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  • Moving away from PHP and running towards server-side JavaScript [on hold]

    - by Sosukodo
    I've decided to start moving away from PHP and server-side JavaScript looks like an attractive replacement. However, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how others are using Node.js for web applications. I'm currently using Lighttpd with FastCGI PHP. The one thing I like about PHP is that I can "inline" my scripts in the document like so: <?php echo 'Hello, World!'; ?> My question is: Is there any server-side JavaScript solution that I can use in this manor? For instance, I'd love to be able to do this: <?js print('Hello, World!'); ?> Is there such a thing? I'm not looking for opinions about "which is better". I just want to know what's out there and I'll explore each of them on my own. The important thing is that I'd like to use it like I demonstrated above. Links to the software along with implementation examples will be considered above other answers.

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  • How does this circle collision detection math work?

    - by Griffin
    I'm going through the wildbunny blog to learn about collision detection. I'm confused about how the vectors he's talking about come into play. Here's the part that confuses me: p = ||A-B|| – (r1+r2) The two spheres are penetrating by distance p. We would also like the penetration vector so that we can correct the penetration once we discover it. This is the vector that moves both circles to the point where they just touch, correcting the penetration. Importantly it is not only just a vector that does this, it is the only vector which corrects the penetration by moving the minimum amount. This is important because we only want to correct the error, not introduce more by moving too much when we correct, or too little. N = (A-B) / ||A-B|| P = N*p Here we have calculated the normalised vector N between the two centres and the penetration vector P by multiplying our unit direction by the penetration distance. I understand that p is the distance by which the circles penetrate, but I don't get what exactly N and P are. It seems to me N is just the coordinates of the 3rd point of the right trianlge formed by point A and B (A-B) then being divided by the hypotenuse of that triangle or distance between A and B (||A-B||). What's the significance of this? Also, what is the penetration vector used for? It seems to me like a movement that one of the circles would perform to get un-penetrated.

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  • What is the simplest way to render video into memory (for drawing to a texture) in .NET?

    - by sebf
    In my project I would like to be able to play back video on surfaces in the world. I intend to do this by having the video frames rendered to a block of memory, then use this to update a texture each frame. Everything is in place - except for the part that actually gets the video. I have looked on Google and found that the video library world is very expansive (and geared towards video processing), and am having trouble finding a suitable one. FFMpeg is very comprehensive, but is an entire suite and would take a good amount of work to integrate. So far the most promising library I've found is the one based on the VLC player libraries - by virtue of it using the same resources as VLC Player it is known to be very capable; it also renders to blocks of memory, but the API (at least of the one on Codeplex) is more of a port of the C++ API rather than a managed wrapper. The 'solution' can be any wrapper/API/library, but with characteristics that make it suitable for use in a rendering engine, namely: Renders the video frame data to memory, so it can be picked up and passed to a texture on the GPU easily. Super simple - all that is needed is a way to load, jump and render a frame programatically - ideally it would use the systems codecs and not require an assortment of plugins. Permissive license (LGPL or more free-er) .NET bindings at least; all the better if it is natively managed Can anyone suggest a lightweight, (.NET) library, that can take a video file, and spit out some frames into a byte[]?

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  • Any examples of fair mmo games with quick completion

    - by Keith Player
    I'm looking for some example games for inspiration that allow from 10 to a large number of players at a time and can be completed in 10 to 30 minutes. I'm looking for something that would have extremely low bandwidth and not be dependent on chance or luck (i.e one player can't gain an unfair advantage because the computer put them in a better position). Realized on the way home that more clarifications might have been helpful. I'm looking to develop a pay-to-play competition that would allow a large number of players to compete in a relatively short period of time. One way would be to have an mmo that can be completed in 30 minutes, another way would be if you could have 10 person games that finish in under 5 minutes and then have the winners compete against each other until a winner is decided. I'm interested in any genre that would make for a fun/interesting game that doesn't depend on luck, so all players should have the same choice/availability of activities/resources and follow the same rules. Some possible games that could possibly be modified into what I want, would be bztanks (too easy to create a bot), diplomacy (takes too long), risk, some chess like game. I was just wondering if there are other game types to the ones I have been considering.

