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• What is the value in hiding the details through abstractions? Isn't there value in transparency?

  - by user606723

  Background I am not a big fan of abstraction. I will admit that one can benefit from adaptability, portability and re-usability of interfaces etc. There is real benefit there, and I don't wish to question that, so let's ignore it. There is the other major "benefit" of abstraction, which is to hide implementation logic and details from users of this abstraction. The argument is that you don't need to know the details, and that one should concentrate on their own logic at this point. Makes sense in theory. However, whenever I've been maintaining large enterprise applications, I always need to know more details. It becomes a huge hassle digging deeper and deeper into the abstraction at every turn just to find out exactly what something does; i.e. having to do "open declaration" about 12 times before finding the stored procedure used. This 'hide the details' mentality seems to just get in the way. I'm always wishing for more transparent interfaces and less abstraction. I can read high level source code and know what it does, but I'll never know how it does it, when how it does it, is what I really need to know. What's going on here? Has every system I've ever worked on just been badly designed (from this perspective at least)? My philosophy When I develop software, I feel like I try to follow a philosophy I feel is closely related to the ArchLinux philosophy: Arch Linux retains the inherent complexities of a GNU/Linux system, while keeping them well organized and transparent. Arch Linux developers and users believe that trying to hide the complexities of a system actually results in an even more complex system, and is therefore to be avoided. And therefore, I never try to hide complexity of my software behind abstraction layers. I try to abuse abstraction, not become a slave to it. Question at heart Is there real value in hiding the details? Aren't we sacrificing transparency? Isn't this transparency valuable?

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• Securing Back End API for Mobile Applications

  - by El Guapo

  I have an application that I am writing for both iOS and Android; this application will be served by a ReSTFUL API running on a cluster of servers on "the internets". I am curious how the rest of the world is going about securing their APIs so only specific applications running on iOS or Android can use these APIs. I could go the same route as other OAuth providers by providing a key/secret combination (2-legged OAuth), however, what do I do if I ever have to change these keys??? Do I create a new key/secret for every person that downloads the app??? The application is a social-based game that will allow the user to interact with other "participants" in the game based on location, achievements, etc. The API will provide the following functions: -Questions, Quests, etc -Profile Management -User Interaction -Possible Social Interaction Once the app gains traction I plan on opening up the API ala Facebook, Twitter, etc. Which is easy enough, I plan on implementing an OAuth Server and whatnot. However, I want to make sure, during this phase, that only people who are using the application can access and use the API.

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• Designing javascript chart library

  - by coolscitist

  I started coding a chart library on top of d3js: My chart library. I read Javascript API reusability and Towards reusable charts. However, I am NOT really following the suggestions because I am not really convinced about them. This is how my library can be used to create a bubble chart: var chart = new XYBubbleChart(); chart.data = [{"xValue":200,"yValue":300},{"xValue":400,"yValue":200},{"xValue":100,"yValue":310}]; //set data chart.dataKey.x = "xValue"; chart.dataKey.y = "yValue"; chart.elementId = "#chart"; chart.createChart(); Here are my questions: It does not use chaining. Is it a big issue? Every property and function is exposed publicly. (Example: width, height are exposed in Chart.js). OOP is all about abstraction and hiding, but I don't really see the point right now. I think exposing everything gives flexibility to change property and functionality inside subclasses and objects without writing a lot of code. What could be pitfalls of such exposure? I have implemented functions like: zooming, "showing info boxes when data point is clicked" as "abilities". (example: XYZoomingAbility.js). Basically, such "abilities" accept "chart" object, play around with public variables of "chart" to add functionality. What this allows me to do is to add an ability by writing: activateZoomAbility(chartObject); My goal is to separate "visualization" from "interactivity". I want "interactivity" like: zooming to be plugged into the chart rather than built inside the chart. Like, I don't want my bubble chart to know anything about "zooming". However, I do want zoomable bubble chart. What is the best way to do this? How to test and what to test? I have written mixed tests: jasmine and actual html files so that I can test manually on browser.

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• Callback Contract in WCF

  Callback contracts are a very powerful concept that is easily implemented in WCF. Using this, it is very easy to achieve event-like behavior between a service and client (duplex operations).

