Search Results

Search found 259 results on 11 pages for 'exercises'.

Page 9/11 | < Previous Page | 5 6 7 8 9 10 11  | Next Page >

• Best ways to teach a beginner to program?

  - by Justin Standard

  Original Question I am currently engaged in teaching my brother to program. He is a total beginner, but very smart. (And he actually wants to learn). I've noticed that some of our sessions have gotten bogged down in minor details, and I don't feel I've been very organized. (But the answers to this post have helped a lot.) What can I do better to teach him effectively? Is there a logical order that I can use to run through concept by concept? Are there complexities I should avoid till later? The language we are working with is Python, but advice in any language is welcome. How to Help If you have good ones please add the following in your answer: Beginner Exercises and Project Ideas Resources for teaching beginners Screencasts / blog posts / free e-books Print books that are good for beginners Please describe the resource with a link to it so I can take a look. I want everyone to know that I have definitely been using some of these ideas. Your submissions will be aggregated in this post. Online Resources for teaching beginners: A Gentle Introduction to Programming Using Python How to Think Like a Computer Scientist Alice: a 3d program for beginners Scratch (A system to develop programming skills) How To Design Programs Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs Learn To Program Robert Read's How To Be a Programmer Microsoft XNA Spawning the Next Generation of Hackers COMP1917 Higher Computing lectures by Richard Buckland (requires iTunes) Dive into Python Python Wikibook Project Euler - sample problems (mostly mathematical) pygame - an easy python library for creating games Create Your Own Games With Python ebook Foundations of Programming for a next step beyond basics. Squeak by Example Recommended Print Books for teaching beginners Accelerated C++ Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner Code by Charles Petzold

  Read the article

• Jar not found when executing class

  - by Simon

  Hi there, I'm working through the ANTLR book and there are many examples that should be easy to compile using the command line. Some information to get te problem: antlr-3.2.jar contains the ANTLR classes. I added the antlr-3.2.jar to the CLASSPATH environment variable (Windows 7) and when compiling the classes with javac everything works fine. This is what i execute to compile my program: javac Test.java ExprLexer.java ExprParser.java Test.java contains my main()-method whereas ExprLexer and ExprParser are generated by ANTLR. All three classes use classes contained in the antlr-3.2.jar. But so far so good. As I just said, compiling works fine. It's when I try to execute the Test.class that I get trouble. This is what I type: java -cp ./ Test When executing this, the interpreter tells me that he can't find the ANTLR-classes contained in the antlr-3.2.jar, altough I added an entry in the CLASSPATH variable. E:\simone\Programmierung\Language Processing Tools\ANTLR\Book Samples and Exercises\Exercise\1\output\Test.java Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/antlr/runtime/Cha rStream Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.antlr.runtime.CharStream at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:202) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:307) at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:301) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:248) Could not find the main class: Test. Program will exit. I'm using Windows 7 and Java 1.6_20. Can someone tell what is going on? Why will the interpreter not look in the jar-Archive I specified in the CLASSPATH? I found some kind of workaroud. I copied the antlr-3.2.jar into the directory where the Test.class is located and then executed: java -cp ./;antlr-3.2.jar Test This worked out. But I don't want to type the jar-Archive everytime I execute my test programs. Is there a possibility to tell the interpreter that he should automatically look into the archive?

  Read the article

• Is there any special tool for interactive GUI development

  - by niko

  Hi, Currently I am preparing exercises about networks and mobile communications for students. I was thinking about creating an interactive user-interface which enables the user to drag&drop predefined elements and then implement a logic based upon element distances etc. An example would be to place two base stations (a predefined element with several properties), set the scale in the interface and then check the signal interferrence in the environment (user-interface). The first part might be too abstract whereas the example might be too specific, but I was wondering whether there already exists any friendly framework or language which enables developers to create interactive interfaces (for teaching/learning purpouses) in short ammount of time. Usually I write applications for PC environment in .NET but in this case it would take too much time to create a specific interface for every exercise. I would appreciate if anyone could suggest any way to create interactive user-interface in short ammount of time. Are there any special programming languages or development tools for this kind of applications or are there any useful frameworks for .NET, Java or any other language to speed up the development of user-interfaces? Thank you!

  Read the article

• DrScheme versus mzscheme: treatment of definitions

  - by speciousfool

  One long term project I have is working through all the exercises of SICP. I noticed something a bit odd with the most recent exercise. I am testing a Huffman encoding tree. When I execute the following code in DrScheme I get the expected result: (a d a b b c a) However, if I execute this same code in mzscheme by calling (load "2.67.scm") or by running mzscheme -f 2.67.scm, it reports: symbols: expected symbols as arguments, given: (leaf D 1) My question is: why? Is it because mzscheme and drscheme use different rules for loading program definitions? The program code is below. ;; Define an encoding tree and a sample message ;; Use the decode procedure to decode the message, and give the result. (define (make-leaf symbol weight) (list 'leaf symbol weight)) (define (leaf? object) (eq? (car object) 'leaf)) (define (symbol-leaf x) (cadr x)) (define (weight-leaf x) (caddr x)) (define (make-code-tree left right) (list left right (append (symbols left) (symbols right)) (+ (weight left) (weight right)))) (define (left-branch tree) (car tree)) (define (right-branch tree) (cadr tree)) (define (symbols tree) (if (leaf? tree) (list (symbol-leaf tree)) (caddr tree))) (define (weight tree) (if (leaf? tree) (weight-leaf tree) (cadddr tree))) (define (decode bits tree) (define (decode-1 bits current-branch) (if (null? bits) '() (let ((next-branch (choose-branch (car bits) current-branch))) (if (leaf? next-branch) (cons (symbol-leaf next-branch) (decode-1 (cdr bits) tree)) (decode-1 (cdr bits) next-branch))))) (decode-1 bits tree)) (define (choose-branch bit branch) (cond ((= bit 0) (left-branch branch)) ((= bit 1) (right-branch branch)) (else (error "bad bit -- CHOOSE-BRANCH" bit)))) (define (test s-exp) (display s-exp) (newline)) (define sample-tree (make-code-tree (make-leaf 'A 4) (make-code-tree (make-leaf 'B 2) (make-code-tree (make-leaf 'D 1) (make-leaf 'C 1))))) (define sample-message '(0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0)) (test (decode sample-message sample-tree))

  Read the article

• should this database table be normalized?

