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• What types of programming contest problems are there?

  - by Alex

  Basically, I want to make a great reference for use with programming contests that would have all of the algorithms that I can put together that I would need during a contest as well as sample useage for the code. I'm planning on making this into a sort of book that I could print off and take with me to competitions. I would like to do this rather than simply bringing other books (such as Algorithms books) because I think that I will learn a lot more by going over all of the algorithms myself as well as I would know exactly what I have in the book, making it more efficient to have and use. So, I've been doing research to determine what types of programming problems and algorithms are common on contests, and the only thing I can really find is this (which I have seen referenced a few times): Hal Burch conducted an analysis over spring break of 1999 and made an amazing discovery: there are only 16 types of programming contest problems! Furthermore, the top several comprise almost 80% of the problems seen at the IOI. Here they are: Dynamic Programming Greedy Complete Search Flood Fill Shortest Path Recursive Search Techniques Minimum Spanning Tree Knapsack Computational Geometry Network Flow Eulerian Path Two-Dimensional Convex Hull BigNums Heuristic Search Approximate Search Ad Hoc Problems The most challenging problems are Combination Problems which involve a loop (combinations, subsets, etc.) around one of the above algorithms - or even a loop of one algorithm with another inside it. These seem extraordinarily tricky to get right, even though conceptually they are ``obvious''. Now that's good and all, but that study was conducted in 1999, which was 13 years ago! One thing I know is that there are no BigNums problems any more (as Java has a BigInteger class, they have stopped making those problems). So, I'm wondering if anyone knows of any more recent studies of the types of problems that may be seen in a programming contest? Or what the most helpful algorithms on contests would be?

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• Difficulty / Process for mobile 2D multiplayer RPG game

  - by user2827214

  I'm looking to develop a 2D multiplayer RPG game for Android, with a bird's eye view similar to that of zelda/pokemon. The game is very simple in all ways since my intent is for thousands of players to occupy the same world which I imagine requires good performance. However, I am unsure about the performance requirements of two properties: the tile map that is used as a background is dynamic (interactive). For example, a player steps in the water, and the water turns black. Every tile in the game does this. the tile map is the same object used for all players, but it is displayed differently on each user's mobile device, even though the players exist in the same world. For example, the water that turned black is displayed as red on all other players' screens. I have knowledge of java, but almost none regarding game dev. tools. Is there a best process for these requirements? Should I develop in pure java, or use some tool like Slick2D etc.? How performance intensive are these properties, if even possible? Edit: There are no collisions in the game or difficult animations, I imagining simply changing colors of the tiles like in the examples, and a client-server architecture

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• Security Issue in LinkedIn &ndash; View any 3rd profile without a premium account.

  - by Shaurya Anand

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/shauryaanand/archive/2013/06/25/153230.aspxI discovered this accidently when my wife forwarded a contact on LinkedIn from her tablet, using the mobile interface of the website. On opening the contact on my desktop, I was surprised to see, I need to upgrade my account to view the contact. Doing some research along with my wife, I found this simple security vulnerability from LinkedIn that can let anyone view a contact’s full profile even when you have a “not upgraded” LinkedIn account and that the contact is a “3rd + Everyone Else”. Here’s an example of what I am talking about. I just made a random search on LinkedIn for a contact whose name starts with Sacha. Do note, this is just a walkthrough and I am not publicizing any Sacha. I check the “3rd + Everyone Else” and find a “LinkedIn Member”. On clicking this person’s profile to view, I am presented with the following page, asking me to upgrade. Make a note of this page’s web address and you get the profile id from it. For example, for this contact, the page address is: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=868XXX35 The Profile Id for this contact is 868XXX35. Now, open following page where the Profile Id is the same as the one we grabbed a moment earlier. https://touch.www.linkedin.com/?#profile/868XXX35 The mobile page exposes this contact information and you even get the possibility to connect to this person without an introduction mail (InMail). I hope someone from LinkedIn sees and issues a fix for this. I am pretty sure, it’s something that they don’t want the user to do without purchasing an upgrade package.