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• Representation of data in application versus database

  - by user1815201

  I'm going to make an application that will be given data to put in a database. The data will for the most part be the same, but the way it is formatted will vary a lot (could be in anything from text files to .xls to .doc). I'm not a very experienced developer, but I can see some potential issues and I want to minimize them. First off I have decided to use the DAO pattern, so that I can easily support new file formats or file suddenly formatted in different ways. What I really wonder about though, is how I should manage the data itself within my application. I'm thinking that the database DAO should have models representing each table of the database with the same relations between them, to make the uploading process easy. But should the filesystem DAO's have to use the same models? I can imaging that when the database changes, the change will suddenly propagate throughout the entire system, all DAOs and models alike. And that is obviously a bad thing. I'm a little bit tired and out of time. Will update with what ever questions you have. Thanks!

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• Where do you search/look for game developers for an indie game startup?

  - by G.Campos

  Hey there I just recently saw stackoverflow had a game dev sister site so here I am, wondering if you experienced fellows know where one can search/look for game developers for an indie game startup? In other words: I have a game idea which I've written down with as much detail as possible (so anyone else can understand how it works) and now I'm looking for a heavy php programmer with whom to pair up in order to go from idea to reality. I'm a front-end/interface designer and an intermediate programmer. I recognize my project requires heavy programming skills which I do not have as of today =) So, what websites, communities or places do you recommend I go look into? Where do good programmers interested in indie games go look for projects if they don't have their own? Thanks in advance G.Campos

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• genetic algorithm for leveling/build test

  - by Renan Malke Stigliani

  I'm starting o build a online PVP (duel like, one-to-one) game, where there is leveling, skill points, special attacks and all the common stuff. Since I never did anything like that, I'm still thinking about the maths behind the level/skill/special balances. So I thought good way of testing the best/combo builds would implement a Genetic Algorith. It'd be like that: Generate a big portion of random characters Make them fight, level them up accordingly to the victories(more XP)/losses(less XP) Mate the winners, crossing their builds, to try to make even best characters Add some more random chars, emulating new players Repeat the process for some time, or util find some chars who can beat everyone butts So I could play with the math and try to find the balance where the top x% chars would be a mix of various build types. So, is it a good idea, or there are some other easier method to do the balance? PS: I like this also, because it sounds funny

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• Is data integrity possible without normalization?

  - by shuniar

  I am working on an application that requires the storage of location information such as city, state, zip code, latitude, and longitude. I would like to ensure: Location data is accurate Detroit, CA Detroit IS NOT in California Detroit, MI Detroit IS in Michigan Cities and states are spelled correctly California not Calefornia Detroit not Detriot Cities and states are named consistently Valid: CA Detroit Invalid: Cali california DET d-town The D Also, since city/zip data is not guaranteed to be static, updating this data in a normalized fashion could be difficult, whereas it could be implemented as a de facto location if it is denormalized. A couple thoughts that come to mind: A collection of reference tables that store a list of all states and the most common cities and zip codes that can grow over time. It would search the database for an exact or similar match and recommend corrections. Use some sort of service to validate the location data before it is stored in the database. Is it possible to fulfill these requirements without normalization, and if so, should I denormalize this data?

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• Responsive website VS mobile website

  - by Saif Bechan

  I am creating a new blog. Nowadays, especially for a blog, it's important that the websites are accessible for all devices. Now I have to make a choice on what to do. I have seen 2 options. Option 1 is to go with a normal fixed website, for example 960px wide (grid960). And for mobile users have a mobile version. This takes some more time, but then there are 2 good versions of the website. Option 2 I haven't seen a lot yet, creating a adaptive website, or also called responsive website. I am now looking into the LESS framework, where the website automatically switches to to required width. Only downside is that when the normal browser is re-sized, everything re-sizes. Another problem I found is that pinch-to-zoom on devices does not work. Now the question is, which one would you prefer for a blog. One that constantly changes layout when you move your device, or one where you have the choice to view mobile and normal. If there are any other options, please let me know.

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• Will it hurt my website's SEO friendliness if I host a french targetted website at, let's say, godaddy.com?

  - by Suraj

  Hi guys, I have read that the server location is important for a website to be SEO friendly. I am planning to build a website from scratch which is targetted mainly to french audience (in france), but I am planning to host the web site at godaddy.com. My concern is will it hurt the website SEO friendliness? Or do you recommend me to host the website in france itself? I have also read that I need to have a static IP Address. If it's true, can anyone explain me for what reason? Can anyone suggest me some good web hosting companies, prefereable in france? Thanks in advance!

