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• Is this an effective monetization method for an Android game? [on hold]

  - by Matthew Page

  The short version: I plan to make an Android puzzle game where the user tries to get 3-6 numbers to their predetermined goal numbers. The free version of the app will have three predetermined levels (easy, medium, hard). The full version ($0.99, probably) will have a level generator where there will be unlimited easy, medium, or hard levels, as well as a custom difficulty option where users can set specific vales to the number of numbers to equate to their goal, the number of buttons to use, etc. Users will also have the option to get a one-time "hint" for a fee of $0.49, or unlimited hints for a one-time fee of $2.99. The long version: Mechanics of Game and Victory The application is a number puzzle. When the user begins a new game, depending on the input by the user, between 3 and 6 numbers show up on the top of the screen, and between 3 and 6 buttons show up on the bottom of the screen. The buttons all have two options: to increase every number the same way, or decrease every number the same way. The buttons either use addition / subtraction, multiplication / division, or exponents / roots, all depending on the number displayed on the button. Addition buttons are green, multiplication buttons are blue, and exponential buttons are red. The user wins when all of the numbers displayed on the screen equate to their goal number, displayed below each number. Monetization If the user is playing the full (priced) version of the app, upon the start of the game, the user will be confronted with a dialogue asking for the number of buttons and the number of numbers to equate in the game. Then, based on the user input, a random puzzle will be generated. If the user is playing the free version of the app, the user will be asked to either play an “easy”, “hard”, or “expert” puzzle. A pre-determined puzzle from each category will be used in the game. If the user has played that puzzle before, a dialogue will show saying this to the user and advertising the full version of the app. The full version of the app will also be advertised upon the successful or in successful completion of a puzzle. Upon exiting this advertisement, another full screen advertisement will appear from a third party. Also, the solution to the puzzle should be stored by the program, and if the user pays a small fee, he/she can see a hint to the solution to the program. In the free version of the app, the user may use their first hint for free. Also, the user can use unlimited hints for a slightly larger fee. Is this an effective monetization method?

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• Complete Beginner to Game Programming and Unreal Engine 4, Looking For Advice [on hold]

  - by onemic

  I am currently a 2nd year programming student(Just finished my first year so I will be starting my second year in September) and have mainly learned C and C++ in my classes. In terms of what I know of C++, I know about general inheritance, polymorphism, overloading operators, iterators, a little bit about templates(only class and function templates) etc. but not of the more advanced topics like linked lists and other sequential containers(containers in general I guess), enumerations, most of the standard library(other than like strings and vectors), and probably a bunch of other stuff I dont even know about yet. I subscribed to Unreal Engine 4 as I was very intrigued by their Unreal Tournament announcement earlier this month, especially after hearing that UE4 is going completely C++. Of course my end goal in doing this programming program is to eventually go into game/graphics programming. Since it's my summer off, I thought what better way then to actually apply some of my skills to a personal project so I actually have a firmer understanding of C++ past what my professors tell me. My questions are this: What would be the best way to start off making a small personal game in UE4 as a project for the summer? What should I be aiming for, especially for someone that is still learning C++? Should I focus on making a simple 2D game rather than a 3D one to get started? Seeing the Flappy Chicken showcase intrigued me because before I thought the UE engine was pretty much pigeonholed into being for FPS games What should my expectations be going into UE4 and a game engine for the first time?(UE4 will be my first foray into making a game) What can I expect to gain from making things in UE4, in terms of making games and in terms of further fleshing out my knowledge of C++? Would you recommend I start off 100% using C++ for scripting or using the visual blueprints? Since I'm not a designer, how would I be able to add objects and designs to my game? For someone at my level is retaining the UE4 subscription worth it or is it better to cancel and resub when I learn enough about UE4 and C++? Lastly is there anything to be gained in terms of knowledge/insight through me looking at the source code for UE4? I opened it in VS2013, but noticed that most of the files were C# files and not cpp's. Thanks in advance for taking the time to answer.

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• Best way to determine surface normal for a group of pixels?