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• Why is it that software is still easily pirated today?

  - by mohabitar

  I've always been curious about this. Now I wouldn't call myself a programmer yet, but I'm learning, so maybe the answer to this is obvious. It just seems a little hard to believe that with all of our technological advances and the billions of dollars spent on engineering the most unbelievable and mind-blowing software, we still have no other means of protecting against piracy then a "serial number/activation key". I'm sure a ton of money, maybe even billions, went into creating Windows 7 or Office and even Snow Leopard, yet I can get it for free in less than 20 minutes. Same for all of Adobe's products, which are probably the easiest. I guess my question is: can there exist a fool proof and hack proof method of protecting your software against piracy? If not realistically, how about theoretically possible? Or no matter what mechanisms these companies deploy, hackers can always find a way around it? EDIT: So apparently, the answer is no. There's pretty much no way. And so I'm sure these big companies have realized this as well. Should they adopt another sales model rather than charging a crapload for their software (I know its justified and they put a lot of hard work into their software, but its still a lot of money). Are there any alternative solutions that will benefit both the company and the user (i.e. if you purchase our product, we'll apply $X dollars to your account that will apply to future purchases from our company)?

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• Why is apt-get --auto-remove not removing all dependencies?

  - by Mike

  I just installed a package (dansguardian in this case) and apt told me that I had unmet dependencies. # sudo apt-get install dansguardian Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following extra packages will be installed: clamav clamav-base clamav-freshclam libclamav6 libtommath0 Suggested packages: clamav-docs squid libclamunrar6 The following NEW packages will be installed: clamav clamav-base clamav-freshclam dansguardian libclamav6 libtommath0 0 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0 B/4,956 kB of archives. After this operation, 14.4 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? So I installed it and the dependencies. So far so good. Later on, I decide that this package just isn't the package for me, so I want to remove it and all of the other junk it installed with it since I'm not going to be needing any of it: # sudo apt-get remove --auto-remove --purge dansguardian Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages will be REMOVED: dansguardian 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded. After this operation, 1,816 kB disk space will be freed. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? However it is only removing that one specific package. What about clamav clamav-base clamav-freshclam libclamav6 libtommath0? Not only did it not remove them, but clamav was actually running a daemon that loads every time the computer boots. I thought that --auto-remove would remove not only the packages, but also the dependencies that were installed with it. So basically, without going through the apt history log file (if I even remember to do so, or if I even remember that a specific package I installed 3 months ago had dependencies along with it), is there a way to remove a package and all of the other dependencies that were installed like in this case?

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• How should developers handle subpar working conditions? [closed]

  - by ivar

  I have been working in my current job for less than a year and at the beginning didn't have the courage to say anything about the things that bothered me. Now I'm a bit fed up and need things to get better. The first problem is not random but I'll mention it anyway. We are running out of space so every new employee gets a smaller table. We are promised that the space problem will be fixed soon. Almost every employee has a different keyboard, mouse, headphones (if any). Mine are $10 keyboard, some random cheap mouse and some random crappy headphones with a mic. All these were used and dirty when I got them. The number of monitor is 1-3 and with different sizes. I have 2 nice monitors and can't complain but some are given 1 small monitor. When it's their first job they don't have the guts to ask for 2 even if most others have 2. Nobody seems to care too. Project manager asked if it's ok? He obviously said he can handle the 1 small one. Then the manager said you can go ask for 1 more. I'm watching this and think go and ask where? The company is trying to hire more people but is not doing much after the person has signed the contract. We are put in one room that is open to the hallway and it's super noisy. Almost like a zoo at times. Even if nobody is talking the crappy keyboards make too much noise. Is this normal? Am I too negative and should I just do my job with what I was given? Should I demand better things? Should the company have some system that everybody gets things in some price range?

