I select this option, I get a black screen with a large white dialogue box, at the top it says "The system is running in low-graphics mode. Your screen, graphics card, and input device settings could not be detected correctly. You will need to configure these yourself." Then there is an ok button way down at the bottom. When I select 'ok' I get a menu for a few options, book recommended 'reconfigure graphics.' When I try this, I get a menu of two options: 1) "Use generic (default) configuration or 2) use backup. I've tried both options several times, hitting ok just refreshes screen and nothing more. Rebooting at this point just goes back to command line as before. I don't know what to do at this point, I've spent too many hours this weekend trying in both VBox and VMware to get Ubuntu going. Isn't there like a very basic graphic display or something I can use to at least get into the desktop? I explored the GRUB some more, and tried to look at the startup and xserver logs - both are blank. No help there I guess? When I try to choose 'Edit the configuration file, then 'ok' screen just refreshes on same menu options, nothing happens. thx for any advice. I really need to focus on learning Linux, Apache and PHP, so perhaps Ubuntu just won't work on my hardware? Any other suggestions? I will need to virtualize - THANKS for any help/advice.

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• Are You Meeting Social Customer Service Expectations?

  - by Mike Stiles

  Whether it’s B2B or B2C, one sure path to repeat business is making sure your buyer has a memorably pleasant and successful customer service experience with you. If they get that kind of treatment consistently, that’s called a relationship. And those aren’t broken easily. Social customer service, driven by integrated SRM (social relationship management) technology, is the venue that can effectively connect customers not only to the brand, but to other customers. Positive experiences, once administered, don’t just rest with the recipient. They’re published in the form of public raves and peer-to-peer recommendation, a force far more actionable than push advertising. What’s more, your customers have come to expect access to you and satisfaction from you using social. An NM Incite study shows 83% of Twitter users and 71% of Facebook users expect to get an answer from brands the same day they post to them on their social assets. To make sure you’re responding, you’ve got to have a tech platform that’s set up to moderate and alert so you’ll know ASAP a customer needs help. The more integrated your social enterprise is, the faster you can not only respond, but respond with the answer they’re looking for, because your system is connected to the internal resources that can surface the answer or put wheels in motion to rectify the situation in the shortest amount of time possible. But if you go to the necessary lengths to make sure your customers feel valued and important, will they really reward you? The study says 71% of consumers who got quick and effective responses from companies they contacted via social were more likely to recommend the brand to their friends and followers. So yes, sweeping people off their feet pays big dividends in terms of word-of-mouth marketing. But you should be keenly aware of the reverse side of that coin. Give people a negative experience, either in real world or virtual customer service, and that message is highly likely to get amplified through social channels faster and louder. Only 36% of the NM Incite study’s respondents reported that their problems were solved quickly and effectively. 36%? That’s hardly an impressive number. It gets worse. 10% never got so much as a response - at all. Going back to the relationship analogy, companies that are this deep in the ditch where customer service is concerned are making their girl or boyfriends really easy for a competitor to steal. Given the technology tools and data available right now for having an intimate knowledge of the customer, what products they’ve purchased, likely problems with those products, effective resolutions to those problems, and follow-up communication to gauge satisfaction, there are fewer excuses than ever for making the lifeblood of your business feel like you couldn’t care less. @mikestiles

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• Developing a Support Plan for Cloud Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  Last week I blogged about developing a High-Availability plan. The specifics of a given plan aren't as simple as "Step 1, then Step 2" because in a hybrid environment (which most of us have) the situation changes the requirements. There are those that look for simple "template" solutions, but unless you settle on a single vendor and a single way of doing things, that's not really viable. The same holds true for support. As I've mentioned before, I'm not fond of the term "cloud", and would rather use the tem "Distributed Computing". That being said, more people understand the former, so I'll just use that for now. What I mean by Distributed Computing is leveraging another system or setup to perform all or some of a computing function. If this definition holds true, then you're essentially creating a partnership with a vendor to run some of your IT - whether that be IaaS, PaaS or SaaS, or more often, a mix. In your on-premises systems, you're the first and sometimes only line of support. That changes when you bring in a Cloud vendor. For Windows Azure, we have plans for support that you can pay for if you like. http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/plans/ You're not off the hook entirely, however. You still need to create a plan to support your users in their applications, especially for the parts you control. The last thing they want to hear is "That's vendor X's problem - you'll have to call them." I find that this is often the last thing the architects think about in a solution. It's fine to put off the support question prior to deployment, but I would hold off on calling it "production" until you have that plan in place. There are lots of examples, like this one: http://www.va-interactive.com/inbusiness/editorial/sales/ibt/customer.html some of which are technology-specific. Once again, this is an "it depends" kind of approach. While it would be nice if there was just something in a box we could buy, it just doesn't work that way in a hybrid system. You have to know your options and apply them appropriately.