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  • a flexible data structure for geometries

    - by AkiRoss
    What data structure would you use to represent meshes that are to be altered (e.g. adding or removing new faces, vertices and edges), and that have to be "studied" in different ways (e.g. finding all the triangles intersecting a certain ray, or finding all the triangles "visible" from a given point in the space)? I need to consider multiple aspects of the mesh: their geometry, their topology and spatial information. The meshes are rather big, say 500k triangles, so I am going to use the GPU when computations are heavy. I tried using arrays with vertices and arrays with indices, but I do not love adding and removing vertices from them. Also, using arrays totally ignore spatial and topological information, which I may need studying the mesh. So, I thought about using custom double-linked list data structures, but I believe doing so will require me to copy the data to array buffers before going on the GPU. I also thought about using BST, but not sure it fits. Any help is appreciated. If I have been too fuzzy and you require other information feel free to ask.

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  • Where did the notion of "one return only" come from?

    - by FredOverflow
    I often talk to Java programmers who say "Don't put multiple return statements in the same method." When I ask them to tell me the reasons why, all I get is "The coding standard says so." or "It's confusing." When they show me solutions with a single return statement, the code looks uglier to me. For example: if (blablabla) return 42; else return 97; "This is ugly, you have to use a local variable!" int result; if (blablabla) result = 42; else result = 97; return result; How does this 50% code bloat make the program any easier to understand? Personally, I find it harder, because the state space has just increased by another variable that could easily have been prevented. Of course, normally I would just write: return (blablabla) ? 42 : 97; But the conditional operator gets even less love among Java programmers. "It's incomprehensible!" Where did this notion of "one return only" come from, and why do people adhere to it rigidly?

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  • Including Microsoft.XNA.Framework.Input.Touch in a project?

    - by steven_desu
    So after running through tutorials by both Microsoft and www.xnadevelopment.com I feel very confident in my ability to get to work on my first game using the XNA Framework. I've manipulated sprites, added audio, changed game states, and even went a step further to apply the knowledge I had and figure out how to make animations and basic 2-dimensional physics (including impulses, force, acceleration, and speed calculations) But then shortly into the project I hit a curious bump that I've been unable to figure out. In wanting to implement menus, pause screens, and several different aspects of play (a "pre-level" prep screen, the level itself, and a screen after the level to review how well you did) I took a look at Microsoft's Game State Management sample. I understood the concept, although it was admittedly quite a lot to take in. Not wanting to recreate the entire concept by scratch (after all- what purpose would that serve?) I tried copying and pasting the sample code into my own ScreenManager class (as well as InputState and GameScreen classes) to try and borrow their ingenuity. When I did this, however, my project stopped compiling. I was getting the following error: The type or namespace name 'Touch' does not exist in the namespace 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input' (are you missing an assembly reference?) Having read through their sample code already, I realized that this namespace and every function and class within it could be safely ripped from the code without losing functionality. It's a namespace simply for integrating with touchscreen devices (presumably Windows Phone 7, but maybe also tablets). But then I began to wonder- how come Microsoft's sample compiled but mine didn't? I copied their code exactly so there must be a setting somewhere that I need to change in Visual Studio in order to correct this. I tried creating a new project as a Windows Phone 7 game rather than a Windows game, however that only forced it to compile to a Windows Phone emulator and denied me the ability to change the resolution and other features which I clearly had the power to do in the sample code. So my question is simple - how do I properly use the namespace Microsoft.XNA.Framework.Input.Touch?

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  • When running Minecraft with OpenJDK, my keyboard becomes unresponsive?

    - by Mochan
    I recently downloaded Minecraft with the .jar format and had it running on my computer not so long ago. Now that I'm using my desktop instead of laptop temporarily, I want it to run. On my laptop it was a tremendous hassle to get OpenJDK to even run the application without it going black and I don't have that problem on my desktop. However, when I run the application on desktop, my keyboard becomes unresponsive and doesn't type at all. This is a really big problem because I can't play the game as it requires keyboard interaction. It works as normal on my laptop though and it works perfectly. But now on the desktop it's completely useless. I don't know if there's like a keyboard driver I'm missing, but there shouldn't be because the keyboard runs flawlessly everywhere else. I'm using OpenJDK 6 because the 7 has the same 'black screen' I mentioned. So I need this to work within OpenJDK 6. Thanks so much in advance and I'll try to specify as many details as I can.