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• Roll a DIY Camera Jib for $25

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Video gear is expensive; save your pennies by building a DIY camera jib for smooth camera movement on a budget. Over at Oliva tech they explain just how few parts you need to build their DIY jib: The guys here at the studio mocked up a simple DIY jib that is not only ridiculously inexpensive to piece together, but also very straight forward. The point of this jib was to get a very wide range of motion from top to bottom with only a few feet of 0.75? square tube, 1? angled aluminum, 1/4? nuts and bolts, and nylon washers is all you’ll need to put the jib together. This light weight jib can be used on small portable tripods, but will require a fluid head for panning left and right. Hit up the link below for a detailed parts list and build guide. How to Make a DIY Camera Jib [via Make] How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 1 What’s the Difference Between Sleep and Hibernate in Windows? Screenshot Tour: XBMC 11 Eden Rocks Improved iOS Support, AirPlay, and Even a Custom XBMC OS

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• At what point would you drop some of your principles of software development for the sake of more money?

  - by MeshMan

  I'd like to throw this question out there to interestingly see where the medium is. I'm going to admit that in my last 12 months, I picked up TDD and a lot of the Agile values in software development. I was so overwhelmed with how much better my development of software became that I would never drop them out of principle. Until...I was offered a contracting role that doubled my take home pay for the year. The company I joined didn't follow any specific methodology, the team hadn't heard of anything like code smells, SOLID, etc., and I certainly wasn't going to get away with spending time doing TDD if the team had never even seen unit testing in practice. Am I a sell out? No, not completely... Code will always been written "cleanly" (as per Uncle Bob's teachings) and the principles of SOLID will always be applied to the code that I write as they are needed. Testing was dropped for me though, the company couldn't afford to have such a unknown handed to the team who quite frankly, even I did create test frameworks, they would never use/maintain the test framework correctly. Using that as an example, what point would you say a developer should never drop his craftsmanship principles for the sake of money/other benefits to them personally? I understand that this can be a very personal opinion on how concerned one is to their own needs, business needs, and the sake of craftsmanship etc. But one can consider that for example testing can be dropped if the company decided they would rather have a test team, than rather understand unit testing in programming, would that be something you could forgive yourself for like I did? So given that there is something you would drop, there usually should be an equal cost in the business that makes up for what you drop - hopefully, unless of course you are pretty much out for lining your own pockets and not community/social collaborating ;). Double your money, go back to RAD? Or walk on, and look for someone doing Agile, and never look back...

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• Social IT guy barrier [closed]

  - by sergiol

  Possible Duplicate: How do you deal with people who ask you to fix their computer? Hello. Almost every person that deserves the title of being a programmer as faced the problem of persons that do not even remember the mere existence of those professionals, unless they have serious problems in their computer or some other IT related problem. May be my post will be considered off-topic, but I think it is a very important question. As Joel Spolsky says, IT guys are not Asperger geeks, and they need social life like everybody. But the people that is always asking for favors from us, can ruin deeply our social and personal life. I could experience this by myself. This fact as generated articles like http://www.lifereboot.com/2007/10-reasons-it-doesnt-pay-to-be-the-computer-guy/ and http://ecraazul.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/o-gajo-da-informatica-de-a-a-z/ (I received this one in my mailbox. It is in Portuguese, but I believe it is translated from English). Basically the idea is to criticize people that is always asking us favors. It is even more annoying if you are person very specialized in some subject and a person asks you a completely out-of-that-context question. For example, you are a VBA programmer and somebody says you to that his/her Mobile Internet Pen stopped to work five days ago and needs your help to put it working again. When you go to a doctor to fix your legs, you don't go to an ophthalmologist. You go to an orthopedist. And you pay. I don't how it works in other countries, but in Portugal being a doctor is so an overvalued job, that they earn very much money and almost nobody asks them free favors. So, my question is: what kind of social barrier (or whatever else) do you use to protect yourself from that situation?

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• Why would 70-persistent-net.rules have no effect?