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• Understanding the SQL Server 2008 R2 Installation Center

  - by Enrique Lima

  What is available to us through those links?  Have you taken the time to explore and identify what could be useful to you? One of many gems that has come to my attention is the possibility of provisioning SQL Server to work in an image based environment (hint: Virtualization Template perhaps?!?).   Planning: Includes requirements information, documentation, how to guides, online documentation installation and other tools. Among the other tools you will find the System Configuration checker and The Upgrade Advisor. Both tools very important to ensure your deployment and installation would be successful.     Installation:  This sections focuses on getting installations going, from standalone to cluster when it comes to new instances.  Add new nodes to an existing cluster, and also perform upgrades (in this case to SQL Server 2008 R2).  Also part of this is the option to find updates available.   Maintenance: We find in this section, options that will assist us in tasks like repairing corrupt installations to removing nodes from a cluster. An option that is interesting (and we should discuss benefits later in another post) is to be able to do an Edition Upgrade, this is a feature expansion and addition based on your product installation (Developer to Enterprise, for example)   Tools:  From the System Configuration Checker to identify readiness for deployment in a successful manner, to being able to report on features installed.  And being able to run upgrades of existing packages developed in the 2005 offering to the 2008 R2 release for SSIS.   Resources: Useful and essential links to gather information and guidance.   Advanced: Here is where it gets interesting.  I break this down into 3 main groups: Installation Automation: When you install SQL Server there is a configuration file that gets dropped (ConfigurationFile.ini) that would allow for you to perform automated installations.  There are switches and options that go with this to have that process working. Cluster configuration for Sysprep: Create images that are cluster ready, 2 options, start the prep work, and then the complete once at the final destination. Stand-alone configuration for Sysprep:  Like the clustering counterpart, 2 options, prep and complete.  Giving you the option to create standard templates for your SQL Server deployments. I find it fitting that the 3 topics listed here should (and will) be additional topics I will discuss.   Options: Very clear and specific about what this means. Select the Processor Type or the Installation Media Root Path.

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• How to generate SPMetal for a specific list (OOTB: like tasks or contacts) with custom columns

  - by KunaalKapoor

  SPMetal is used to make use of LINQ on a list in SharePoint 2010. By default when you generate SPMetal on a site you will get a code generated file for most of the lists and probably more. Here is a MSDN link for some info on SPMetal.http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee538255(office.14).aspxBut what if you want only to generate the code for one list?Well it is quite simple once you figure it out. You need to add an xml file to override the default settings of SPMetal and specify it in the /parameters option. I will show you how to do this.First create a Folder that will contain two files (GenerateSPMetalCode.bat and SPMetal.xml).Below is the content of the files:GenerateSPMetalCode.bat "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN\SPMetal" /web:http://YourServer /code:OutPutFileName.cs /language:csharp /parameters:SPMetal.xml pause SPMetal.xml <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Web AccessModifier="Internal" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SharePoint/2009/spmetal"> <List Name="ListName"> <ContentType Name="ContentTypeName" Class="GeneratedClassName" /> </List> <ExcludeOtherLists></ExcludeOtherLists> </Web> You will have to change some of the text in the files so that it will be specific to your SharePoint Server Setup. In the bat file you will have to change http://YourServer to the url of the web where your list is. In the SPMetal.xml file you need to change ListName to the name of your list and the ContentTypeName to the name of the content type you want to extract. The GeneratedClassName can be anything but perhaps you should rename it to something more sensible.Adding the following line: '<List Name="ListName"><ContentType Name="ContentTypeName" Class="GeneratedClassName" /> </List>'  makes sure that any custom columns added to an OOTB list like contacts or tasks are also generated, which are missed out in a regular generation.So now when you run it the SPMetal command will read the SPMetal.xml list and override its commands. ExcludeOtherLists element makes it so that only the code for the lists you specify will be generated. For some reason I got an error if I had this element above the List element.You sould now have a code file called OutPutFileName.cs that has been generated. You can now put this in your SharePoint project for use with your LINQ queries against that list.I will soon write a LINQ example that uses the generated class. UPDATE: Add the /namespace parameter to add a namespace to the generated code. "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN\SPMetal" /web:http://YourServer /namespace:MySPMetalNameSpace /code:OutPutFileName.cs /language:csharp /parameters:SPMetal.xml