  - by oo

  i have taken over a database that stores fitness information and we were having a debate about a certain table and whether it should stay as one table or get broken up into three tables. Today, there is one table called: workouts that has the following fields id, exercise_id, reps, weight, date, person_id So if i did 2 sets of 3 different exercises on one day, i would have 6 records in that table for that day. for example: id, exercise_id, reps, weight, date, person_id 1, 1, 10, 100, 1/1/2010, 10 2, 1, 10, 100, 1/1/2010, 10 3, 1, 10, 100, 1/1/2010, 10 4, 2, 10, 100, 1/1/2010, 10 5, 2, 10, 100, 1/1/2010, 10 6, 2, 10, 100, 1/1/2010, 10 So the question is, given that there is some redundant data (date, personid, exercise_id) in multiple records, should this be normalized to three tables WorkoutSummary: - id - date - person_id WorkoutExercise: - id - workout_id (foreign key into WorkoutSummary) - exercise_id WorkoutSets: - id - workout_exercise_id (foreign key into WorkoutExercise) - reps - weight I would guess the downside is that the queries would be slower after this refactoring as now we would need to join 3 tables to do the same query that had no joins before. The benefit of the refactoring allows up in the future to add new fields at the workout summary level or the exercise level with out adding in more duplication. any feedback on this debate?

  Read the article

• How to implement or emulate an "abstract" OCUnit test class?

  - by Quinn Taylor

  I have a number of Objective-C classes organized in an inheritance hierarchy. They all share a common parent which implements all the behaviors shared among the children. Each child class defines a few methods that make it work, and the parent class raises an exception for the methods designed to be implemented/overridden by its children. This effectively makes the parent a pseudo-abstract class (since it's useless on its own) even though Objective-C doesn't explicitly support abstract classes. The crux of this problem is that I'm unit testing this class hierarchy using OCUnit, and the tests are structured similarly: one test class that exercises the common behavior, with a subclass corresponding to each of the child classes under test. However, running the test cases on the (effectively abstract) parent class is problematic, since the unit tests will fail in spectacular fashion without the key methods. (The alternative of repeating the common tests across 5 test classes is not really an acceptable option.) The non-ideal solution I've been using is to check (in each test method) whether the instance is the parent test class, and bail out if it is. This leads to repeated code in every test method, a problem that becomes increasingly annoying if one's unit tests are highly granular. In addition, all such tests are still executed and reported as successes, skewing the number of meaningful tests that were actually run. What I'd prefer is a way to signal to OCUnit "Don't run any tests in this class, only run them in its child classes." To my knowledge, there isn't (yet) a way to do that, something similar to a +(BOOL)isAbstractTest method I can implement/override. Any ideas on a better way to solve this problem with minimal repetition? Does OCUnit have any ability to flag a test class in this way, or is it time to file a Radar? Edit: Here's a link to the test code in question. Notice the frequent repetition of if (...) return; to start a method, including use of the NonConcreteClass() macro for brevity.

  Read the article

• F# exercise help - Beginner

  - by bobjink

  I hope you can help me with these exercises I have been stuck with. I am not in particular looking for the answers. Tips that help me solve them myself are just as good :) 1. Write a function implode : char list - string so that implode s returns the characters concatenated into a string: let implode (cArray:char list) = List.foldBack (+) 0 cArray;; Error. I am thinking that i need to cast every char to strings before I do the above. I bet however, that there is a much simpler and better solution. 2. Write a function palindrome : string - bool, so that palindrome s returns true if the string s is a palindrome let isIdentical cArray1 cArray2 = (cArray1 = cArray2);; let palinDrome (word:string) = isIdentical(word.ToCharArray(), Array.rev(word.ToCharArray()));; I get the value: val palinDrome : string - (char [] * char [] - bool), which is not what I want. 3. Write a function combinePair : int list - int list so that combinePair xs returns the list with elements from xs combined into pairs. If xs contains an odd number of elements, then the last element is thrown away: I have no idea for this one.

  Read the article

• Learning Clojure - What should I know about Java and more.

  - by kartan

  Hello, I have started learning Clojure recently, my main programming language is Ruby and I have no Java experience whatsoever. Which Java standard classes are a must to know when working with Clojure? Obviously Clojure doesn't come with a wrapper for everything and a lot of functionality is provided by Java's libraries. There's like a gazillion of them on javadocs - which ones should I explore? Where do I look for and how do I install third party libraries? In Ruby I'd visit Rubyforge or Rubytoolbox and then just gem install the package I found interesting. Which editor/ide for Clojure would you recommend (with the lowest learning curve)? I am trying to use Netbeans with Enclojure and paradoxally it's my biggest obstacle so far: Each generated project has some xml files, folders, library dependencies etc. the purpose of I have no clue. I am doing some labrepl exercises and wanted to try out some of the bundled libraries separately in a new project, but this simple task I cannot accomplish :/ Are there any clojure community driven blogs with news, code tips etc?

  Read the article

• How to learn how to program?

  - by twinbornJoint

  I would like to know the best methods for learning to program. I've been directed towards the Python language because I was told it is good for beginners. I ultimately want to make games for OS X/iPhone. My problem is that I understand what I read but I can't apply my knowledge to anything. I am a programming noob. Should I stick with Python? (is there a better language I should be learning?) Where can I learn programming theory? I get very hyper when reading my book sometimes, any tips on staying calm and focusing? What are effective ways to learn how to program? Are there standard exercises for programming? (I feel solving problems helps my understanding immensely) Ultimately I feel like I am in a never ending tunnel that leads me no where. It feels like I am just completely unable to pursue anything in the world of programming, yet it is something I want to do very much. Thanks.

  Read the article

• need help with Java solution /newbie

  - by Racket

  Hi, I'm new to programming in general so i'm trying to be as specific as possible in this question. There's this book that i'm doing some exercises on. I managed to do more than half of what they say, but it's just one input that I have been struggling to find out. I'll write the question and thereafter my code, "Write an application that creates and prints a random phone number of the form XXX-XXX-XXXX. Include the dashes in the output. Do not let the first three digits contain an 8 or 9 (but don't be more restrictive than that), and make sure that the second set of three digits is not greater than 742. Hint: Think through the easiest way to construct the phone number. Each diigit does not have to be determined separately." OK, the highlighted sentence is what i'm looking at. Here's my code: import java.util.Random; public class PP33 { public static void main (String[] args) { Random rand = new Random(); int num1, num2, num3; num1 = rand.nextInt(900) + 100; num2 = rand.nextInt(643) + 100; num3 = rand.nextInt(9000) + 1000; System.out.println(num1+"-"+num2+"-"+num3); } } How am I suppose to do this? I'm on chapter 3 so we have not yet discussed if statements etcetera, but Aliases, String class, Packages, Import declaration, Random Class, Math Class, Formatting output (decimal- & numberFormat), Printf, Enumeration & Wrapper classes + autoboxing. So consider answer the question based only on these assumptions, please. The code doesn't have any errors. Thank you!

  Read the article

• How do I update a NSTableView when its data source has changed?