  - by Wes Felter

  I've got a saucy server with a lot of NICs and they end up with weird names like "rename19". I know interface names can be changed by modifying the /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules file. The first clue that something is wrong is that that file did not exist even though it's supposed to be created automatically. So I decided to write my own based on advice from Linux From Scratch: ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:06:00.0", NAME="eth0" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:06:00.1", NAME="eth1" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:06:00.2", NAME="eth2" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:06:00.3", NAME="eth3" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:0c:00.0", NAME="mezz0" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:0c:00.1", NAME="mezz1" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:1b:00.0", NAME="slot1a" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:1b:00.1", NAME="slot1b" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:20:00.0", NAME="slot2a" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:20:00.1", NAME="slot2b" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:11:00.0", NAME="slot3a" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:11:00.1", NAME="slot3b" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:8b:00.0", NAME="slot4a" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:8b:00.1", NAME="slot4b" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:90:00.0", NAME="slot5a" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:90:00.1", NAME="slot5b" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:95:00.0", NAME="slot6a" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:95:00.1", NAME="slot6b" (I'm matching on PCI IDs instead of MAC addresses because I have multiple identical machines that I want to apply this configuration to.) After rebooting, nothing has changed. It's like these rules aren't even being read. There's not much going on in dmesg either: $ dmesg | grep udev [ 3.196629] systemd-udevd[323]: starting version 204 [ 6.719140] systemd-udevd[550]: starting version 204 [ 38.695050] init: udev-fallback-graphics main process (1658) terminated with status 1

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• text extraction from video game dialogue files [on hold]

  - by wdwvt1

  As part of an academic project, I am trying to access the dialogue files (whether audio or text) from a variety of sports video games (Madden or NBA 2kX would be fantastic). I have searched extensively on other sites (scholarly text-mining publications, r/gaming, r/madden, modding sites, etc.) for guidance in how to extract dialogue files, but have been unsuccessful. Given that I don't have even the domain specific language to ask the right question (i.e. the resources I am seeking are out there, I just can't find them) I am asking the SE game dev community for help with the 2 following questions: Is there a canonical resource that I should study that would get me started with how to extract text or audio files from games? I am very fluent in python, which usually excels at mining information from sources, but I struggle with knowing where to start with a video game (as opposed to a more familiar database with a defined API). Is this even feasible, or are protections included with newer games (e.g. NBA 2k13) going to make extraction of these resources in a programmatic way impossible? Thank you for your help!

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• Partner Webcast – Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine - Next-Generation Technologies Update - 20 Dec 2012

  - by Thanos

  Oracle’s next-generation database machine, Oracle Exadata X3, combines massive memory and low-cost disks to deliver even faster performance and greater storage capabilities at the lowest cost, making it the ideal database platform for the varied and unpredictable workloads of cloud computing. Oracle Exadata is available in multiple configurations including a low-cost eighth-rack configuration, so you can start small and grow at your own pace. We have also introduced new migration services designed to streamline implementation thereby saving you time and money. If your IT department is expected to deliver business value—or even drive business growth—then you’ll want to join us for a live Webcast discussing how the new Oracle Exadata X3 can help you transform data management.  Agenda: Oracle Exadata Evolution Oracle Exadata X3 Database In-Memory Machine Hardware Update Software Update Exadata Unique Next Generation Technologies Getting on board Oracle Exadata Q&A Delivery Format This FREE online LIVE eSeminar will be delivered over the Web. Registrations received less than 24hours prior to start time may not receive confirmation to attend. Thursday, December 20th, 10am CET (9am GMT) Duration: 1 hour Register Now! For any questions please contact us at [email protected] Visit our ISV Migration Center blog Or Follow us @oracleimc to learn more on Oracle Technologies, upcoming partner webcasts and events. Existing content available YouTube - SlideShare - Oracle Mix.

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• In agile environment, how is bug tracking and iteration tracking consolidated.