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• Is it a "pattern smell" to put getters like "FullName" or "FormattedPhoneNumber" in your model?

  - by DanM

  I'm working on an ASP.NET MVC app, and I've been getting into the habit of putting what seem like helpful and convenient getters into my model/entity classes. For example: public class Member { public int Id { get; set; } public string FirstName { get; set; } public string LastName { get; set; } public string PhoneNumber { get; set; } public string FullName { get { return FirstName + " " + LastName; } } public string FormattedPhoneNumber { get { return "(" + PhoneNumber.Substring(0, 3) + ") " + PhoneNumber.Substring(3, 3) + "-" + PhoneNumber.Substring(6); } } } I'm wondering people think about the FullName and FormattedPhoneNumber getters. They make it very easy to create standardized data formats throughout the app, and they seem to save a lot of repeated code, but it could definitely be argued that data format is something that should be handled in mapping from model to view-model. In fact, I was originally applying these data formats in my service layer where I do my mapping, but it was becoming a burden to constantly have to write formatters then apply them in many different places. E.g., I use "Full Name" in most views, and having to type something like model.FullName = MappingUtilities.GetFullName(entity.FirstName, entity.LastName); all over the place seemed a lot less elegant than just typing model.FullName = entity.FullName (or, if you use something like AutoMapper, potentially not typing anything at all). So, where do you draw the line when it comes to data formatting. Is it "okay" to do data formatting in your model or is that a "pattern smell"? Note: I definitely do not have any html in my model. I use html helpers for that. I'm strictly talking about formatting or combining data (and especially data that is frequently used).

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• S#arp Architecture 1.5.1 released

  - by AlecWhittington

  So far we have had some great success with the 1.5 release of S#arp Architecture, but there were a few issues that made it into the release that needed to be corrected. These issues were: Unnecessary assemblies in the root /bin and SolutionItemsContainer folders Nant folder removed from root /bin - this was causing issues with the build scripts that come with the project if the user did not have Nant installed and available via a path variable VS 2010 template - the CrudScaffoldingForEnterpriseApp...(read more)

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• Scene Graph Traversing Techniques

  - by Bunkai.Satori

  Scene Graph seems to be the most effective way of representing the game world. The game world usually tends to be as large as the memory and device can handle. In contrast, the screen of the device captures only a fraction of the Game World/Scene Graph. Ideally, I wish to process(update and render) only the visible game objects/nodes on per-frame basis. My question therefore is, how to traverse the scene graph so, that I will focus only on the game notes that are in the camera frustum? How to organize data so that I can easily focus only on the scene graph nodes visible to me? What are techniques to minimize scenegraph traversal time? Is there such way as more effective traversal, or do I have to traverse whole scene graph on per-frame basis?

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• Character Stats and Power

  - by Stephen Furlani

  I'm making an RPG game system and I'm having a hard time deciding on doing detailed or abstract character statistics. These statistics define the character's natural - not learned - abilities. For example: Mass Effect: 0 (None that I can see) X20 (Xtreme Dungeon Mastery): 1 "STAT" Diablo: 4 "Strength, Magic, Dexterity, Vitality" Pendragon: 5 "SIZ, STR, DEX, CON, APP" Dungeons & Dragons (3.x, 4e): 6 "Str, Dex, Con, Wis, Int, Cha" Fallout 3: 7 "S.P.E.C.I.A.L." RIFTS: 8 "IQ, ME, MA, PS, PP, PE, PB, Spd" Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1st ed?): 12-ish "WS, BS, S, T, Ag, Int, WP, Fel, A, Mag, IP, FP" HERO (5th ed): 14 "Str, Dex, Con, Body, Int, Ego, Pre, Com, PD, ED, Spd, Rec, END, STUN" The more stats, the more complex and detailed your character becomes. This comes with a trade-off however, because you usually only have limited resources to describe your character. D&D made this infamous with the whole min/max-ing thing where strong characters were typically not also smart. But also, a character with a high Str typically also has high Con, Defenses, Hit Points/Health. Without high numbers in all those other stats, they might as well not be strong since they wouldn't hold up well in hand-to-hand combat. So things like that force trade-offs within the category of strength. So my original (now rejected) idea was to force players into deciding between offensive and defensive stats: Might / Body Dexterity / Speed Wit / Wisdom Heart Soul But this left some stat's without "opposites" (or opposites that were easily defined). I'm leaning more towards the following: Body (Physical Prowess) Mind (Mental Prowess) Heart (Social Prowess) Soul (Spiritual Prowess) This will define a character with just 4 numbers. Everything else gets based off of these numbers, which means they're pretty important. There won't, however, be ways of describing characters who are fast, but not strong or smart, but absent minded. Instead of defining the character with these numbers, they'll be detailing their character by buying skills and powers like these: Quickness Add a +2 Bonus to Body Rolls when Dodging. for a character that wants to be faster, or the following for a big, tough character Body Building Add a +2 Bonus to Body Rolls when Lifting, Pushing, or Throwing objects. [EDIT - removed subjectiveness] So my actual questions is what are some pitfalls with a small stat list and a large amount of descriptive powers? Is this more difficult to port cross-platform (pen&paper, PC) for example? Are there examples of this being done well/poorly? Thanks,