  - by Jergason

  I am working along with Cocoa Programming For Mac OS X (a great book). One of the exercises the book gives is to build a simple to-do program. The UI has a table view, a text field to type in a new item and an "Add" button to add the new item to the table. On the back end I have a controller that is the data source and delegate for my NSTableView. The controller also implements an IBAction method called by the "Add" button. It contains a NSMutableArray to hold the to do list items. When the button is clicked, the action method fires correctly and the new string gets added to the mutable array. However, my data source methods are not being called correctly. Here they be: - (NSInteger)numberOfRowsInTableView:(NSTableView *)aTableView { NSLog(@"Calling numberOfRowsInTableView: %d", [todoList count]); return [todoList count]; } - (id)tableView:(NSTableView *)aTableView objectValueForTableColumn:(NSTableColumn *)aTableColumn row:(NSInteger)rowIndex { NSLog(@"Returning %@ to be displayed", [todoList objectAtIndex:rowIndex]); return [todoList objectAtIndex:rowIndex]; } Here is the rub. -numberOfRowsInTableView only gets called when the app first starts, not every time I add something new to the array. -objectValueForTableColumn never gets called at all. I assume this is because Cocoa is smart enough to not call this method when there is nothing to draw. Is there some method I need to call to let the table view know that its data source has changed, and it should redraw itself?

  Read the article

• How to push further as a programmer?

  - by MaXX

  For the last, hmm, 6 months I've been reading into Programming in C, I got myself K&Rv2, BEEJ's socket guide, Expert C programming, Linux Systems Programming, the ISO/IEC 9899:1999 specification (real, and not draft). After receiving them from Amazon, I got Linux installed, and got to it. I'm done with K&R, about halfway through Expert C Programming, but still feel weak as a programmer, I'm sure it takes much more than 6 months of reading to become truly skilled, but my question is this: I've done all the exercises in K&Rv2 (in chapter 1) and some in other chapters, most of which are generally really boring. How do I lift my skills, and become truly great? I've invested money, time and a general lifestyle for something I truly desire, but I'm not sure how exactly to achieve it. Could someone explain to me, perhaps if I need to continuously code, what exactly I'm to code? I'm pretty sure, coding up hello world programs isn't going to teach me any more than I already know about anything. A friend of mine said "read" (with emphasis on read) a man page a day, but reading is all I do, I want to do, but I'm not sure what! I'm interested in security, but I'm not sure as a novice what to code that would be considered enough. Ah, I hope you don't delete this paste :) Thanks

  Read the article

• Wrong label for a nodereference in Drupal content-type

  - by MPD

  We have a content-type built using CCK. One of the fields is a node reference. The node picker is using a view to build the options. A few days ago, everything was working well. Today, it looks like all node reference fields using views to populate the selection options are displaying the wrong label. Every single label in the option is ``A'', but the actual node number is correct. The form actually works, just the labels are incorrect. We have tried just about every combination of edit/save, disable/enable, reboot, clear cache, clone the view, rebuild the view, new view, etc, but we still have a big list of As. If we create a brand new content type with a brand new node reference field, we get the problem. Through some backup/restore exercises, we have determined that the problem is actually in the database and not in the code. We can restore our last good backup, but we will lose a decent amount of work we have put into other parts of the database. We enabled mysql query logging, and the view is actually being called properly, but we cannot track down where the problem is creeping in after that (unraveling the CCK / Views / Drupal plumbing is a challenge). The install was build with latest stable versions as of April. The problems referred to in http://drupal.org/node/624422 is similar, but our code versions include the patches mentioned. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

  Read the article

• Tableview not drilling down

  - by JoshD

  I have a Tableview which is loaded with a dummy list of exercises. I need to drill to a different page. My didSelectRow is being called, but not implementing the method. The app is a tab bar navigation app that loads a UITableView. #import <UIKit/UIKit.h> @interface Schedule : UIViewController <UITableViewDelegate, UITableViewDataSource> { NSArray *mySchedule; } @end #import "Schedule.h" #import "AnotherViewController.h" @implementation Schedule - (NSInteger)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView numberOfRowsInSection:(NSInteger)section{ return mySchedule.count; } - (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath{ //create a cell UITableViewCell *cell = [[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleDefault reuseIdentifier:@"cell"]; //fill it with contents cell.textLabel.text = [mySchedule objectAtIndex:indexPath.row]; //return it return cell; } - (void)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView didSelectRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath{ AnotherViewController *anotherViewController = [[AnotherViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"AnotherViewController" bundle:nil]; [self.navigationController pushViewController:anotherViewController animated:YES]; [anotherViewController release]; } /* // The designated initializer. Override if you create the controller programmatically and want to perform customization that is not appropriate for viewDidLoad. - (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil { if (self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil]) { // Custom initialization } return self; } */ // Implement viewDidLoad to do additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib. - (void)viewDidLoad { NSString *myFile = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"exercise" ofType:@"plist"]; mySchedule = [[NSArray alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:myFile]; [super viewDidLoad]; }

  Read the article

• Strange Access Denied warning when running the simplest C++ program.

  - by DaveJohnston

  I am just starting to learn C++ (coming from a Java background) and I have come across something that I can't explain. I am working through the C++ Primer book and doing the exercises. Every time I get to a new exercise I create a new .cpp file and set it up with the main method (and any includes I think I will need) e.g.: #include <list> #include <vector> int main(int argc, char **args) { } and just to make sure I go to the command prompt and compile and run: g++ whatever.cpp a.exe Normally this works just fine and I start working on the exercise, but I just did it and got a strange error. It compiles fine, but when I run it it says Access Denied and AVG pops up telling me that a threat has been detected 'Trojan Horse Generic 17.CKZT'. I tried compiling again using the Microsoft Compiler (cl.exe) and it runs fines. So I went back, and added: #include <iostream> compiled using g++ and ran. This time it worked fine. So can anyone tell me why AVG would report an empty main method as a trojan horse but if the iostream header is included it doesn't?

  Read the article

• What are good examples of perfectly acceptable approaches to development that are NOT test driven development (TDD)?

  - by markbruns

  The TDD cycle is test, code, refactor, (repeat) and then ship. TDD implies development that is driven by testing, specifically that means understanding requirements and then writing tests first before developing or writing code. My natural inclination is a philosophical bias in favor of TDD; I would like to be convinced that there are other approaches that now work well or even better than TDD so I have asked this question. What are examples of perfectly acceptable approaches that NOT test driven development? I can think of plenty approaches that are not TDD but could be a lot more trouble than what they are worth ... it's not moral judgement, it's just that they are cost more than they are worth ... the following are simply examples of things that might be ok as learning exercises, but approaches I'd find to be NOT acceptable in serious production and NOT TDD might include: Inspecting quality into your product -- Focusing efforts on developing a proficiency in testing/QA can be problematic, especially if you don't work on the requirements and development side first ... symptom of this include bug triaging where the developers have so many different bugs to deal with it, it is necessary to employ a form of triage -- each development cycle gets worse and worse, programmers work more and more hours, sleep less and less, struggle to keep going in death march until they are consumed. Superstition ... believing in things that you don't understand -- this would involve borrowing code that you believe has been proven or tested from somewhere, e.g. legacy code, a magic code starter wizard or an open source project, and you go forward hacking up a storm of modifications, sliding FaceBook Connect into your the user interface, inventing some new magic features on the fly (e.g. a mashup using the Twitter API, GoogleMaps API and maybe Zappos API), showing off your cool new "product" to a few people and then writing up a simple "specification" and list of "test cases" and turning that over to Mechanical Turk for testing.