  - by DXM

  This topic stemmed from my other question about management-imposed waterfall-like schedule. From the responses in the other thread, I gathered this much about what is generally advised: Each story should be completed with no bugs. Story is not closed until all bugs have been addressed. No news there and I think we can all agree with this. If at a later date QA (or worse yet a customer) finds a bug, the report goes into a bug tracking database and also becomes a story which should be prioritized just like all other work. Does this sum up general handling of bugs in agile environment? If yes, the part I'm curious about is how do teams handle tracking in two different systems? (unless most teams don't have different systems). I've read a lot of advice (including Joel's blog) on software development in general and specifically on importance of a good bug tracking tool. At the same time when you read books on agile methodology, none of them seem to cover this topic because in "pure" agile, you finish iteration with no bugs. Feels like there's a hole there somewhere. So how do real teams operate? To track iterations you'd use (whiteboard, Rally...), to track bugs you'd use something from another set of products (if you are lucky enough, you might even get stuck with HP Quality Center). Should there be 2 separate systems? If they are separate, do teams spend time creating import/sync functionality between them? What have you done in your company? Is bug tracking software even used? Or do you just go straight to creating a story?

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• Why not have a High Level Language based OS? Are Low Level Languages more efficient?

  - by rtindru

  Without being presumptuous, I would like you to consider the possibility of this. Most OS today are based on pretty low level languages (mainly C/C++) Even the new ones such as Android uses JNI & underlying implementation is in C In fact, (this is a personal observation) many programs written in C run a lot faster than their high level counterparts (eg: Transmission (a bittorrent client on Ubuntu) is a whole lot faster than Vuze(Java) or Deluge(Python)). Even python compilers are written in C, although PyPy is an exception. So is there a particular reason for this? Why is it that all our so called "High Level Languages" with the great "OOP" concepts can't be used in making a solid OS? So I have 2 questions basically. Why are applications written in low level languages more efficient than their HLL counterparts? Do low level languages perform better for the simple reason that they are low level and are translated to machine code easier? Why do we not have a full fledged OS based entirely on a High Level Language?

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• Xubuntu 14.04 with Compton, strange screen tearing, only when playing videos though (advice needed)

  - by LinuxDudester

  Hello beloved community, Yet again I am in need of your great expertise. I ran into a very strange issue and just can't wrap my mind around it. I'm running Xubuntu 14.04 exclusively, with Compton installed. The OS runs great and I have absolutely no screen tearing when I move my windows around, scroll in my web browser, work in Gimp or Photoshop (wine) or even when I play very graphic demanding games, like Metro Last Light, Euro Truck Driver 2 and so on. There's not a tiny bit of tearing to see, but as soon as I play videos, in xbmc, vlc or parole media player the tearing begins (strangely enough this does not apply to youtube videos). I followed all available workarounds on askubuntu and the ubuntu forum,like the 50-xserver-command.conf, startx /etc/X11/Xsession /usr/bin/xbmc-standalone -- -bs or libsdl1.2debian fix and many more, but to no avail. I also tried the Open Source Nouveau display drivers as well, but for some odd reason they don't work so great on my system or at least with my graphics card. Even with Compton installed and configured, I have an extreme amount of screen tearing, as soon as I switch to the proprietary Nvidia drives the screen tearing is gone completely, except for the video playback with xbmc, vlc or parole media player. System info for your reference: OS: Xubuntu 14.04 Linux-x86_64 - Processor: Intel Core i7-4770S CPU @ 3.10GHz - Ram: 16 GB - GeForce GT 750M 1024 MB - Nvidia Driver: 331.38 Has anyone experienced such an odd issue or do you have any advice on how I could fix this? I would appreciate any help! Have a nice day!

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• Collision detection in 3D space

  - by dreta

  I've got to write, what can be summed up as, a compelte 3D game from scratch this semester. Up untill now i have only programmed 2D games in my spare time, the transition doesn't seem tough, the game's simple. The only issue i have is collision detection. The only thing i could find was AABB, bounding spheres or recommendations of various physics engines. I have to program a submarine that's going to be moving freely inside of a cave system, AFAIK i can't use physics libraries, so none of the above solves my problem. Up untill now i was using SAT for my collision detection. Are there any similar, great algorithms, but crafted for 3D collision? I'm not talking about octrees, or other optimalizations, i'm talking about direct collision detection of one set of 3D polygons with annother set of 3D polygons. I thought about using SAT twice, project the mesh from the top and the side, but then it seems so hard to even divide 3D space into convex shapes. Also that seems like far too much computation even with octrees. How do proffessionals do it? Could somebody shed some light.