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  • How can I instruct nautilus to pre-generate PDF thumbnails?

    - by Glutanimate
    I have a large library of PDF documents (papers, lectures, handouts) that I want to be able to quickly navigate through. For that I need thumbnails. At the same time however, I see that the ~/.thumbnails folder is piling up with thumbs I don't really need. Deleting thumbnail junk without removing the important thumbs is impossible. If I were to delete them, I'd have to go to each and every folder with important PDF documents and let the thumbnail cache regenerate. I would love to able to automate this process. Is there any way I can tell nautilus to pre-cache the thumbs for a set of given directories? Note: I did find a set of bash scripts that appear to do this for pictures and videos, but not for any other documents. Maybe someone more experienced with scripting might be able to adjust these for PDF documents or at least point me in the right direction on what I'd have to modify for this to work with PDF documents as well. Edit: Unfortunately neither of the answers provided below work. See my comments below for more information. Is there anyone who can solve this?

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  • Sweden Windows Azure Group Meeting in November &amp; Fast with Windows Azure Competition

    - by Alan Smith
    SWAG November Meeting There will be a Sweden Windows Azure Group (SWAG) meeting in Stockholm on Monday 19th November. Chris Klug will be presenting a session on Windows Azure Mobile Services, and I will be presenting a session on Web Site Authentication with Social Identity Providers. Active Solution have been kid enough to host the event, and will be providing food and refreshments. The registration link is here: http://swag14.eventbrite.com If you would like to join SWAG the link is here: http://swagmembership.eventbrite.com Fast with Windows Azure Competition I’ve entered a 3 minute video of rendering a 3D animation using 256 Windows Azure worker roles in the “Fast with Windows Azure” competition. It’s the last week of voting this week, it would be great if you can check out the video and vote for it if you like it. I have not driven a car for about 15 years, so if I win you can expect a hilarious summery of the track day in Vegas. My preparation for the day would be to play Project Gotham Racing for a weekend, and watch a lot of Top Gear.   My video is “Rapid Massive On-Demand Scalability Makes Me Fast!”. The link is here: http://www.meetwindowsazure.com/fast/

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  • How do you apply to a company way out of your league?

    - by emcb
    First, my background: I'm in the market for a new job I have ~2 years experience under my belt Nothing on my resume would JUMP out at you Thus far in my career I've been able to become productive quickly and have been continually praised by managers and coworkers for my abilities to learn and produce. I don't mean to be bragging here, but I want to get across that (at least in my mind) I could be categorized as "very promising young developer" I've been job hunting for a little while now and like most job seekers I've found a handful of companies that are basically "dream" jobs (think Fog Creek or 37Signals). If I were to apply to a company like that in the normal recruitment channels, my resume would probably not make it past the first set of filters. Now, I accept that I'm a longshot for a job at the hottest companies out there, but in my job search I've had a little success in applying for positions I'm not qualified for simply by doing something a little different: sending an email outlining how I don't meet the qualifications but stating why I would do well in the job anyways. In other cases, I've outright asked for a small project/problem that would be representative of the work to prove I can do the job, since I didn't have the specific skills on my resume yet. What I'm wondering is: If I'm not qualified on paper for a particular job, what creative/unique/impressive methods have you thought of or seen work to at least get an interview? For the sake of argument, assume I really am a "very promising young developer". I would love to hear from people who are responsible for hiring - I'd like to hear examples of techniques that got someone noticed when they otherwise wouldn't have. Clarification: I know that I need to continue building my resume to continue advancing. But I'm in the job search NOW, so I'm looking for other approaches

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  • Getting file system free space