  Read the article

• Senior programming 'guru' who can't program - should I find a different career?

  - by confess

  Background: According to my resume I'm supposed to be pretty good at programming. I've worked on a ton of big projects at big companies over many years. When I go for an interview and someone looks at my resume they immediately assume I really know what I'm talking about. I generally communicate well, present myself well, know the 'jargon' and know a lot about technology at a high level, which makes matters worse because after talking to me for a while an interviewer really believes that what my resume says is probably true. The Problem: The problem arises when someone asks me to code something. I choke. As a programmer I have almost no capacity to come up with creative solutions of my own. I can't think through solutions to a programming problem the way good programmers are usually able to. I read questions on StackOverflow and the answer is obvious to me after I read other people's answers but if I am the first person to look at a question with no hints from anyone else I usually don't know where to start. At work it's the same thing. I'm fine if I'm correcting other people's code. I can identify the source of a bug quicker than anyone I work with. But if you ask me to sit down and code up a new application from scratch I will spend ten times longer than programmers who are much more junior than me. Question: Now that I am looking for work this is raising its ugly head in interview situations and making me feel desperately that I'm in the wrong career. I don't know if this problem is incompetence, laziness or some combination of these. Does anyone have any ideas about what I might be dealing with - are there books or exercises that could help me with this basic problem?

  Read the article

• need help with some basic java.

  - by Racket

  Hi, I'm doing the first chapter exercises on my Java book and I have been stuck for a problem for a while now. I'll print the question, prompt/read a double value representing a monetary amount. Then determine the fewest number of each bill and coin needed to represent that amount, starting with the highest (assume that a ten dollar bill is the maximum size needed). For example, if the value entered is 47,63 (forty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents), and the program should print the equivalent amount as: 4 ten dollar bills 1 five dollar bills 2 one dollar bills 2 quarters 1 dimes 0 nickels 3 pennies" etc. I'm doing an example exactly as they said in order to get an idea, as you will see in the code. Nevertheless, I managed to print 4 dollars, and I can't figure out how to get "1 five dollar", only 7 dollars (see code). Please, don't do the whole code for me. I just need some advice in regards to what I said. Thank you. import java.util.Scanner; public class PP29 { public static void main (String[] args) { Scanner sc = new Scanner (System.in); int amount; double value; double test1; double quarter; System.out.println("Enter \"double\" value: "); value = sc.nextDouble(); amount = (int) value / 10; // 47,63 / 10 = 4. int amount2 = (int) value % 10; // 47 - 40 = 7 quarter = value * 100; // 47,63 * 100 = 4736 int sum = (int) quarter % 100; // 4763 / 100 => 4763-4700 = 63. System.out.println(amount); System.out.println(amount2); } }

  Read the article

• SQL Developer Blitz at ODTUG Kscope12

  - by thatjeffsmith

  Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG) puts on an outstanding event, and I enjoy that the content comes FIRST. Yes, the after-event parties and entertainment are first class, but I look forward most to sitting in on some excellent sessions. For Kscope12 one would expect Oracle to have a large presence, and you would be absolutely correct! The APEX team will be there in full force, and we’ll have sessions on JDeveloper, ADF, and .NET. But what I want to talk about today is our awesome line-up of coverage for Oracle SQL Developer (Surprise!) DB and Developer’s Toolbox Symposium Kris Rice or @krisrice, Product Development Manager for SQL Developer, will speak at 10AM Sunday about SQL Developer Data Modeler. Our free data modeling solution allows one to reverse engineer a data dictionary to a model, modify it, and create a script of the changes. Collaboration is an important part of any development team; with built-in subversion support, the modeler makes collaboration easy, not just possible. After the morning break, I’ll be talking about SQL Developer’s PL/SQL support. From creating your code, to debugging, tuning, testing, and documenting PL/SQL – SQL Developer fits the bill. Since I have a full hour, I should have time to do a little riff on using source control to version and manage your revisions too! At 3:15 Jagan Athreya will talk about the new integration between SQL Developer and Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c. Enabling developers to define changes in SQLDeveloper and allowing DBAs to promote these changes to Test and Production via Enterprise Manager will reduce errors, accelerate productivity, and help eliminate unplanned downtime. Get your SQL Developer groove on at ODTUG Kscope12! Presentations SQL Developer Tips and Tricks Monday June 25, Session 5, 4:15 pm – 5:15 pm I’ll take you through my favorite keyboard shortcuts, top 10 preferences every user should tweak, and spotlight features that the average user probably hasn’t discovered yet. My goal for this session is for everyone to take 1-2 tips they can implement immediately to save mucho time. I enjoy interacting with the audience so no two versions of this presentation are the same. Oracle SQL Developer and Data Modeler New Features When: Tuesday June 26, Session 6, 8:30 am – 9:30 am Ashley Chen, my PM-partner-in-crime, will be covering all the new features from our two latest updates. So if you’re new to SQL Developer, or you’ve been using an older version, stop by and see what new toys you have to play with. I also have a bet with Ashley that she will have more attendees than me, so be sure to show up so I can collect. Debugging PL/SQL With SQL Developer When: Wednesday June 27, Session 16, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm Me again – sorry. This time I have an entire hour to JUST talk about PL/SQL and debugging! Should you use a watch with a break condition, or a breakpoint with a passcount? How does external debugging with a Perl script work? Can I just debug an anonymous PL/SQL block. So if debugging to you is just a DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE() call, stop by and see how our IDE can help you take things to the next level! Or is that level++? Hands-on-Training SQL Developer Soup to Nuts When: Tuesday, 8:00 AM – 9:30 AM If you learn by doing, this is the session for you. Bring your own laptop or use one of the lab machines. We’ll give you a VirtualBox OEL image running 11gR2 EE Database with all the fixin’s (that’s Southern speak for Partitioning, Advanced Compression, Tuning & Diagnostic Packs, etc), TimesTen, APEX and much more. All you have to do is login and run through our lab exercises. You can start with a model and work your way up to debugging and testing your own appliction, or you can pick and choose your lessons to suit your needs. We’ll have people on hand to help you out and answer your questions. Booth Hours We’ll be in the vendor area and have our very own ‘demo pod’ for SQL Developer. Between Kris, Ashley, and I we should be able to answer your questions or show you how to ‘do that thing’ in the tool. Or just stop by and say hello! We’ll be around the following hours’ish: Sunday, June 24, 2012 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM Monday, June 25, 2012 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM Tuesday, June 26, 2012 9:30 AM – 3:30 PM Wednesday, June 27, 2012 10:15 AM – 2:00 PM No Excuses – If You Have Questions, This is Your Chance to Get Your Answers! We’re doing just about everything outside of a scavenger hunt to bring information and value to our users. Let us know what you like, what you don’t like, and we’ll do our best to do more of the former and less of the latter!