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• "Programming error" exceptions - Is my approach sound?

  - by Medo42

  I am currently trying to improve my use of exceptions, and found the important distinction between exceptions that signify programming errors (e.g. someone passed null as argument, or called a method on an object after it was disposed) and those that signify a failure in the operation that is not the caller's fault (e.g. an I/O exception). As far as I understand, it makes little sense for an immediate caller to actually handle programming error exceptions, he should instead assure that the preconditions are met. Only "outer" exception handlers at task boundaries should catch them, so they can keep the system running if a task fails. In order to ensure that client code can cleanly catch "failure" exceptions without catching error exceptions by mistake, I create my own exception classes for all failure exceptions now, and document them in the methods that throw them. I would make them checked exceptions in Java. Now I have a few questions: Before, I tried to document all exceptions that a method could throw, but that sometimes creates an unwiedly list that needs to be documented in every method up the call chain until you can show that the error won't happen. Instead, I document the preconditions in the summary / parameter descriptions and don't even mention what happens if they are not met. The idea is that people should not try to catch these exceptions explicitly anyway, so there is no need to document their types. Would you agree that this is enough? Going further, do you think all preconditions even need to be documented for every method? For example, calling methods in IDisposable objects after calling Dispose is an error, but since IDisposable is such a widely used interface, can I just assume a programmer will know this? A similar case is with reference type parameters where passing null makes no conceivable sense: Should I document "non-null" anyway? IMO, documentation should only cover things that are not obvious, but I am not sure where "obvious" ends.

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• What is the role of traditional issue tracker when Scrum / Kanban board is used?

  - by Borek

  From a very high level view, to me it seems there are generally 2 types of Project Management tools: Traditional issue trackers like Fogbugz, JIRA, BugZilla, Trac, Redmine etc. Virtual card boards / agile project management tools like Pivotal Tracker, GreenHopper, AgileZen, Trello etc. Sure, they overlap in one way or another, e.g. Pivotal Tracker tasks can be imported to JIRA, GreenHopper itself is implemented on top of JIRA issue base etc. but I think one can still see the difference in orientation between those two types of tools. Traditional issue tracker seems to be used even in companies otherwise doing agile project management. My question is, why do they do that? I also feel that we should use an issue tracker in my company but when I'm thinking about it, I'm not actually sure why should we need it. For example, Trello development seems to be managed by using Trello itself (see this virtual wall) even though they have access to Fogbugz, one of the best issue trackers around. So maybe we don't need traditional issue tracker when we'll be doing 100% of our work in an agile manner using one of the agile PM tools?

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• Collision detection, stop gravity

  - by Scott Beeson

  I just started using Gamemaker Studio and so far it seems fairly intuitive. However, I set a room to "Room is Physics World" and set gravity to 10. I then enabled physics on my player object and created a block object to match a platform on my background sprite. I set up a Collision Detection event for the player and the block objects that sets the gravity to 0 (and even sets the vspeed to 0). I also put a notification in the collision event and I don't get that either. I have my key down and key up events working well, moving the player left and right and changing the sprites appropriately, so I think I understand the event system. I must just be missing something simple with the physics. I've tried making both and neither of the objects "solid". Pretty frustrating since it looks so easy. The player starting point is directly above the block object in the grid and the player does fall through the block. I even made the block sprite solid red so I could see it (initially it was invisible, obviously).

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• Is micro-optimisation important when coding?