  - by Paul Renton

  One of my current endeavors is creating a 2D destructible terrain engine for iOS Cocos2D (See https://github.com/crebstar/PWNDestructibleTerrain ). It is in an infant stages no doubt, but I have made significant progress since starting a couple weeks ago. However, I have run into a bit of a performance road block with calculating surface normals. Note: For my destructible terrain engine, an alpha of 0 is considered to not be solid ground. The method posted below works just great given small rectangles, such as n < 30. Anything above 30 causes a dip in the frame rate. If you approach 100x100 then you might as well read a book while the sprite attempts to traverse the terrain. At the moment this is the best I can come up with for altering the angle on a sprite as it roams across terrain (to get the angle for a sprite's orientation just take dot product of 100 * normal * (1,0) vector). -(CGPoint)getAverageSurfaceNormalAt:(CGPoint)pt withRect:(CGRect)area { float avgX = 0; float avgY = 0; ccColor4B color = ccc4(0, 0, 0, 0); CGPoint normal; float len; for (int w = area.size.width; w >= -area.size.width; w--) { for (int h = area.size.height; h >= -area.size.height; h--) { CGPoint pixPt = ccp(w + pt.x, h + pt.y); if ([self pixelAt:pixPt colorCache:&color]) { if (color.a != 0) { avgX -= w; avgY -= h; } // end inner if } // end outer if } // end inner for } // end outer for len = sqrtf(avgX * avgX + avgY * avgY); if (len == 0) { normal = ccp(avgX, avgY); } else { normal = ccp(avgX/len, avgY/len); } // end if return normal; } // end get My problem is I have sprites that require larger rectangles in order for their movement to look realistic. I considered doing a cache of all surface normals, but this lead to issues of knowing when to recalculate the surface normals and these calculations also being quite expensive (also how large should the blocks be?). Another smaller issue is I don't know how to properly treat the case when length is = 0. So I am stuck... Any advice from the community would be greatly appreciated! Is my method the best possible one? Or should I rethink the algorithm? I am new to game development and always looking to learn new tips and tricks.

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• How to deal with fellow programmer who likes to delegate task with lack any support from boss [closed]

  - by Rudy

  I have a problem with my fellow programmer. We are currently working together in a small project that need to be shipped every 2 weeks. She has a tendency to ask for help for every issues that she is facing. Whether it's a compile error, algorithm problem or even sync/merge issue that caused by herself. She does not even bother to check Google or try to find out by herself. I can be asked to help her for 5-10 times a day. Everyday her husband keeps calling (4-6 times a day), and most of the code that has been delivered by her are actually incorrect. Today she framed me for sending the wrong delivery product. She went home after lunch on the delivery day without telling PM and other team member on that day and her code she commited does not work at all. It's not even tested. I have no choice to roll back her code and cleaning her code just for sake to able to run the product. I have warned her about her defective codes for almost 3 iterations. She said when she was not around I should be able to test her module for her. I snapped and yelled that I am not her slave and directly reported to my boss. However, my boss is not a person that can manage and care about software quality. What is the most important thing to my boss is delivery of product, whether it tested or not. He can even asked us to deliver something that not even tested by QA to the client, on the next day. Most of our suggestion is not followed by him. He even asked me to apologize to her because I snapped. I am tired of the whole situation. This kind of thing keeps repeated. I do have saving to be able to survive for 6 months and the idea of resigning is keep haunting. There is nothing else that can be learned in my current job and I had been in a better environment than this. What should I do with the situation?

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• Calculating a circle or sphere along a vector

  - by Sparky

  Updated this post and the one at Math SE (http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/127866/calculating-a-circle-or-sphere-along-a-vector), hope this makes more sense. I previously posted a question (about half an hour ago) involving computations along line segments, but the question and discussion were really off track and not what I was trying to get at. I am trying to work with an FPS engine I am attempting to build in Java. The problem I am encountering is with hitboxing. I am trying to calculate whether or not a "shot" is valid. I am working with several approaches and any insight would be helpful. I am not a native speaker of English nor skilled in Math so please bear with me. Player position is at P0 = (x0,y0,z0), Enemy is at P1 = (x1,y1,z1). I can of course compute the distance between them easily. The target needs a "hitbox" object, which is basically a square/rectangle/mesh either in front of, in, or behind them. Here are the solutions I am considering: I have ruled this out...doesn't seem practical. [Place a "hitbox" a small distance in front of the target. Then I would be able to find the distance between the player and the hitbox, and the hitbox and the target. It is my understanding that you can compute a circle with this information, and I could simply consider any shot within that circle a "hit". However this seems not to be an optimal solution, because it requires you to perform a lot of calculations and is not fully accurate.] Input, please! Place the hitbox "in" the player. This seems like the better solution. In this case what I need is a way to calculate a circle along the vector, at whatever position I wish (in this case, the distance between the two objects). Then I can pick some radius that encompasses the whole player, and count anything within this area a "hit". I am open to your suggestions. I'm trying to do this on paper and have no familiarity with game engines. If any software folk out there think I'm doing this the hard way, I'm open to help! Also - Anyone with JOGL/LWJGL experience, please chime in. Is this making sense?