  Read the article

• SQL Developer at Oracle Open World 2012

  - by thatjeffsmith

  We have a lot going on in San Francisco this fall. One of the most personal exciting bits, for what will be my 4th or 5th Open World, is that this will be my FIRST as a member of Team Oracle. I’ve presented once before, but most years it was just me pressing flesh at the vendor booths. After 3-4 days of standing and talking, you’re ready to just go home and not do anything for a few weeks. This time I’ll have a chance to walk around and talk with our users and get a good idea of what’s working and what’s not. Of course it will be a great opportunity for you to find us and get to know your SQL Developer team! 3.4 miles across and back – thanks Ashley for signing me up for the run! This year is going to be a bit crazy. Work wise I’ll be presenting twice, working a booth, and proctoring several of our Hands-On Labs. The fun parts will be equally crazy though – running across the Bay Bridge (I don’t run), swimming the Bay (I don’t swim), having my wife fly out on Wednesday for the concert, and then our first WhiskyFest on Friday (I do drink whisky though.) But back to work – let’s talk about EVERYTHING you can expect from the SQL Developer team. Booth Hours We’ll have 2 ‘demo pods’ in the Exhibition Hall over at Moscone South. Look for the farm of Oracle booths, we’ll be there under the signs that say ‘SQL Developer.’ There will be several people on hand, mostly developers (yes, they still count as people), who can answer your questions or demo the latest features. Come by and say ‘Hi!’, and let us know what you like and what you think we can do better. Seriously. Monday 10AM – 6PM Tuesday 9:45AM – 6PM Wednesday 9:45AM – 4PM Presentations Stop by for an hour, pull up a chair, sit back and soak in all the SQL Developer goodness. You’ll only have to suffer my bad jokes for two of the presentations, so please at least try to come to the other ones. We’ll be talking about data modeling, migrations, source control, and new features in versions 3.1 and 3.2 of SQL Developer and SQL Developer Data Modeler. Day Time Event Monday 10:454:45 What’s New in SQL Developer Why Move to Oracle Application Express Listener Tueday 10:1511:455:00 Using Subversion in Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler Oracle SQL Developer Tips & Tricks Database Design with Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler Wednesday 11:453:30 Migrating Third-Party Databases and Applications to Oracle Exadata 11g Enterprise Options and Management Packs for Developers Hands On Labs (HOLs) The Hands On Labs allow you to come into a classroom environment, sit down at a computer, and run through some exercises. We’ll provide the hardware, software, and training materials. It’s self-paced, but we’ll have several helpers walking around to answer questions and chat up any SQL Developer or database topic that comes to mind. If your employer is sending you to Open World for all that great training, the HOLs are a great opportunity to capitalize on that. They are only 60 minutes each, so you don’t have to worry about burning out. And there’s no homework! Of course, if you do want to take the labs home with you, many are already available via the Developer Day Hands-On Database Applications Developer Lab. You will need your own computer for those, but we’ll take care of the rest. Wednesday PL/SQL Development and Unit Testing with Oracle SQL Developer 10:15 Performance Tuning with Oracle SQL Developer 11:45 Thursday The Soup to Nuts of Data Modeling with Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler 11:15 Some Parting Advice Always wanted to meet your favorite Oracle authors, speakers, and thought-leaders? Don’t be shy, walk right up to them and introduce yourself. Normal social rules still apply, but at the conference everyone is open and up for meeting and talking with attendees. Just understand if there’s a line that you might only get a minute or two. It’s a LONG conference though, so you’ll have plenty of time to catch up with everyone. If you’re going to be around on Tuesday evening, head on over to the OTN Lounge from 4:30 to 6:30 and hang out for our Tweet Meet. That’s right, all the Oracle nerds on Twitter will be there in one place. Be sure to put your Twitter handle on your name tag so we know who you are!