  - by BozKay

  I recently asked a question on stackoverflow.com to find out why isset() was faster than strlen() in php. This raised questions around the importance of readable code and whether performance improvements of micro-seconds in code were worth even considering. My father is a retired programmer, I showed him the responses and he was absolutely certain that if a coder does not consider performance in their code even at the micro level, they are not good programmers. I'm not so sure - perhaps the increase in computing power means we no longer have to consider these kind of micro-performance improvements? Perhaps this kind of considering is up to the people who write the actual language code? (of php in the above case). The environmental factors could be important - the internet consumes 10% of the worlds energy, I wonder how wasteful a few micro-seconds of code is when replicated trillions of times on millions of websites? I'd like to know answers preferably based on facts about programming. Is micro-optimisation important when coding? EDIT : My personal summary of 25 answers, thanks to all. Sometimes we need to really worry about micro-optimisations, but only in very rare circumstances. Reliability and readability are far more important in the majority of cases. However, considering micro-optimisation from time to time doesn't hurt. A basic understanding can help us not to make obvious bad choices when coding such as if (expensiveFunction() && counter < X) Should be if (counter < X && expensiveFunction()) (example from @zidarsk8) This could be an inexpensive function and therefore changing the code would be micro-optimisation. But, with a basic understanding, you would not have to because you would write it correctly in the first place.

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• Tracking feature requests for small-scale components

  - by DXM

  I'm curious how other development teams (especially those that work in moderate to large development groups) track "future" features/wishlists for functionality for internally developed frameworks or components. I know the standard advice is that a development team should find one good tool for tracking bugs/features and use that for everything and I agree with that if the future requests are for the product itself. In my company we have an engineering department, which is broken up into multiple groups and within each there can be one to several agile teams. The bug tracking product we use has been "a leader since 1997" (their UI/usability seems to also be evaluated against that year even today) but my agile team or even group doesn't really control what is being used by the whole department. What we are looking to track is not necessarily product features but expansion/nice to have functionality for internal components that go into our product. So to name a few for example... framework/utility library on top of CppUnit which our developers share low-level IPC communications framework Common development SDK that myself and several other team leads started to help share some common code/tools at the department-wide level (this SDK is released as internal "product" to each of the groups). Is the standard practice to use the one bug tracking tool? Or would it make more sense to setup something more localized specifically for our needs and maintain it ourselves? It's also unclear how management will feel if developers start performing "IT" roles of maintaining software and servers. At the same time, right now, we use excel files, internal wiki and MS OneNote for this kind of stuff and that just doesn't feel right. (I'm afraid to ask for actual software recommendations, since that might make this question more localized or something. Also developers needs this way more than management, so it would be nice to find something either free or no more than the cost of a happy hour).

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• What is the precise definition of programming paradigm?

  - by Kazark

  Wikipedia defines programming paradigm thus: a fundamental style of computer programming which is echoed in the descriptive text of the paradigms tag on this site. I find this a disappointing definition. Anyone who knows the words programming and paradigm could do about that well without knowing anything else about it. There are many styles of computer programming at many level of abstraction; within any given programming paradigm, multiple styles are possible. For example, Bob Martin says in Clean Code (13), Consider this book a description of the Object Mentor School of Clean Code. The techniques and teachings within are the way that we practice our art. We are willing to claim that if you follow these teachings, you will enjoy the benefits that we have enjoyed, and you will learn to write code that is clean and professional. But don't make the mistake of thinking that we are somehow "right" in any absolute sense. Thus Bob Martin is not claiming to have the correct style of Object-Oriented programming, even though he, if anyone, might have some claim to doing so. But even within his school of programming, we might have different styles of formatting the code (K&R, etc). There are many styles of programming at many levels. So how can we define programming paradigm rigorously, to distinguish it from other categories of programming styles? Fundamental is somewhat helpful, but not specific. How can we define the phrase in a way that will communicate more than the separate meanings of each of the two words—in other words, how can we define it in a way that will provide additional meaning for someone who speaks English but isn't familiar with a variety of paradigms?