    - by Fred Riley
    This isn't a problem as such, more a request for information based on ignorance of the Linux filesystem. The very short question is: How do I find out how much free and used space there is on the volume from which Ubuntu is running? More detail: I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 from a 64Gb USB3 stick, created from booting up a year-old Ubuntu 12.04 DVD and running Startup Disk Creator. The reason for this is that the Master Boot Record on my hard disk, holding Windoze 7, has gone belly-up, and whilst awaiting a recovery disk I'm running Ubunto off USB or DVD as a 'trial'. (And will continue to run Ubuntu after restoring Windoze, as I've rediscovered my love of the penguin :o)) After installing Ubuntu on the stick I ran the software update app, which downloaded some 450Mb of updates and took a couple of hours to install to the stick. A couple of times I got a message saying that disk space was short. So I looked in the file manager (or whatever it's called these days) and couldn't see the stick listed, just: SYSTEM hard disk (listed as 479Gb Filesystem) two other partitions that had been created by Windoze "4.3GB Filesystem" which when I try to open gives the error "Could not find /cow", and when I try to unmount it tells me I can't because it's not mounted - D'OH!! Edit: screenshot of file manager Edit: screenshot of low disk space warning What I can't see is the USB stick from which I'm running Ubuntu. Where's it gone, anybody know? This is tangentially related to a previous question of mine about system tools, in that I'm trying to get control and knowledge of the system in the newest incarnation of Ubuntu.

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  • Need advice: Staying techie or going the MBA way?

    - by SharePoint Newbie
    I know this is a very subjective question and I am the best person to decide this for myself...but I am just looking for your views. I have 5 years of experience as a professional developer. I have a decent background in Maths and have done my bachelors in engineering in CS. I have still not reached a stage in my career where growth is difficult and do not foresee this happenning for a very long time if ever because I find myself constantly (self) motivated to pick up new skills. A lot of my friends have however been getting through their MBA lately ...and not from the likes of Harvard or Kellogs, just mediocre colleges. They've however been landing paychecks fatter than me even though they have little or no work experience. Given that I have the option of pursuing an MBA an have my finances in order (and am planning an MBA from INSEAD / IE) would it make sense for me to sell out what I like doing and go for an MBA? Will I regret not doing an MBA later, given that I am in the right age/experience group to do an MBA? I absolutely love what I am doing right now and also the people I'm doing it with, but am just worried if this career would be as rewarding financially as the one after a management degree.

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  • Why does Android make good coding so difficult?

    - by metacircle
    my daily work is writing tools in C#/WPF. After over more than 1 year on the job now, I came to love MVVM, IoC Containers, XAML (and more). It's pure fun to write code, since simple, maintainable and extendable code just comes naturally when you follow a few basic patterns. In my free time I really want to write some apps, mainly for my own personal use. I want to write apps for fun and not to make money or anything, that being said, paying an annual fee to be allowed to use my own apps on my own device is a total no-go for me. So I am not able to code for Windows Phone and am also not able to use Xamarin on Android (which is sad since Visual Studio + Resharper is programmers heaven). So I am stuck with Android "classic" Java development. Everytime I sit down at home to create an app, or improve some of the code I have already written I get annoyed very quick because getting good, decoupled code is just so hard to accomplish. It feels like everything you have to do in Android to create a good architecture is a workaround instead of being the way things are meant to be. Writing the UI in xml is fine, but everything else is one big code mess. Even all the tutorials do all their coding in the code behind. For 'hello world' this is fine, but for anything bigger this gets messy very very quick. This is where the fun for me ends. It's just no fun anymore because I just spend 90% of my time refactoring and thinking of workarounds how to make my code more maintainable with all the restrictions Android puts on me. Am I missing a crucial part or is this just the way Android is meant to be? Do you have any suggestions how to learn 'the fun way' of Android programming.