  Read the article

• Silverlight Firestarter Wrap Up and WCF RIA Services Talk Sample Code

  - by dwahlin

  I had a great time attending and speaking at the Silverlight Firestarter event up in Redmond on December 2, 2010. In addition to getting a chance to hang out with a lot of cool people from Microsoft such as Scott Guthrie, John Papa, Tim Heuer, Brian Goldfarb, John Allwright, David Pugmire, Jesse Liberty, Jeff Handley, Yavor Georgiev, Jossef Goldberg, Mike Cook and many others, I also had a chance to chat with a lot of people attending the event and hear about what projects they’re working on which was awesome. If you didn’t get a chance to look through all of the new features coming in Silverlight 5 check out John Papa’s post on the subject. While at the Silverlight Firestarter event I gave a presentation on WCF RIA Services and wanted to get the code posted since several people have asked when it’d be available. The talk can be viewed by clicking the image below. Code from the talk follows as well as additional links. I had a few people ask about the green bracelet on my left hand since it looks like something you’d get from a waterpark. It was used to get us access down a little hall that led backstage and allowed us to go backstage during the event. I thought it looked kind of dorky but it was required to get through security. Sample Code from My WCF RIA Services Talk (To login to the 2 apps use “user” and “P@ssw0rd”. Make sure to do a rebuild of the projects in Visual Studio before running them.) View All Silverlight Firestarter Talks and Scott Guthrie’s Keynote WCF RIA Services SP1 Beta for Silverlight 4 WCF RIA Services Code Samples (including some SP1 samples) Improved binding support in EntitySet and EntityCollection with SP1 (Kyle McClellan’s Blog) Introducing an MVVM-Friendly DomainDataSource: The DomainCollectionView (Kyle McClellan’s Blog) I’ve had the chance to speak at a lot of conferences but never with as many cameras, streaming capabilities, people watching live and overall hype involved. Over 1000 people registered to attend the conference in person at the Microsoft campus and well over 15,000 to watch it through the live stream.  The event started for me on Tuesday afternoon with a flight up to Seattle from Phoenix. My flight was delayed 1 1/2 hours (I seem to be good at booking delayed flights) so I didn’t get up there until almost 8 PM. John Papa did a tech check at 9 PM that night and I was scheduled for 9:30 PM. We basically plugged in my laptop backstage (amazing number of servers, racks and audio devices back there) and made sure everything showed up properly on the projector and the machines recording the presentation. In addition to a dedicated show director, there were at least 5 tech people back stage and at least that many up in the booth running lights, audio, cameras, and other aspects of the show. I wish I would’ve taken a picture of the backstage setup since it was pretty massive – servers all over the place. I definitely gained a new appreciation for how much work goes into these types of events. Here’s what the room looked like right before my tech check– not real exciting at this point. That’s Yavor Georgiev (who spoke on WCF Services at the Firestarter) in the background. We had plenty of monitors to reference during the presentation. Two monitors for slides (right and left side) and a notes monitor. The 4th monitor showed the time and they’d type in notes to us as we talked (such as “You’re over time!” in my case since I went around 4 minutes over :-)). Wednesday morning I went back on campus at Microsoft and watched John Papa film a few Silverlight TV episodes with Dave Campbell and Ryan Plemons.   Next I had the chance to watch the dry run of the keynote with Scott Guthrie and John Papa. We were all blown away by the demos shown since they were even better than expected. Starting at 1 PM on Wednesday I went over to Building 35 and listened to Yavor Georgiev (WCF Services), Jaime Rodriguez (Windows Phone 7), Jesse Liberty (Data Binding) and Jossef Goldberg and Mike Cook (Silverlight Performance) give their different talks and we all shared feedback with each other which was a lot of fun. Jeff Handley from the RIA Services team came afterwards and listened to me give a dry run of my WCF RIA Services talk. He had some great feedback that I really appreciated getting. That night I hung out with John Papa and Ward Bell and listened to John walk through his keynote demos. I also got a sneak peak of the gift given to Dave Campbell for all his work with Silverlight Cream over the years. It’s a poster signed by all of the key people involved with Silverlight: Thursday morning I got up fairly early to get to the event center by 8 AM for speaker pictures. It was nice and quiet at that point although outside the room there was a huge line of people waiting to get in.     At around 8:30 AM everyone was let in and the main room was filled quickly. Two other overflow rooms in the Microsoft conference center (Building 33) were also filled to capacity. At around 9 AM Scott Guthrie kicked off the event and all the excitement started! From there it was all a blur but it was definitely a lot of fun. All of the sessions for the Silverlight Firestarter were recorded and can be watched here (including the keynote). Corey Schuman, John Papa and I also released 11 lab exercises and associated videos to help people get started with Silverlight. Definitely check them out if you’re interested in learning more! Level 100: Getting Started Lab 01 - WinForms and Silverlight Lab 02 - ASP.NET and Silverlight Lab 03 - XAML and Controls Lab 04 - Data Binding Level 200: Ready for More Lab 05 - Migrating Apps to Out-of-Browser Lab 06 - Great UX with Blend Lab 07 - Web Services and Silverlight Lab 08 - Using WCF RIA Services Level 300: Take me Further Lab 09 - Deep Dive into Out-of-Browser Lab 10 - Silverlight Patterns: Using MVVM Lab 11 - Silverlight and Windows Phone 7

  Read the article

• World Record Batch Rate on Oracle JD Edwards Consolidated Workload with SPARC T4-2

  - by Brian

  Oracle produced a World Record batch throughput for single system results on Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Day-in-the-Life benchmark using Oracle's SPARC T4-2 server running Oracle Solaris Containers and consolidating JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle WebLogic servers and the Oracle Database 11g Release 2. The workload includes both online and batch workload. The SPARC T4-2 server delivered a result of 8,000 online users while concurrently executing a mix of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Long and Short batch processes at 95.5 UBEs/min (Universal Batch Engines per minute). In order to obtain this record benchmark result, the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle WebLogic and Oracle Database 11g Release 2 servers were executed each in separate Oracle Solaris Containers which enabled optimal system resources distribution and performance together with scalable and manageable virtualization. One SPARC T4-2 server running Oracle Solaris Containers and consolidating JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Oracle WebLogic servers and the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 utilized only 55% of the available CPU power. The Oracle DB server in a Shared Server configuration allows for optimized CPU resource utilization and significant memory savings on the SPARC T4-2 server without sacrificing performance. This configuration with SPARC T4-2 server has achieved 33% more Users/core, 47% more UBEs/min and 78% more Users/rack unit than the IBM Power 770 server. The SPARC T4-2 server with 2 processors ran the JD Edwards "Day-in-the-Life" benchmark and supported 8,000 concurrent online users while concurrently executing mixed batch workloads at 95.5 UBEs per minute. The IBM Power 770 server with twice as many processors supported only 12,000 concurrent online users while concurrently executing mixed batch workloads at only 65 UBEs per minute. This benchmark demonstrates more than 2x cost savings by consolidating the complete solution in a single SPARC T4-2 server compared to earlier published results of 10,000 users and 67 UBEs per minute on two SPARC T4-2 and SPARC T4-1. The Oracle DB server used mirrored (RAID 1) volumes for the database providing high availability for the data without impacting performance. Performance Landscape JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Day in the Life (DIL) Benchmark Consolidated Online with Batch Workload System Rack Units BatchRate(UBEs/m) Online Users Users /Units Users /Core Version SPARC T4-2 (2 x SPARC T4, 2.85 GHz) 3 95.5 8,000 2,667 500 9.0.2 IBM Power 770 (4 x POWER7, 3.3 GHz, 32 cores) 8 65 12,000 1,500 375 9.0.2 Batch Rate (UBEs/m) — Batch transaction rate in UBEs per minute Configuration Summary Hardware Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-2 server with 2 x SPARC T4 processors, 2.85 GHz 256 GB memory 4 x 300 GB 10K RPM SAS internal disk 2 x 300 GB internal SSD 2 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Arrays Software Configuration: Oracle Solaris 10 Oracle Solaris Containers JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0.2 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools (8.98.4.2) Oracle WebLogic Server 11g (10.3.4) Oracle HTTP Server 11g Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.1) Benchmark Description JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is an integrated applications suite of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. Oracle offers 70 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne application modules to support a diverse set of business operations. Oracle's Day in the Life (DIL) kit is a suite of scripts that exercises most common transactions of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications, including business processes such as payroll, sales order, purchase order, work order, and manufacturing processes, such as ship confirmation. These are labeled by industry acronyms such as SCM, CRM, HCM, SRM and FMS. The kit's scripts execute transactions typical of a mid-sized manufacturing company. The workload consists of online transactions and the UBE – Universal Business Engine workload of 61 short and 4 long UBEs. LoadRunner runs the DIL workload, collects the user’s transactions response times and reports the key metric of Combined Weighted Average Transaction Response time. The UBE processes workload runs from the JD Enterprise Application server. Oracle's UBE processes come as three flavors: Short UBEs < 1 minute engage in Business Report and Summary Analysis, Mid UBEs > 1 minute create a large report of Account, Balance, and Full Address, Long UBEs > 2 minutes simulate Payroll, Sales Order, night only jobs. The UBE workload generates large numbers of PDF files reports and log files. The UBE Queues are categorized as the QBATCHD, a single threaded queue for large and medium UBEs, and the QPROCESS queue for short UBEs run concurrently. Oracle's UBE process performance metric is Number of Maximum Concurrent UBE processes at transaction rate, UBEs/minute. Key Points and Best Practices Two JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Application Servers, two Oracle WebLogic Servers 11g Release 1 coupled with two Oracle Web Tier HTTP server instances and one Oracle Database 11g Release 2 database on a single SPARC T4-2 server were hosted in separate Oracle Solaris Containers bound to four processor sets to demonstrate consolidation of multiple applications, web servers and the database with best resource utilizations. Interrupt fencing was configured on all Oracle Solaris Containers to channel the interrupts to processors other than the processor sets used for the JD Edwards Application server, Oracle WebLogic servers and the database server. A Oracle WebLogic vertical cluster was configured on each WebServer Container with twelve managed instances each to load balance users' requests and to provide the infrastructure that enables scaling to high number of users with ease of deployment and high availability. The database log writer was run in the real time RT class and bound to a processor set. The database redo logs were configured on the raw disk partitions. The Oracle Solaris Container running the Enterprise Application server completed 61 Short UBEs, 4 Long UBEs concurrently as the mixed size batch workload. The mixed size UBEs ran concurrently from the Enterprise Application server with the 8,000 online users driven by the LoadRunner. See Also SPARC T4-2 Server oracle.com OTN JD Edwards EnterpriseOne oracle.com OTN Oracle Solaris oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition oracle.com OTN Oracle Fusion Middleware oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement Copyright 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Results as of 09/30/2012.