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• Multithreaded UI desktop application issues

  - by igor

  I am involved into development a rich UI project: desktop windows application. Application uses asynchronous invocations and in its turn it should be ready to process external messages (events). The problem is clear: at first time it was built as a simple prototype and it was not stress tested and all was fine. Then application was grown: the number of calls to server and number of events from server are high and performance is low. What is more users noticed that sometimes performance is extremal low. Asynchronous invocations based on thread pool (BeginInvoke, EndInvoke), external events are going from WCF service (.NET 3.5). My goal is synchronization of all tasks and putting priorities to every executions in desktop application. My question is: is there any practice how to reach my goal: patterns, task priority list, others? What should I do at first, second and next times? Thanks

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• Issuse with multiple student result printing request

  - by dotman14

  I'm not really sure about how to ask this question but i'll try my best to make it clear enough. I have a Student Result Application where by students result are managed, over several academic sessions, all having two semesters each. During each semester students take different courses and have results based on the semester. The application is done now and i'm using a PDF Libaray to crop the final result page to hand over to the students each semester. If a student request a particular semester result it's a straight forward issue and there are no complications when it comes to printing out the result. My issue is this: in a case where a student requests to have a combination of semesters...say 3rd year rain semester , 4th year rain semester and 5th year hamattarn semester. Please how can i handle this issue? Does the user picks these options at the user interface level or there's a special way to handle issues like this? Also, if i'm to display these multiple student result how could this be be done, knowing fully well that i'll have to print the different result seperately. Hopefully i've being able to make my situation clear enough. Thanks for your time and patience. Expecting your comments and answers. Thanks.

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• Integration of routes that are not resources in an MVC REST style application

  - by Emil Lerch

  I would like to keep my application relatively REST-pure for the sake of consistency, but I'm struggling philosophically with the relatively few views (maybe just one) that I'll need to build that don't relate to resources directly, and therefore do not fit into a REST style. As an example, take the home page. Ruby on rails seems to bail on their otherwise RESTful approach for this very basic need of all web sites. The home page appears special: You can get it, but a get at the resource level is supposed to give you a collection of elements. I can imagine this being the list of routes maybe, but that seems a stretch, and doesn't address anything else. Getting the home page by id doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense - what's the element of a home collection? Again, maybe routes, but a get on a route would do what? Redirect? This feels odd. You can't delete it (arguably you could allow this for administrators) Adding a second one doesn't make sense except possibly if the elements were routes Updating it might make sense for administrators, but AFAIK REST doesn't describe updates on the resource directly, only elements of the resource (this article explicitly says "UNUSED" for PUTS on the resource) Is the "right" thing to do just to special case these types of things? At the end of the day, I can wrap my head around most of applications being gathered around resources...I can't think of another good example other than a home page, but since that's the start of an application, I think it warrants some thought.

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• Multithreded UI desktop application issues

  - by igor

  I am involved into development a rich UI project: desktop windows application. Application uses asynchronous invocations and in its turn it should be ready to process external messages (events). The problem is clear: at first time it was built as a simple prototype and it was not stress tested and all was fine. Then application was grown: the number of calls to server and number of events from server are high and performance is low. What is more users noticed that sometimes performance is extremal low. Asynchronous invocations based on thread pool (BeginInvoke, EndInvoke), external events are going from WCF service (.NET 3.5). My goal is synchronization of all tasks and putting priorities to every executions in desktop application. My question is: is there any practice how to reach my goal: patterns, task priority list, others? What should I do at first, second and next times? Thanks

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• Extracting Data from a Source System to History Tables

  - by Derek D.