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• Changing jobs and leaving a project without a leader (aka, me)

  - by AnonUntilAfterTheEvent

  I'm the lead on a project that has been underway for about a year and a half. Two of us have been working on it. One is the database guy. I'm the javascript/ui guy. Which is to say, essentially no overlap in code knowledge. Here's the thing. Someone is about to offer me a sweet job with a nearly 30% bump in pay. Though I am perfectly happy with my current job and love the project, the new one would be better and I can't imagine saying no. The big problem is that my project is supposed to go into production starting in a few weeks. I will consider the new guys to have disqualified the new job by being bad people who would ruin my life if they won't cooperate and let me start after deployment. Since they seem like decent, ethical people, I don't expect that to be a problem. The current project will be brutalized by my absence. I take some comfort in the fact that I have emphatically requested an understudy for at least six months. That puts a little of the responsibility on the boss's head, but still, it's going to be a really bad thing. What do others of you do when you are a critical to a project when it's time to move on? Do I owe any obligation to stick around even though something better shows up? I know my spouse would object if I found someone else. Does that apply to work? I do have an understudy now, though he's fresh out of college. He's not going to replace me anytime soon. It's a small shop and the boss is going to be crushed. I am traumatized in anticipation of telling him and feel guilty about the practical consequences. I'm looking for some solace and some strategy about how to deal with this transition. Thank you for listening. =========================Subsequent notes ========================= @ChaosPandion, Chance: No, I can't stay to finish the project. I will insist on a compromise where I finish the current sprint (about a month from now) but there is at least a half year, probably a year of solid, full-time, work still to be done. I wouldn't expect the new employer to hold the job that long.

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• Play Framework Plugin for NetBeans IDE (Part 2)

  - by Geertjan

  After I published part 1 of this series, the first external contribution (i.e., not by me) to the NetBeans plugin for Play Framework 2 was committed today. Yann D'Isanto added support for creating new Play projects: That completely solves a problem I was working on, in a different way altogether. I was working on creating a new wizard that would call "play new" on the command line and pass into the command line the entered name and application type (1 for Java and 2 for Scala). However, Yann's solution is better, at least in the sense in that it works, as opposed to mine which didn't, because of problems I continually had with the command line, since one needs to press Enter multiple times on the Play command line when creating new projects, which I wasn't able to simulate in my new wizard. Yann's approach is simply to follow the approach taken in the Project Type Module Tutorial, which explains how to register a project sample in the IDE. I was inspired by Yann's contribution, especially when he mentioned that one needs to build Play projects on the command line. So, I added a new menu item on the right-click of a project for building Play projects, which simply passes "play compile" to the command line for the current project: Via the IDE's main menu bar, you can also Build and Run the application, though the code for the Clean function needs to be added still, which would be a cool thing for anyone out there to add, by using all the existing code and then passing "play clean compile" to the command line. Something else that Yann added is an Options Window extension, thanks to the Options Window Module Tutorial, for registering the Play installation, which is a step forward from my hard coded solution. I changed things slightly so that, when Build or Run are selected, without a Play installation being defined, the Options window opens, displaying the tab that Yann created, shown below. Notice that there's no Browse button, which would be a simple next step for anyone else to contribute. A small tip is to use the FileChooserBuilder from the NetBeans IDE APIs when working on the Browse button: Looking forward to more contributions to the Play Framework 2 plugin for NetBeans IDE. Just leave a message here with your ideas, with your java.net name, and then I'll add you to the project on java.net, where I very much look forward to your contributions: http://java.net/projects/nbplay/sources/nbplay

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• Using extension methods to decrease the surface area of a C# interface

  - by brian_ritchie

  An interface defines a contract to be implemented by one or more classes.  One of the keys to a well-designed interface is defining a very specific range of functionality. The profile of the interface should be limited to a single purpose & should have the minimum methods required to implement this functionality.  Keeping the interface tight will keep those implementing the interface from getting lazy & not implementing it properly.  I've seen too many overly broad interfaces that aren't fully implemented by developers.  Instead, they just throw a NotImplementedException for the method they didn't implement. One way to help with this issue, is by using extension methods to move overloaded method definitions outside of the interface. Consider the following example: .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: Consolas, "Courier New", Courier, Monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } 1: public interface IFileTransfer 2: { 3: void SendFile(Stream stream, Uri destination); 4: } 5:   6: public static class IFileTransferExtension 7: { 8: public static void SendFile(this IFileTransfer transfer, 9: string Filename, Uri destination) 10: { 11: using (var fs = File.OpenRead(Filename)) 12: { 13: transfer.SendFile(fs, destination); 14: } 15: } 16: } 17:   18: public static class TestIFileTransfer 19: { 20: static void Main() 21: { 22: IFileTransfer transfer = new FTPFileTransfer("user", "pass"); 23: transfer.SendFile(filename, new Uri("ftp://ftp.test.com")); 24: } 25: } In this example, you may have a number of overloads that uses different mechanisms for specifying the source file. The great part is, you don't need to implement these methods on each of your derived classes.  This gives you a better interface and better code reuse.