  Read the article

• Oracle ATG Web Commerce 10 Implementation Developer Boot Camp - Reading (UK) - October 1-12, 2012

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  REGISTER NOW: Oracle ATG Web Commerce 10 Implementation Developer Boot Camp Reading, UK, October 1-12, 2012! OPN invites you to join us for a 10-day implementation bootcamp on Oracle ATG Web Commerce in Reading, UK from October 1-12, 2012.This 10-day boot camp is designed to provide partners with hands-on experience and technical training to successfully build and deploy Oracle ATG Web Commerce 10 Applications. This particular boot camp is focused on helping partners develop the essential skills needed to implement every aspect of an ATG Commerce Application from scratch, (not CRS-based), with a specific goal of enabling experienced Java/J2EE developers with a path towards becoming functional, effective, and contributing members of an ATG implementation team. Built for both new and experienced ATG developers alike, the collaborative nature of this program and its exercises, have proven to be highly effective and extremely valuable in learning the best practices for implementing ATG solutions. Though not required, this bootcamp provides a structured path to earning a Certified Oracle ATG Web Commerce 10 Specialization! What Is Covered: This boot camp is for Application Developers and Software Architects wanting to gain valuable insight into ATG application development best practices, as well as relevant and applicable implementation experience on projects modeled after four of the most common types of applications built on the ATG platform. The following learning objectives are all critical, and are of equal priority in enabling this role to succeed. This learning boot camp will help with: Building a basic functional transaction-ready ATG Web Commerce 10 Application. Utilizing ATG’s platform features such as scenarios, slots, targeters, user profiles and segments, to create a personalized user experience. Building Nucleus components to support and/or extend application functionality. Understanding the intricacies of ATG order checkout and fulfillment. Specifying, designing and implementing new commerce features in ATG 10. Building a functional commerce application modeled after four of the most common types of applications built on the ATG platform, within an agile-based project team environment and under simulated real-world project conditions. Duration: The Oracle ATG Web Commerce 10 Implementation Developer Boot Camp is an instructor-led workshop spanning 10 days. Audience: Application Developers Software Architects Prerequisite Training and Environment Requirements: Programming and Markup Experience with Java J2EE, JavaScript, XML, HTML and CSS Completion of Oracle ATG Web Commerce 10 Implementation Specialist Development Guided Learning Path modules Participants will be required to bring their own laptop that meets the minimum specifications:   64-bit PC and OS (e.g. Windows 7 64-bit) 4GB RAM or more 40GB Hard Disk Space Laptops will require access to the Internet through Remote Desktop via Windows. Agenda Topics: Week 1 – Day 1 through 5 Build a Basic Commerce Application In week one of the boot camp training, we will apply knowledge learned from the ATG Web Commerce 10 Implementation Developer Guided Learning Path modules, towards building a basic transaction-ready commerce application. There will be little to no lectures delivered in this boot camp, as developers will be fully engaged in ATG Application Development activities and best practices. Developers will work independently on the following lab assignments from day's 1 through 5: Lab Assignments  1 Environment Setup 2 Build a dynamic Home Page 3 Site Authentication 4 Build Customer Registration 5 Display Top Level Categories 6 Display Product Sub-Categories 7 Display Product List Page 8 Display Product Detail Page 9 ATG Inventory 10 Build “Add to Cart” Functionality 11 Build Shopping Cart 12 Build Checkout Page  13 Build Checkout Review Page 14 Create an Order and Build Order Confirmation Page 15 Implement Slots and Targeters for Personalization 16 Implement Pricing and Promotions 17 Order Fulfillment Back to top Week 2 – Day 6 through 10 Team-based Case Project In the second week of the boot camp training, participants will be asked to join a project team that will select a case project for the team to implement. Teams will be able to choose from four of the most common application types developed and deployed on the ATG platform. They are as follows: Hard goods with physical fulfillment, Soft goods with electronic fulfillment, a Service or subscription case example, a Course/Event registration case example. Team projects will have approximately 160 hours of use cases/stories for each team to build (40 hours per developer). Each day's Use Cases/Stories will build upon the prior day's work, and therefore must be fully completed at the end of each day. Please note that this boot camp intends to simulate real-world project conditions, and as such will likely require the need for project teams to possibly work beyond normal business hours. To promote further collaboration and group learning, each team will be asked to present their work and share the methodologies and solutions that they've applied to their cases at the end of each day. Location: Oracle Reading CVC TPC510 Room: Wraysbury Reading, UK 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM  Registration Fee (10 Days): US $3,375 Please click on the following link to REGISTER or  visit the Oracle ATG Web Commerce 10 Implementation Developer Boot Camp page for more information. Questions: Patrick Ty Partner Enablement, Oracle Commerce Phone: 310.343.7687 Mobile: 310.633.1013 Email: [email protected]