  This is a topic I find very little information written about, however it is very important that the method for extracting data be done in a way that does not hinder performance of the source system.  In this example, the goal is to extract data from a source system, into another database (or server) all [...]

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• Configuration data: single-row table vs. name-value-pair table

  - by Heinzi

  Let's say you write an application that can be configured by the user. For storing this "configuration data" into a database, two patterns are commonly used. The single-row table CompanyName | StartFullScreen | RefreshSeconds | ... ---------------+-------------------+------------------+-------- ACME Inc. | true | 20 | ... The name-value-pair table ConfigOption | Value -----------------+------------- CompanyName | ACME Inc. StartFullScreen | true (or 1, or Y, ...) RefreshSeconds | 20 ... | ... I've seen both options in the wild, and both have obvious advantages and disadvantages, for example: The single-row tables limits the number of configuration options you can have (since the number of columns in a row is usually limited). Every additional configuration option requires a DB schema change. In a name-value-pair table everything is "stringly typed" (you have to encode/decode your Boolean/Date/etc. parameters). (many more) Is there some consensus within the development community about which option is preferable?

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• What are current Biggest Challenges faced by Ecommerce Applications ?

  - by Rachel

  I am in the process to start Product Development for E-commerce and Online Retail domain but before starting I would like to know what are the biggest challenges faced by current state of Art E-Commerce Application ? Also I have not experience building e-commerce products and so what things should I keep in mind before developing one ? Is there are books, articles, blogs outside which I should refer to gain some knowledge before starting out ? Update: What are you thoughts on the recommendation engines for ecommerce applications ? What challenges we have with current state of recommendations engines for ecommerce web application and how can we overcome them ?

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• Using virtual functions

  - by Tucker Morgan

  I am starting to use virtual functions, and i am programming a simple text game, my question is this, if i have a virtual function called spec_abil with in a Super class called rpg_class. If you allow the player to class what class they want to play, say a mage class, a archer class, and a warrior class, which all have their own spec_abil function. How do you write it so that the program knows which one to use depending on the chosen class.

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• Adventures in the Land of CloudDB/NoSQL/NoAcid

  - by KKline

  Cloud, Bunny, or CloudBunny? Last year, some of my friends from Quest Software attended Hadoop World in New York. In 2009, I never would've guessed that Quest would be there with products, community initiatives, as a major sponsor and with presenters? There were just under 1,000 attendees who weren’t the typical devheads and geekasaurs you'd normally see at very techie events like Code Camps, SQL Saturdays, Cloud Camps and or even other NoSQL events such as the Cassandra Summit. We're talkin' enterprise...(read more)

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• What's wrong with JavaScript

  - by ts01

  There is a lot of buzz around Dart recently, often questioning Google motivations and utility of Dart as replacement for JavaScript. I was searching for rationale of creating Dart rather than investing more effort in ECMAScript. In well known leaked mail its author is saying that Javascript has historical baggage that cannot be solved without a clean break. But there is only one concrete example given (apart of performance concerns) of "fundamental language problems", which is an existence of a single Number primitive So, my questions are: How an existence of a single Number primitive can be a "fundamental problem"? Are there other known "fundamental problems" in JavaScript?

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• Cluster Nodes as RAID Drives

  - by BuckWoody

  I'm unable to sleep tonight so I thought I would push this post out VERY early. When you don't sleep your mind takes interesting turns, which can be a good thing. I was watching a briefing today by a couple of friends as they were talking about various ways to arrange a Windows Server Cluster for SQL Server. I often see an "active" node of a cluster with a "passive" node backing it up. That means one node is working and accepting transactions, and the other is not doing any work but simply "standing by" waiting for the first to fail over. The configuration in the demonstration I saw was a bit different. In this example, there were three nodes that were actively working, and a fourth standing by for all three. I've put configurations like this one into place before, but as I was looking at their architecture diagram, it looked familar - it looked like a RAID drive setup! And that's not a bad way to think about your cluster arrangements. The same concerns you might think about for a particular RAID configuration provides a good way to think about protecting your systems in general. So even if you're not staying awake all night thinking about SQL Server clusters, take this post as an opportunity for "lateral thinking" - a way of combining in your mind the concepts from one piece of knowledge to another. You might find a new way of making your technical environment a little better. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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