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• JCP.next.3: time to get to work

  - by Patrick Curran

  As I've previously reported in this blog, we planned three JSRs to improve the JCP’s processes and to meet our members’ expectations for change. The first - JCP.next.1, or more formally JSR 348: Towards a new version of the Java Community Process - was completed in October 2011. This focused on a small number of simple but important changes to make our process more transparent and to enable broader participation. We're already seeing the benefits of these changes as new and existing JSRs adopt the new requirements. However, because we wanted to complete this JSR quickly we deliberately postponed a number of more complex items, including everything that would require modifying the JSPA (the legal agreement that members sign when they join the organization) to a follow-on JSR. The second JSR (JSR 355: JCP Executive Committee Merge) is in progress now and will complete later this year. This JSR is even simpler than the first, and is focused solely on merging the two Executive Committees into one for greater efficiency and to encourage synergies between the Java ME and Java SE platforms. Continuing the momentum to move Java and the JCP forward we have just filed the third JSR (JCP.next.3) as JSR 358: A major revision of the Java Community Process. This JSR will modify the JSPA as well as the Process Document, and will tackle a large number of complex issues, many of them postponed from JSR 348. For these reasons we expect to spend a considerable amount of time working on it - at least a year, and probably more. The current version of the JSPA was created back in 2002, although some minor changes were introduced in 2005. Since then the organization and the environment in which we operate have changed significantly, and it is now time to revise our processes to ensure that they meet our current needs. We have a long list of topics to be considered, including the role of independent implementations (those not derived from the Reference Implementation), licensing and open source, ensuring that our new transparency requirements are implemented correctly, compatibility policy and TCKs, the role of individual members, patent policy, and IP flow. The Expert Group for JSR 358, as with all process-change JSRs, consists of all members of the Executive Committees. Even though the JSR has just been filed we started discussions on the various topics several months ago (see the EC's meeting minutes for details) and our EC members - including the new members who joined within the last year or two - are actively engaged. Now it's your opportunity to get involved. As required by version 2.8 of our Process (introduced with JSR 348) we will conduct all our business in the open. We have a public java.net project where you can follow and participate in our work. All of our deliberations will be copied to a public Observer mailing list, we'll track our issues on a public Issue Tracker, and all our documents (meeting agendas and minutes, task lists, working drafts) will be published in our Document Archive. We're just getting started, but we do want your input. Please visit us on java.net where you can learn how to participate. Let's get to work...

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• Melhoria de Performance no .NET 4.5: Multicore Just-in-Time (JIT).

  - by anobre

  Olá pessoal! Dando uma lida nas melhorias de performance da plataforma .NET 4.5, me deparei com algo extremamente interessante: Multicore Just-in-Time (JIT). A teoria é muito simples: por que não utilizar vários núcleos para a compilação JIT? Além disto, será que seria possível compilar os métodos em uma determinada ordem, onde os primeiros fossem aqueles com maior probabilidade de execução? Isto parece meio loucura mas é o que o Multicore Just-in-Time (JIT) faz. E o melhor de tudo, de uma forma extremamente simples. As aplicações ASP.NET 4.5 já o fazem por default. Em outras ocasiões, basta executar duas linhas de código: uma indicando a pasta onde o arquivo que armazenará o profile ficará, e a outra para iniciar o procedimento. Este profile é o arquivo responsável por armazenar a ordem de compilação dos métodos, para que aqueles com maior chance de serem executados mais cedo sejam compilados antes. Código para este processo: ProfileOptimization.SetProfileRoot(@"C:\ProfileRoot"); ProfileOptimization.StartProfile("profile"); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Esta otimização na compilação só será notada após a criação do profile. Portanto, na primeira vez nada será percebido. Ao final do processo, um arquivo com o nome escolhido (no caso profile) será criado, na pasta indicada como root: Fica a dica! Abraços!

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• Why does my goblin only choose a walk direction once?