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• Nails vs Screws (C# List vs Dictionary)

  - by MarkPearl

  General This may sound like a typical noob statement, but I’m finding out in a very real way that just because you have a solution to a problem, doesn’t necessarily mean it is the best solution. This was reiterated to me when a friend of mine suggested I look at using Dictionaries instead of Lists for a particular problem – he was right, I have always just assumed that because lists solved my problem I did not need to look elsewhere. So my new manifesto to counter this ageless problem is as follows… Look for a solution that will logically work Once you have a solution look for possible alternatives Decide why your current solution is the best approach compared to the alternatives If it is.. use it till something better comes along, if it isnt…. change What’s the difference between Lists & Dictionaries Both lists and dictionaries are used to store collections of data. Assume we had the following declarations… var dic = new Dictionary<string, long>(); var lst = new List<long>(); long data;   With a list, you simply add the item to the list and it will add the item to the end of the list. lst.Add(data); With a dictionary, you need to specify some sort of key and the data you want to add so that it can be uniquely identified. dic.Add(uniquekey, data);   Because with a dictionary you now have unique identifier, in the background they provide all sort’s of optimized algorithms to find your associated data. What this means is that if you are wanting to access your data it is a lot faster than a List. So when is it appropriate to use either class? For me, if I can guarantee that each item in my collection will have a unique identifier, then I will use Dictionaries instead of Lists as there is a considerable performance benefit when accessing each data item. If I cannot make this sort of guarantee, then by default I will use a list. I know this is all really basic, and I hope I haven’t missed some fundamental principle… If anyone would like to add their 2 cents, please feel free to do so…

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• Play Framework Plugin for NetBeans IDE

  - by Geertjan

  The start of minimal support for the Play Framework in NetBeans IDE 7.3 Beta would constitute (1) recognizing Play projects, (2) an action to run a Play project, and (3) classpath support. Well, most of that I've created already, as can be seen, e.g., below you can see logical views in the Projects window for Play projects (i.e., I can open all the samples that come with the Play distribution). Right-clicking a Play project lets you run it and, if the embedded browser is selected in the Options window, you can see the result in the IDE. Make a change to your code and refresh the browser, which immediately shows you your changes: What needs to be done, among other things: A wizard for creating new Play projects, i.e., it would use the Play command line to create the application and then open it in the IDE. Integration of everything available on the Play command line. Maybe the logical view, i.e., what is shown in the Projects window, should be changed. Right now, only the folders "app" and "test" are shown there, with everything else accessible in the Files window, as can be seen in the screenshot above. More work on the classpath, i.e., I've hardcoded a few things just to get things to work correctly. Options window extension to register the Play executable, instead of the current hardcoded solution. Scala integrations, i.e., investigate if/how the NetBeans Scala plugin is helpful and, if not, create different/additional solutions. E.g., the HTML templates are partly in Scala, i.e., need to embed Scala support into HTML. Hyperlinking in the "routes" file, as well as special support for the "application.conf" file. Anyone interested, especially if you're a Play fan (a "playboy"?), in joining me in working on this NetBeans plugin? I'll be uploading the sources to a java.net repository soon. It will be here, once it has been made publicly accessible: http://java.net/projects/nbplay/sources/nbplay Kind of cool detail is that the NetBeans plugin is based on Maven, which means that you could use any Maven-supporting IDE to work on this plugin.