  Read the article

• A*, Tile costs and heuristic; How to approach

  - by Kevin Toet

  I'm doing exercises in tile games and AI to improve my programming. I've written a highly unoptimised pathfinder that does the trick and a simple tile class. The first problem i ran into was that the heuristic was rounded to int's which resulted in very straight paths. Resorting a Euclidian Heuristic seemed to fixed it as opposed to use the Manhattan approach. The 2nd problem I ran into was when i tried added tile costs. I was hoping to use the value's of the flags that i set on the tiles but the value's were too small to make the pathfinder consider them a huge obstacle so i increased their value's but that breaks the flags a certain way and no paths were found anymore. So my questions, before posting the code, are: What am I doing wrong that the Manhatten heuristic isnt working? What ways can I store the tile costs? I was hoping to (ab)use the enum flags for this The path finder isnt considering the chance that no path is available, how do i check this? Any code optimisations are welcome as I'd love to improve my coding. public static List<Tile> FindPath( Tile startTile, Tile endTile, Tile[,] map ) { return FindPath( startTile, endTile, map, TileFlags.WALKABLE ); } public static List<Tile> FindPath( Tile startTile, Tile endTile, Tile[,] map, TileFlags acceptedFlags ) { List<Tile> open = new List<Tile>(); List<Tile> closed = new List<Tile>(); open.Add( startTile ); Tile tileToCheck; do { tileToCheck = open[0]; closed.Add( tileToCheck ); open.Remove( tileToCheck ); for( int i = 0; i < tileToCheck.neighbors.Count; i++ ) { Tile tile = tileToCheck.neighbors[ i ]; //has the node been processed if( !closed.Contains( tile ) && ( tile.flags & acceptedFlags ) != 0 ) { //Not in the open list? if( !open.Contains( tile ) ) { //Set G int G = 10; G += tileToCheck.G; //Set Parent tile.parentX = tileToCheck.x; tile.parentY = tileToCheck.y; tile.G = G; //tile.H = Math.Abs(endTile.x - tile.x ) + Math.Abs( endTile.y - tile.y ) * 10; //TODO omg wtf and other incredible stories tile.H = Vector2.Distance( new Vector2( tile.x, tile.y ), new Vector2(endTile.x, endTile.y) ); tile.Cost = tile.G + tile.H + (int)tile.flags; //Calculate H; Manhattan style open.Add( tile ); } //Update the cost if it is else { int G = 10;//cost of going to non-diagonal tiles G += map[ tile.parentX, tile.parentY ].G; //If this path is shorter (G cost is lower) then change //the parent cell, G cost and F cost. if ( G < tile.G ) //if G cost is less, { tile.parentX = tileToCheck.x; //change the square's parent tile.parentY = tileToCheck.y; tile.G = G;//change the G cost tile.Cost = tile.G + tile.H + (int)tile.flags; // add terrain cost } } } } //Sort costs open = open.OrderBy( o => o.Cost).ToList(); } while( tileToCheck != endTile ); closed.Reverse(); List<Tile> validRoute = new List<Tile>(); Tile currentTile = closed[ 0 ]; validRoute.Add( currentTile ); do { //Look up the parent of the current cell. currentTile = map[ currentTile.parentX, currentTile.parentY ]; currentTile.renderer.material.color = Color.green; //Add tile to list validRoute.Add( currentTile ); } while ( currentTile != startTile ); validRoute.Reverse(); return validRoute; } And my Tile class: [Flags] public enum TileFlags: int { NONE = 0, DIRT = 1, STONE = 2, WATER = 4, BUILDING = 8, //handy WALKABLE = DIRT | STONE | NONE, endofenum } public class Tile : MonoBehaviour { //Tile Properties public int x, y; public TileFlags flags = TileFlags.DIRT; public Transform cachedTransform; //A* properties public int parentX, parentY; public int G; public float Cost; public float H; public List<Tile> neighbors = new List<Tile>(); void Awake() { cachedTransform = transform; } }

  Read the article

• What's My Problem? What's Your Problem?

  - by Jacek Ziabicki

  Software installers are not made for building demo environments. I can say this much after 12 years (on and off) of supporting my fellow sales consultants with environments for software demonstrations. When we release software, we include installation programs and procedures that are designed for use by our clients – to build a production environment and a limited number of testing, training and development environments. Different Objectives Your priorities when building an environment for client use vs. building a demo environment are very different. In a production environment, security, stability, and performance concerns are paramount. These environments are built on a specific server and rarely, if ever, moved to a different server or different network address. There is typically just one application running on a particular server (physical or virtual). Once built, the environment will be used for months or years at a time. Because of security considerations, the installation program wants to make these environments very specific to the organization using the software and the use case, encoding a fully qualified name of the server, or even the IP address on the network, in the configuration. So you either go through the installation procedure for each environment, or learn how to clone and reconfigure the software as a separate instance to build all your non-production environments. This may not matter much if the installation is as simple as clicking on the Setup program. But for enterprise applications, you have a number of configuration settings that you need to get just right – so whether you are installing from scratch or reconfiguring an existing installation, this requires both time and expertise in the particular piece of software. If you need a setup of several applications that are integrated to talk to one another, it is a whole new level of complexity. Now you need the expertise in all of the applications involved (plus the supporting technology products), and in addition to making each application work, you also have to configure the integration endpoints. Each application needs the URLs and credentials to call the integration layer, and the integration must be able to call each application. Then you have to make sure that each app has the right data so a business process initiated in one application can continue in the next. And, you will need to check that each application has the correct version and patch level for the integration to work. When building demo environments, your #1 concern is agility. If you can get away with a small number of long-running environments, you are lucky. More likely, you may get a request for a dedicated environment for a demonstration that is two weeks away: how quickly can you make this available so we still have the time to build the client-specific data? We are running a hands-on workshop next month, and we’ll need 15 instances of application X environment so each student can have a separate server for the exercises. We cannot connect to our data center from the client site, the client’s security policy won’t allow our VPN to go through – so we need a portable environment that we can bring with us. Our consultants need to be able to work at the hotel, airport, and the airplane, so we really want an environment that can run on a laptop. The client will need two playpen environments running in the cloud, accessible from their network, for a series of workshops that start two weeks from now. We have seen all of these scenarios and more. Here you would be much better served by a generic installation that would be easy to clone. Welcome to the Wonder Machine The reason I started this blog is to share a particular design of a demo environment, a special way to install software, that can address the above requirements, even for integrated setups. This design was created by a team at Oracle Utilities Global Business Unit, and we are using this setup for most of our demo environments. In a bout of modesty we called it the Wonder Machine. Over the next few posts – think of it as a novel in parts – I will tell you about the big idea, how it was implemented and what you can do with it. After we have laid down the groundwork, I would like to share some tips and tricks for users of our Wonder Machine implementation, as well as things I am learning about building portable, cloneable environments. The Wonder Machine is by no means a closed specification, it is under active development! I am hoping this blog will be of interest to two groups of readers – the users of the Wonder Machine we have built at Oracle Utilities, who want to get the most out of their demo environments and be able to reconfigure it to their needs – and to people who need to build environments for demonstration, testing, training, development and would like to make them cloneable and portable to maximize the reuse of their effort. Surely we are not the only ones facing this problem? If you can think of a better way to solve it, or if you can help us improve on our concept, I will appreciate your comments!

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 5 6 7 8 9 10 11  | Next Page >