  - by Eogcloud

  I'm working on a simpe 2d canvas game that has a small goblin sprite who I want to get pathing around the screen. What I originally tried was a random roll that would choose a direction, the goblin would walk that direction. It didnt work effectively, he sort of wobbled in one spot. Here's my current apporach but he only runs in a rundom direction and doesnt change. What am I doing wrong? Here's all the relevant code to the goblin object and movement. var goblin = { speed: 100, pos: [0, 0], dir: 1, changeDir: true, stepCount: 0, stepTotal: 0, sprite: new Sprite( goblinImage, [0,0], [30,45], 6, [0,1,2,3,2,1], true) }; function getNewDir(){ goblin.dir = Math.floor(Math.random()*4)+1; }; function checkGoblinMovement(){ if(goblin.changeDir){ goblin.changeDir = false; goblin.stepCount = 0; goblin.stepTotal = Math.floor(Math.random*650)+1; getNewDir(); } else { if(goblin.stepCount === goblin.stepTotal){ goblin.changeDir = true; } } }; function update(delta){ healthCheck(); if(isGameOver){ gameOver(); } if(!isGameOver){ updateCharLevel(); keyboardInput(delta); moveGoblin(delta); checkGoblinMovement(); goblin.sprite.update(delta); //update sprites if(mainChar.kills!=0 && bloodReady){ for(var i=0; i<bloodArray.length; i++){ bloodArray[i].sprite.update(delta); } } //collision detection if(collision(mainChar, goblin)) { combatOutcome(combatEvent()); combatCleanup(); } } }; function main(){ var now = Date.now(); var delta = (now - then)/1000; if(!isGameOver){ update(delta); } draw(); then = now; }; function moveGoblin(delta){ goblin.stepCount++; if(goblin.dir === 1){ goblin.pos[1] -= goblin.speed * delta* 2; if(goblin.pos[1] <= 85){ goblin.pos[1] = 86; } } if(goblin.dir === 2){ goblin.pos[1] += goblin.speed * delta; if(goblin.pos[1] > 530){ goblin.pos[1] = 531; } } if(goblin.dir === 3){ goblin.pos[0] -= goblin.speed * delta; if(goblin.pos[0] < 0){ goblin.pos[0] = 1; } } if(goblin.dir === 4){ goblin.pos[0] += goblin.speed * delta* 2; if(goblin.pos[0] > 570){ goblin.pos[0] = 571; } } };

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• How best to look up objects by label?

  - by dsollen

  I am writing the server backed by a pre-written API. I'm going to get a number of strings representing ports, signals, paths, etc etc etc. I need to look up the object associated with a given label, these objects are all in memory (no sql magic to do this for me). My question is, how best do I associate a given unique label with the mutable object it represents? I have enough objects that looking through every signal or every port to find the one that matches is possible, but may be slightly too slow. To be honest the direct 'look at every object' method is probably good enough for so small a body of objects and anything else is premature optimization, but I still am curious what the proper solution would be if I thought my signals were going to grow a bit larger. As I see it there are two options available. First would be to to create a 'store' that is a simple map between object and label. I could have it so that every time I call addObject the object is automatically saved into a hashmap or the like. This works, but relies on my properly adding and deleting each object so the map doesn't grow indefinitely. The biggest issue to me is that this involves having some hidden static map in my ModelObject class that just feels...wrong somehow. The other option is to have some method that can interpret the labels. All of these labels are derived from the underlying objects. So I can look at the signal label, for instance, and say "these 20 characters are the port" to figure out what port I need. This would allow me to quickly figure out what I need. However, if the label method is changed the translateLabelToObject method needs to be updated as well or everything breaks. Which solution is cleaner, or possibly a cleaner solution than either of above? For the record I'm working with sufficient number of variables to make direct comparison a little slow, but not enough to be concerned about memory overhead, written in java. All objects that have labels I need to look up extend the same parent class.

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• How do you turn on the customizable gnome-panel features (like gnome-applets) in Precise?

  - by chriv

  I resurrected a broken laptop today. I took out the HDD, put it in a USB 3.0 enclosure, and created a VM that would use it. It was running lucid. I took a screenshot of the desktop before I started "do-release-upgrade", because from experience, I will never have my GUI back the way I want it again. I know how to install gnome-panel to get back the "Gnome Classic" session option. I know how to put my minimize, maximize, and close buttons back in the upper-right hand corner of windows (where they belong). I know how to use gdm instead of lightdm. Unity gets worse in every version (and the other desktop OS is going to be even worse with Metro). Here's what I don't know (in order of importance): 1. How do you make the panels in gnome (gnome-panel, to be precise) customizable again (like they were in older versions of Ubuntu)? 2. How do you install applets in the panels now (right-click is now ignored)? 3. How can you customize all of the window elements (like you could in older versions of Ubuntu)? I can't remember much about maverick, natty, or oneiric (except their names), so I don't know exactly when I lost these capabilities. Edit: (no screenshot), my StackExchange reputation (on other StackExchange sites) doesn't carry over to this site, so I can't post the screenshot. Take a look at the panels in the screen hot. They are nice, compact, and VERY functional (disk mounter applet, frequently used shortcuts, workspaces, show desktop, kill window, and trash icons, etc.) Notice how small the fonts (and how little real estate they waste). You can't notice the compact title bars, fonts, and window icons in this screen shot (since I redacted the rest of the desktop), but it's the same story there. Please help. I don't want to learn another distro, but Ubuntu gets less customizable with every "upgrade." Screenshot (not an inline image, since I don't have the reputation yet)... i.stack.imgur.com/puoUT.png

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• Does OO, TDD, and Refactoring to Smaller Functions affect Speed of Code?