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• Advice: How to convince my newly annointed team lead against writing the code base from scratch

  - by shan23

  I work in a pretty reknowned MNC, and the module that I work in has been assigned to a new "lead". The code base is pretty huge (~130K or more, with inter dependencies on other modules) , but stable - some parts have grown ugly over the years, but its provably in working state. (Our products are running for years on them, even new ones). The problem is, our lead wants to rewrite the code from scratch, to encompass "finer granularity and a proactive design". I know in my guts thats not a very good idea, but how do I convince him/the rest of the team(who are pretty much more senior than me in terms of years of exp), without sounding too pedantic myself (Thou shalt not rewrite , as Joel et al have clear articles prohibiting it)? I have a good working relation with the person concerned, and don't want to ruin it, but neither do I want to be party to a decision which would surely plague us for years to come !! Any suggestions for a milder,yet effective approach ? Even accounts of how you have tackled such a situation to your liking would help me a lot! EDIT: The code base I'm talking about is not a product/GUI, but at kernel level with all the critical functionalities for our product. I hope now you know why i sound so apprehensive !!

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• Does it make sense to write a build scripts in C++?

  - by Klaim

  I'm using CMake to generate my projects IDE/makefiles, but I still need to call custom "scripts" to manipulate my compiled files or even generate code. In previous projects I've been using Python and it was OK, but now I'm having serious trouble managing a lot of dependencies in two very big projects I'm working on so I want to minimize the dependencies everywhere. Someone suggested to me to use C++ to write my build scripts instead of adding a language dependency just for that. The projects themeselves already use C++ so there are several advantages that I can see: to build the whole project, only a C++ compiler and CMake would be necessary, nothing else (all the other dependencies are C or C++); C++ type safety (when using modern C++) makes everything easier to get "correct"; it's also the language I know the better so I'm more at ease with it even if I'm able to write some good Python code; potential gain in execution speed (but i don't think it will really be perceptible); However, I think there might be some drawbacks and I'm not sure of the real impact as I didn't try yet: might be longer to write the code (that said I'm not sure because I'm efficient enough in C++ to write something that work quickly, so maybe for this system it wouldn't be so long to write) (compilation time shouldn't be a problem for this case); I must assume that all the text files I'll read as input are in UTF-8, I'm not sure it can be easilly checked at runtime in C++ and the language will not check it for you; libraries in C++ are harder to manage than in scripting languages; I lack experience and forsight so maybe I'm missing advantages and drawbacks. So the question is: does it make sense to use C++ for this? do you have experiences to report and do you see advantages and disadvantages that might be important?

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• Learning Electronics & the Arduino Microcontroller

  - by Chris Williams

  Lately, I've had a growing interest in Electronics & Microcontrollers. I'm a loyal reader of Make Magazine and thoroughly enjoy seeing all the various projects in each issue, even though I rarely try to make any of them. I've been reading and watching videos about the Arduino, which is an open source Microcontroller and software project that the people at Make (and a lot of other folks) are pretty hot about. Even the prebuilt hardware is remarkably inexpensive , although there are kits available to build one from the base components. (Full disclosure: I bought my first soldering iron... EVER... just last week, so I fully acknowledge the likelihood of making some mistakes. That's why I'm not trying to do the "build it yourself" kit just yet. It's also another reason to be happy the hardware is so cheap.) There are a number of different Arduino boards available, but the two that have really piqued my interest are the Arduino UNO and the NETduino. The UNO is a very popular board, with a number of features and is under $35 which means I won't hurl myself off a bridge when I inevitably destroy it. The NETduino is very similar to the Arduino UNO and has the added advantage of being programmable with... you guessed it... C#. I'm actually ordering both boards and some miscellaneous other doodads to go with them.  There are a few good websites for this sort of thing, including www.makershed.com and www.adafruit.com. The price difference is negligible, so in my case, I'm ordering from Maker Shed (the Make Magazine people) because I want to support them. :) I've also picked up a few O'Reilly books on the subject which I am looking forward to reading & reviewing: Make: Electronics, Arduino: A Quick Start Guide and Getting Started With Arduino (all three of which arrived on my doorstep today.) This ties in with my "learn more about robotics" goals as well, since I'll need a good understanding of Electronics if I want to move past Lego Mindstorms eventually.

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