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• How do you conquer the challenge of designing for large screen real-estate?

  - by Berin Loritsch

  This question is a bit more subjective, but I'm hoping to get some new perspective. I'm so used to designing for a certain screen size (typically 1024x768) that I find that size to not be a problem. Expanding the size to 1280x1024 doesn't buy you enough screen real estate to make an appreciable difference, but will give me a little more breathing room. Basically, I just expand my "grid size" and the same basic design for the slightly smaller screen still works. However, in the last couple of projects my clients were all using 1080p (1920x1080) screens and they wanted solutions to use as much of that real estate as possible. 1920 pixels across provides just under twice the width I am used to, and the wide screen makes some of my old go to design approaches not to work as well. The problem I'm running into is that when presented with so much space, I'm confronted with some major problems. How many columns should I use? The wide format lends itself to a 3 column split with a 2:1:1 split (i.e. the content column bigger than the other two). However, if I go with three columns what do I do with that extra column? How do I make efficient use of the screen real estate? There's a temptation to put everything on the screen at once, but too much information actually makes the application harder to use. White space is important to help make sense of complex information, but too much makes related concepts look too separate. I'm usually working with web applications that have complex data, and visualization and presentation is key to making sense of the raw data. When your user also has a large screen (at least 24"), some information is out of eye sight and you need to move the pointer a long distance. How do you make sure everything that's needed stays within the visual hot points? Simple sites like blogs actually do better when the width is constrained, which results in a lot of wasted real estate. I kind of wonder if having the text box and the text preview side by side would be a big benefit for the admin side of that type of screen? (1:1 two column split). For your answers, I know almost everything in design is "it depends". What I'm looking for is: General principles you use How your approach to design has changed I'm finding that i have to retrain myself how to work with this different format. Every bump in resolution I've worked through to date has been about 25%: 640 to 800 (25% increase), 800 to 1024 (28% increase), and 1024 to 1280 (25% increase). However, the jump from 1280 to 1920 is a good 50% increase in space--the equivalent from jumping from 640 straight to 1024. There was no commonly used middle size to help learn lessons more gradually.

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• HOW TO: Change Internet Expenses Cost Center Prompt

  - by rveliche

  The cost center segment on the General Information page in Oracle Internet Expenses derives its label from the Prompt entered on the KFF setup. Changing this is not possible with the simple personalization, the details below provide the instructions to change the Prompt. Create a custom class, I call it CustomHeaderKffCO.java in the package oracle.apps.ap.oie.entry.header.webui  (or any other). This class will have to extend from oracle.apps.ap.oie.entry.header.webui.HeaderKffCO. Add the following logic to your custom class. package oracle.apps.ap.oie.entry.header.webui; import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.OAPageContext; import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.OAWebBean; import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.message.OAMessageLayoutBean; import oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.OAControllerImpl; public class CustomHeaderKffCO extends HeaderKffCO {   public void processRequest(OAPageContext pageContext, OAWebBean webBean)   {      super.processRequest(pageContext, webBean);     OAMessageLayoutBean layoutBean = (OAMessageLayoutBean) webBean.findChildRecursive("KffSEGMENT2MessageLayout");    if(layoutBean != null)   {     // You should use messages/lookups to avoid translation issues.     layoutBean.setLabel("Cost Center");   }   } } KffSEGMENT2MessageLayout is for illustration only, my Chart Of Accounts has SEGMENT2 as the cost center segment. Please change this to a segment being used eg.Segment6 should be KFFSEGMENT6MessageLayout Note that super.processRequest(pageContext, webBean); is a must and should always be the first statement. Once the class is compiled, copy the class to an appropriate directory, in my case I used $JAVA_TOP/oracle/apps/ap/oie/entry/header/webui. Navigate to the General Information page, click on "Personalize General Information Page".Click on Personalize icon next to Message Component Layout: (OIEGeneralInformationMsgCLayout)In the controller class section update the new controller at the appropriate levelIf the Link "Personalize General Information Page" is not visible on your instance, check your personalization profiles.