  - by Dennis

  In Computer Science field, I have noticed a notable shift in thinking when it comes to programming. The advice as it stands now is write smaller, more testable code refactor existing code into smaller and smaller chunks of code until most of your methods/functions are just a few lines long write functions that only do one thing (which makes them smaller again) This is a change compared to the "old" or "bad" code practices where you have methods spanning 2500 lines, and big classes doing everything. My question is this: when it call comes down to machine code, to 1s and 0s, to assembly instructions, should I be at all concerned that my class-separated code with variety of small-to-tiny functions generates too much extra overhead? While I am not exactly familiar with how OO code and function calls are handled in ASM in the end, I do have some idea. I assume that each extra function call, object call, or include call (in some languages), generate an extra set of instructions, thereby increasing code's volume and adding various overhead, without adding actual "useful" code. I also imagine that good optimizations can be done to ASM before it is actually ran on the hardware, but that optimization can only do so much too. Hence, my question -- how much overhead (in space and speed) does well-separated code (split up across hundreds of files, classes, and methods) actually introduce compared to having "one big method that contains everything", due to this overhead? UPDATE for clarity: I am assuming that adding more and more functions and more and more objects and classes in a code will result in more and more parameter passing between smaller code pieces. It was said somewhere (quote TBD) that up to 70% of all code is made up of ASM's MOV instruction - loading CPU registers with proper variables, not the actual computation being done. In my case, you load up CPU's time with PUSH/POP instructions to provide linkage and parameter passing between various pieces of code. The smaller you make your pieces of code, the more overhead "linkage" is required. I am concerned that this linkage adds to software bloat and slow-down and I am wondering if I should be concerned about this, and how much, if any at all, because current and future generations of programmers who are building software for the next century, will have to live with and consume software built using these practices. UPDATE: Multiple files I am writing new code now that is slowly replacing old code. In particular I've noted that one of the old classes was a ~3000 line file (as mentioned earlier). Now it is becoming a set of 15-20 files located across various directories, including test files and not including PHP framework I am using to bind some things together. More files are coming as well. When it comes to disk I/O, loading multiple files is slower than loading one large file. Of course not all files are loaded, they are loaded as needed, and disk caching and memory caching options exist, and yet still I believe that loading multiple files takes more processing than loading a single file into memory. I am adding that to my concern.

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• Could I be going crazy with Event Handlers? Am I going the "wrong way" with my design?

  - by sensae

  I guess I've decided that I really like event handlers. I may be suffering a bit from analysis paralysis, but I'm concerned about making my design unwieldy or running into some other unforeseen consequence to my design decisions. My game engine currently does basic sprite-based rendering with a panning overhead camera. My design looks a bit like this: SceneHandler Contains a list of classes that implement the SceneListener interface (currently only Sprites). Calls render() once per tick, and sends onCameraUpdate(); messages to SceneListeners. InputHandler Polls the input once per tick, and sends a simple "onKeyPressed" message to InputListeners. I have a Camera InputListener which holds a SceneHandler instance and triggers updateCamera(); events based on what the input is. AgentHandler Calls default actions on any Agents (AI) once per tick, and will check a stack for any new events that are registered, dispatching them to specific Agents as needed. So I have basic sprite objects that can move around a scene and use rudimentary steering behaviors to travel. I've gotten onto collision detection, and this is where I'm not sure the direction my design is going is good. Is it a good practice to have many, small event handlers? I imagine going the way I am that I'd have to implement some kind of CollisionHandler. Would I be better off with a more consolidated EntityHandler which handles AI, collision updates, and other entity interactions in one class? Or will I be fine just implementing many different event handling subsystems which pass messages to each other based on what kind of event it is? Should I write an EntityHandler which is simply responsible for coordinating all these sub event handlers? I realize in some cases, such as my InputHandler and SceneHandler, those are very specific types of events. A large portion of my game code won't care about input, and a large portion won't care about updates that happen purely in the rendering of the scene. Thus I feel my isolation of those systems is justified. However, I'm asking this question specifically approaching game logic type events.