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  • Which things instantly ring alarm bells when looking at code? [closed]

    - by FinnNk
    I attended a software craftsmanship event a couple of weeks ago and one of the comments made was "I'm sure we all recognize bad code when we see it" and everyone nodded sagely without further discussion. This sort of thing always worries me as there's that truism that everyone thinks they're an above average driver. Although I think I can recognize bad code I'd love to learn more about what other people consider to be code smells as it's rarely discussed in detail on people's blogs and only in a handful of books. In particular I think it'd be interesting to hear about anything that's a code smell in one language but not another. I'll start off with an easy one: Code in source control that has a high proportion of commented out code - why is it there? was it meant to be deleted? is it a half finished piece of work? maybe it shouldn't have been commented out and was only done when someone was testing something out? Personally I find this sort of thing really annoying even if it's just the odd line here and there, but when you see large blocks interspersed with the rest of the code it's totally unacceptable. It's also usually an indication that the rest of the code is likely to be of dubious quality as well.

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  • To Virtual or Not to Virtual

    - by Kevin Shyr
    I recently made a comment "I hate everything virtual" while responding to a SQL server performance question.  I then promptly fired up my Hyper-V development environment to do my proof of concept stuff, and realized that I made the cardinal sin of making a generalized comment about something, instead of saying "It depends". The bottom line is if the virtual environment gives the throughput that the server needs, then it is not that big of a deal.  I just have seen so many environment set up with SQL server sitting in virtual environment sitting in a SAN, so on top of having to plan for loss data, I now have to plan for my virtual environment failing for so many different reasons, thought SQL 2012 High Availability Group should make that easier.  To me, a virtual environment makes sense for a stateless application with big scalibility requirement, but doesn't give much benefit to an application where performance and data integrity are both important.  If security is not a concern, I would just build servers with multiple instances on them to balance the workload. Maybe this is also too generalized a comment, and I'll confess that I'm not a DBA by trade.  I'd love to hear the pros and cons of virtualizing a SQL server, or other examples where virtualization makes total sense (not just money, but recovery, rollback, etc.)

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  • Git repo: Unravelling my mess into tidy branches

    - by Martin
    I wanted to play with a project, so git cloned it and, following its instructions, created a local branch for my configuration (I guess so that users can merge updates back). At first I was just tweaking to suit my preferences, so I didn't bother with any further branching, but now I have some code that might be useful to someone else, but with my passwords, etc in the same branch. Effectively, I have one big branch from which I'd like to have: Postgres backend (default) but with some new code I've added MySQL backend (the biggest change I've made) with that same new code My settings: I can't git ignore the settings file because I occasionally have to add sections for new functionality, but I need to keep my personal settings out of the public branches! I guess this would work best as a local-only branch. Dev branches, which I would branch from the MySQL. Starting from scratch, I think I could figure out how to branch/merge the various updates, but is there an easy way to walk through the existing repo and choose which commits to apply to which branch? Or possibly create a branch from a point upstream then merge back, excluding certain commits?

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  • What's wrong with circular references?

    - by dash-tom-bang
    I was involved in a programming discussion today where I made some statements that basically assumed axiomatically that circular references (between modules, classes, whatever) are generally bad. Once I got through with my pitch, my coworker asked, "what's wrong with circular references?" I've got strong feelings on this, but it's hard for me to verbalize concisely and concretely. Any explanation that I may come up with tends to rely on other items that I too consider axioms ("can't use in isolation, so can't test", "unknown/undefined behavior as state mutates in the participating objects", etc.), but I'd love to hear a concise reason for why circular references are bad that don't take the kinds of leaps of faith that my own brain does, having spent many hours over the years untangling them to understand, fix, and extend various bits of code. Edit: I am not asking about homogenous circular references, like those in a doubly-linked list or pointer-to-parent. This question is really asking about "larger scope" circular references, like libA calling libB which calls back to libA. Substitute 'module' for 'lib' if you like. Thanks for all of the answers so far!