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• Insert Or update (aka Replace or Upsert)

  - by Davide Mauri

  The topic is really not new but since it’s the second time in few days that I had to explain it different customers, I think it’s worth to make a post out of it. Many times developers would like to insert a new row in a table or, if the row already exists, update it with new data. MySQL has a specific statement for this action, called REPLACE: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/replace.html or the INSERT …. ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE option: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/insert-on-duplicate.html With SQL Server you can do the very same using a more standard way, using the MERGE statement, with the support of Row Constructors. Let’s say that you have this table: CREATE TABLE dbo.MyTargetTable (     id INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY IDENTITY,     alternate_key VARCHAR(50) UNIQUE,     col_1 INT,     col_2 INT,     col_3 INT,     col_4 INT,     col_5 INT ) GO INSERT [dbo].[MyTargetTable] VALUES ('GUQNH', 10, 100, 1000, 10000, 100000), ('UJAHL', 20, 200, 2000, 20000, 200000), ('YKXVW', 30, 300, 3000, 30000, 300000), ('SXMOJ', 40, 400, 4000, 40000, 400000), ('JTPGM', 50, 500, 5000, 50000, 500000), ('ZITKS', 60, 600, 6000, 60000, 600000), ('GGEYD', 70, 700, 7000, 70000, 700000), ('UFXMS', 80, 800, 8000, 80000, 800000), ('BNGGP', 90, 900, 9000, 90000, 900000), ('AMUKO', 100, 1000, 10000, 100000, 1000000) GO If you want to insert or update a row, you can just do that: MERGE INTO     dbo.MyTargetTable T USING     (SELECT * FROM (VALUES ('ZITKS', 61, 601, 6001, 60001, 600001)) Dummy(alternate_key, col_1, col_2, col_3, col_4, col_5)) S ON     T.alternate_key = S.alternate_key WHEN     NOT MATCHED THEN     INSERT VALUES (alternate_key, col_1, col_2, col_3, col_4, col_5) WHEN     MATCHED AND T.col_1 != S.col_1 THEN     UPDATE SET         T.col_1 = S.col_1,         T.col_2 = S.col_2,         T.col_3 = S.col_3,         T.col_4 = S.col_4,         T.col_5 = S.col_5 ; If you want to insert/update more than one row at once, you can super-charge the idea using Table-Value Parameters, that you can just send from your .NET application. Easy, powerful and effective

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• Advantages to Multiple Methods over Switch

  - by tandu

  I received a code review from a senior developer today asking "By the way, what is your objection to dispatching functions by way of a switch statement?" I have read in many places about how pumping an argument through switch to call methods is bad OOP, not as extensible, etc. However, I can't really come up with a definitive answer for him. I would like to settle this for myself once and for all. Here are our competing code suggestions (php used as an example, but can apply more universally): class Switch { public function go($arg) { switch ($arg) { case "one": echo "one\n"; break; case "two": echo "two\n"; break; case "three": echo "three\n"; break; default: throw new Exception("Unknown call: $arg"); break; } } } class Oop { public function go_one() { echo "one\n"; } public function go_two() { echo "two\n"; } public function go_three() { echo "three\n"; } public function __call($_, $__) { throw new Exception("Unknown call $_ with arguments: " . print_r($__, true)); } } Part of his argument was "It (switch method) has a much cleaner way of handling default cases than what you have in the generic __call() magic method." I disagree about the cleanliness and in fact prefer call, but I would like to hear what others have to say. Arguments I can come up with in support of Oop scheme: A bit cleaner in terms of the code you have to write (less, easier to read, less keywords to consider) Not all actions delegated to a single method. Not much difference in execution here, but at least the text is more compartmentalized. In the same vein, another method can be added anywhere in the class instead of a specific spot. Methods are namespaced, which is nice. Does not apply here, but consider a case where Switch::go() operated on a member rather than a parameter. You would have to change the member first, then call the method. For Oop you can call the methods independently at any time. Arguments I can come up with in support of Switch scheme: For the sake of argument, cleaner method of dealing with a default (unknown) request Seems less magical, which might make unfamiliar developers feel more comfortable Anyone have anything to add for either side? I'd like to have a good answer for him.

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