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• Tiling Problem Solutions for Various Size "Dominoes"

  - by user67081

  I've got an interesting tiling problem, I have a large square image (size 128k so 131072 squares) with dimensons 256x512... I want to fill this image with certain grain types (a 1x1 tile, a 1x2 strip, a 2x1 strip, and 2x2 square) and have no overlap, no holes, and no extension past the image boundary. Given some probability for each of these grain types, a list of the number required to be placed is generated for each. Obviously an iterative/brute force method doesn't work well here if we just randomly place the pieces, instead a certain algorithm is required. 1) all 2x2 square grains are randomly placed until exhaustion. 2) 1x2 and 2x1 grains are randomly placed alternatively until exhaustion 3) the remaining 1x1 tiles are placed to fill in all holes. It turns out this algorithm works pretty well for some cases and has no problem filling the entire image, however as you might guess, increasing the probability (and thus number) of 1x2 and 2x1 grains eventually causes the placement to stall (since there are too many holes created by the strips and not all them can be placed). My approach to this solution has been as follows: 1) Create a mini-image of size 8x8 or 16x16. 2) Fill this image randomly and following the algorithm specified above so that the desired probability of the entire image is realized in the mini-image. 3) Create N of these mini-images and then randomly successively place them in the large image. Unfortunately there are some downfalls to this simplification. 1) given the small size of the mini-images, nailing an exact probability for the entire image is not possible. Example if I want p(2x1)=P(1x2)=0.4, the mini image may only give 0.41 as the closes probability. 2) The mini-images create a pseudo boundary where no overlaps occur which isn't really descriptive of the model this is being used for. 3) There is only a fixed number of mini-images so i'm not sure how random this really is. I'm really just looking to brainstorm about possible solutions to this. My main concern is really to nail down closer probabilities, now one might suggest I just increase the mini-image size. Well I have, and it turns out that in certain cases(p(1x2)=p(2x1)=0.5) the mini-image 16x16 isn't even iteratively solvable.. So it's pretty obvious how difficult it is to randomly solve this for anything greater than 8x8 sizes.. So I'd love to hear some ideas. Thanks

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• The type of programmer I want to be [closed]

  - by Aventinus_

  I'm an undergraduate Software Engineer student, although I've decided that pure programming is what I want to do for the rest of my life. The thing is that programming is a vast field and although most of its aspects are extremely interesting, soon or later I'll have to choose one (?) to focus on. I have several ideas on small projects I'd like to develop this summer, having in mind that this will gain me some experience and, in the best scenario, some cash. But the most important reason I'd like to develop something close to “professional” is to give myself direction on what I want to do as a programmer. One path is that of the Web Programmer. I enjoy PHP and MySQL, as well as HTML and CSS, although I don't really like ASP.NET. I can see myself writing web apps, using the above technologies, as well as XML and Javascript. I also have a neat idea on a Facebook app. The other path is that of the Desktop Programmer. This is a little more complicated cause I really-really enjoy high level languages such as Java and Python but not the low level ones, such as C. I use both Linux and Windows for the last 6 years and I like their latest DEs (meaning Gnome Shell and Metro). I can see myself writing desktop applications for both OSs as long as it means high level programming. Ideally I'd like being able to help the development of GNOME. The last path that interests me is the path of the Smartphone Programmer. I have created some sample applications on Android and due to Java I found it a quite interesting experience. I can also see myself as an independent smartphone developer. These 3 paths seem equally interesting at the moment due to the shallowness of my experience, I guess. I know that I should spend time with all of them and then choose the right one for me but I'd like to know what are the pros and cons in terms of learning curve, fun, job finding and of course financial rewards with each of these paths. I have fair or basic understanding of the languages/technologies I described earlier and this question will help me choose where to focus, at least for now.

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• AS3 - At exactly 23 empty alpha channels, images below stop drawing

  - by user46851

  I noticed, while trying to draw large numbers of circles, that occasionally, there would be some kind of visual bug where some circles wouldn't draw properly. Well, I narrowed it down, and have noticed that if there is 23 or more objects with 00 for an alpha value on the same spot, then the objects below don't draw. It appears to be on a pixel-by-pixel basis, since parts of the image still draw. Originally, this problem was noticed with a class that inherited Sprite. It was confirmed to also be a problem with Sprites, and now Bitmaps, too. If anyone can find a lower-level class than Bitmap which doesn't have this problem, please speak up so we can try to find the origin of the problem. I prepared a small test class that demonstrates what I mean. You can change the integer value at line 20 in order to see the three tests I came up with to clearly show the problem. Is there any kind of workaround, or is this just a limit that I have to work with? Has anyone experienced this before? Is it possible I'm doing something wrong, despite the bare-bones implementation? package { import flash.display.Sprite; import flash.events.Event; import flash.display.Bitmap; import flash.display.BitmapData; public class Main extends Sprite { public function Main():void { if (stage) init(); else addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, init); } private function init(e:Event = null):void { removeEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, init); // entry point Test(3); } private function Test(testInt:int):void { if(testInt==1){ addChild(new Bitmap(new BitmapData(200, 200, true, 0xFFFF0000))); for (var i:int = 0; i < 22; i++) { addChild(new Bitmap(new BitmapData(100, 100, true, 0x00000000))); } } if(testInt==2){ addChild(new Bitmap(new BitmapData(200, 200, true, 0xFFFF0000))); for (var j:int = 0; j < 23; j++) { addChild(new Bitmap(new BitmapData(100, 100, true, 0x00000000))); } } if(testInt==3){ addChild(new Bitmap(new BitmapData(200, 200, true, 0xFFFF0000))); for (var k:int = 0; k < 22; k++) { addChild(new Bitmap(new BitmapData(100, 100, true, 0x00000000))); } var M:Bitmap = new Bitmap(new BitmapData(100, 100, true, 0x00000000)); M.x += 50; M.y += 50; addChild(M); } } } }