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  • 10.04 Window manager not working

    - by jackg
    Using an old mx200 128Mb AGP card. Log in ok. Sometimes the top and bottom bars do not appear, sometimes one sometimes both sometimes none. The menus on firefox/thunderbird and others disappear when I move the pointer from the menu heading to the menu itself. I can't play you tube videos, nor pacman, so the world has ended as I know it. If I type sudo metacity --replace in a terminal the window manager seems to work fine. But I don't know how to make this permanent. One option was: System menupreferencessessions In the sessions tab make sure that "automatically save changes to session" is checked. I don't have a sessions option in the preferences menu. So...? Must be a line of code in a terminal I can use to get round this. I have not upgraded to Ubuntu 11... because the graphics card is so old that I cannot get any decent screen resolutions when I do. On 10.04 I disable the Nvidia driver for the same reason and use 1024x768. Ta

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  • Windows Azure v1.7 Spring Release Today&ndash;New Management Dashboard

    - by ToStringTheory
    Today, Microsoft will be publicly releasing a new version of Azure for public consumption.  The web conference, at http://www.meetwindowsazure.com will be airing at 1 PM PST.  They have already released an update to the Service Dashboard that can be accessed by going to http://manage.windowsazure.com.  I have some images of the new dashboard here that I have gathered and removed any PII from.  Let me know what you think! Images You should be able to click any of the images for a full resolution image. Tutorial The first thing you get after signing in is the tutorial: Landing After the tutorial completes, you get a screen with services that are active on your account on the left, and a list of ALL services (db/blob/SQL Azure) on the right.  I like the quick access to services across any of my subscriptions: Service Information These are images from a running web site with several roles.  I love how easy they have made many of the features: SQL Azure They have given some great quick functionality for looking at your DB information: Storage Here is the basic information that they give you for any storage accounts you have: Adding Services Super quick and easy to add services with the new UI: Conclusion I am EXCITED!  As you may have seen in the left side of my blog, I am an MCPD in Azure Development, and I must say that I am excited to see Microsoft moving forward with the technology and not letting it stagnate.  After as much as I have fought the other Azure dashboard, I like the friendliness and fluidity of this one. The important thing to note about ALL of the images above: this is HTML, not Silverlight.  The responsiveness is FAST on all of the actions I completed, and I believe that this is a big step forward for Azure… So, what do you think?

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  • C++ Succinctly now available!

    - by Michael B. McLaughlin
    Over the summer I worked with SyncFusion to create an eBook based off of my C# to C++ guide for their free Succinctly Series of eBooks. Today the result, C++ Succinctly, was published for download. It is a free (registration required; they make tools and libraries for .NET development so you might get an occasional email from them – I’ve been signed up for a few months and have had maybe 3 emails total so it’s not horrible super spam or anything ) and you can download it as a PDF or a Kindle .MOBI file (or both). I’m excited with how it turned out and enjoyed working with the people at SyncFusion. The book contains a total of 20 code samples, which you can download from BitBucket (there’s a link very early in the book). Almost all of the code is also inline in the book itself so that you don’t need to worry about flipping back and forth between your dev machine and your eReader (but if you want to try to understand a concept better, you can easily download the code, open it up in VS 2012, and play around with it to see what happens when you tinker with things). The code does require Visual Studio 2012 because of its expanded support for C++11 features and since I wrote all of the samples as Console programs for clarity and compactness, you will need a version that supports C++ desktop development (currently VS 2012 Pro, Premium, or Ultimate). Sometime this Fall, Microsoft will be releasing Visual Studio 2012 Express for Windows Desktop which should provide a free way to use the samples. That said, I tested all of the samples with MinGW and only the StorageDurationSample will not compile with it due to the thread-local storage code. If you comment that out then you can compile and run all the samples with MinGW (or using a recent version of GCC in a GNU/Linux environment, or any other C++ compiler that provides the same level of C++11 support that Visual Studio 2012 does). I hope it proves helpful to those of you who choose to check it out!

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  • send music to upnp device from PC

    - by markrich
    I have a new Arcam AirDAC (http://www.arcam.co.uk/products,rSer...ACs,airDAC.htm) attached to my stereo which has upnp support. I would like to send audio from my 14.04 PC to the box itself and to this end installed Rygel upon my system to help but it hasn't. I have created a new sound device in PulseAudioPreferences and selected it from inidcator-sound-switcher but here I become stuck. The sound is heading to the new sound device as the volume can be seen to go up and down from PulseAudioVolumeControl but no sound comes from the stereo downstairs. The problem, as I see it, is the new device has no idea where to send the music as the Arcam hasn't been chosen from any program. So - I installed BubbleUPNP and Plex. My music has been imported into the later and the former can see both the Arcam as a Renderer and the Plex as the Media Server. Installing the BubbleUPNP program on my Android tablet allowed me to send music and all seemed good UNTIL I started playing AIFF and ALAC music and it all stopped. No suitable decoding device. So that scuppered that route. So here I am and stuck. How can I tell Ubuntu to use the Arcam as a renderer to play music through when the albums are played from Rhytmnbox, Tomahawk, Clementine or other? Clementine would be my preferred client as there is a usable remote control program for the tablet. Can anyone help me fix this or advice another way to do what I would like?

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  • How to justify rewriting/revamping legacy software in a business case?

    - by sxthomson
    I work for a great little software company which makes good revenue from our main software package. The problem for me is that it's almost unmaintainable. It's written in Delphi 7 (has upgraded versions over time) and has been worked on by a lot of developers over the past 20 or so years. The software lacks any meaningful architecture - there's no object orientation whatsoever, horrible amounts of cyclical dependencies and an over-reliance on global variables to name just a few things. Another huge thing for me is Delphi 7 does NOT support 64-bit. The problem here for me is that my management team don't care about technical things, they want to know why they should care. Obviously that's expected, so what I'm asking here is for some guidance, or tales, or pitfalls about this kind of thing. There's a few things I would love to include, namely for me, the length of time taken to debug/write a feature in "legacy" code, versus coherent, well structured OO code. Does anyone know of any blog posts or the like where this is talked about? For us in the company this is a huge reason. Despite being decent developers we feel like writing a new feature is just piling more rubbish on top. On top of that, even for me who has a decent level of understanding of the code, changing things is infuriating - a small change can have a ridiculous domino effect. Anyone have any experiences they'd like to share?

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  • Finding the best practice for a game simulating tool

    - by Tougheart
    I'm studying Java right now, and I'm thinking of this tool as my practice project. The game is "League of Legends" in case anyone knows it, I'm not actually simulating the game as in simulating game play, I'm just trying to create a tool that can compare different champions to each other based on their own abilities and items bought inside the game. The game basics are: Every player has a champion in a team of 5 players playing against another team. Each champion has a different set of abilities (usually 4) that s/he uses to do damage to opposing champions. Each champion gets stronger by buying different items, increasing the attack it deals or decreasing the damage received. What I want to do is to create a tool to be used outside the game enabling players to try out different builds for their champions and compare the figures against other champions they usually fight against. The goal is to enable players get a deeper understanding of the different item combinations (builds) that can be used during the games, instead of trying them out in real games which can be somehow very time consuming. What I'm stuck at is the best practice I should follow to make this possible using Java, I can't figure out which classes should inherit from which, should I make champions and items specs in the code or extracted from other files, specially that I'm talking about hundreds of items and champions to use in that tool. I'm self studying Java, and I don't have much practice at it, so I would really appreciate any broad guidelines regarding this, and sorry if my question doesn't fit here, I tried to follow the rules. English isn't my native language, so I'm really sorry if I wasn't clear enough, I would be more than happy to explain anything that's not understood.

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  • Ad Service That Lets You Choose Your Ad, and Then Some [on hold]

    - by user3634450
    I'm trying to build an app for both Android and/or iOS where part of the gameplay actually involves ads as a texture. I need to be able to choose which ads I would like to use. I need to be able to be able to identify the ads (which if I can choose which ads show up in the app shouldn't be that hard). I need to be able to swap in and out new ads on what could possibly be a daily basis (and don't want to have to update the app to do it). And as if that wasn't too needy a list, I need to be able to load 50 ads from the pool of ads I deem fit, all to each and every user of the app at least every couple of days. I don't care if the ads pay, I'm not looking for clicks, but I don't want to have to make 50 fake ads every couple of days, from an "artistic" level I don't want the content to feel phony or fake, and I don't really have a way to load content to each user via some internet source (if anyone could name one that would be great). I'm not sure what kind of ad provider would like or even approve of this, in fact just what I've described might be against Google Play's or iTunes' content developer policies, but if anyone could give me any advice to steer me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

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