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• When a co-worker asks you to teach him what you know, do you share the information or keep it to yourself? [closed]

  - by Chuck

  I am the only developer/DBA in a small IT department. There is another guy who can do it, but he's more of a backup as he spends his time working on IT support stuff. Anyway we have a new hire and I've been training him on the IT support side of things. Seems like he is eager to learn and be productive, but nobody is going out of their way to show him anything. He's been asking me to teach him database design, SQL, etc. For some reason, the boss has him working with me. He is also sending him to meetings that I go to, yet he hasn't said outright that I have to teach him anything. Meanwhile, the boss insists on doing a lot of the support work himself (i.e. he hoards information and doesn't delegate to anyone). I'm a little bit on the fence. First, the new guy doesn't yet have a strong foundation on the IT support functions which is where we really need help at this time. Second, I paid thousands of dollars for classes and spent many hours learning this stuff. Is it my responsibility to teach others skills that I had to learn on my own? Others here really aren't quick to share information so I'm not sure that I should either in this environment. I do know that if I get him involved, and get him started on projects, then I'd be responsible for his mistakes. I had to take the heat for the other guy when he made mistakes. OTOH the guy wants to learn something, is motivated, and I don't want to stop him. We've had our share of slackers in the group and it's nice to have someone who is willing to work for a change. So what would you guys do? Would you teach him the skills that you spent all of that time learning? Set him up with a test database on his PC and recommend some books for him? Encourage him to get a strong foundation in IT support first and ask later? We haven't had a new hire in years, let alone one that is interested in what I do, so this is new to me.

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• Are there new flexible texteditors? [closed]

  - by RParadox

  Vi(m) and Emacs are almost 40 years old. Why are they still the standard, and what attempts have been made at coming up with a new flexible editor? Are there any features which can not be built into vim/emacs? My question is similar to this one: Time to drop Emacs and vi? No one had a suggestion, which surprises me. I would have thought that the core of a texteditor is very small and that people brew their own. Perhaps nobody wants to deal with supporting all the modes? Edit to clarify my question: Instead of writing modes and scripts I ask myself, why there is not a much lightweight project, which lets people custom the editor more directly? Vim has 365395 LOC (C lines all included), Emacs 1.5 million LOC. Why is there a project with say 50k LOC, which is the core, why people can use more freely? Perhaps there is such project, I haven't looked very far. I thought about putting together modules from Vim myself and experimenting with some ideas. The core of editing shouldn't be more than 10k? Vim has a lot optimizations which is really an overkill nowadays. Basically I'm looking for a code base for my own editor and Vi/Emacs are I believe not intended to be used in this way. Bill Joy said the following about vi. http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~kirkenda/joy84.html The fundamental problem with vi is that it doesn't have a mouse and therefore you've got all these commands. In some sense, its backwards from the kind of thing you'd get from a mouse-oriented thing. I think multiple levels of undo would be wonderful, too. But fundamentally, vi is still ed inside. You can't really fool it. Its like one of those pinatas - things that have candy inside but has layer after layer of paper mache on top. It doesn't really have a unified concept. I think if I were going to go back - I wouldn't go back, but start over again.

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• Programming tourism

  - by Andrew_B

  I'm going on vacation to Paris, France for 10 days. Actually, it's my girlfriend's wish to go there but I'm not very interested in visiting, sightseeing, etc. Recently, I came up with an idea of trying to do something like programming tourism. :) I'd like to do something related to programming in a startup-like company. I do not want a salary or any kind of compensation. I want to overview process, social aspects, environment and "what it feels like" to development software in another country. I'm from Russia. I've been a software developer since 2003. I prefer C#4 but I'm ready to use anything Turing-complete. I have some MS certifications and am familiar with all .NETs since 1.1. Currently I'm finishing PhD in CS. I'm interested in multidimensional indexing and I can turn any piece of data and code to OLAP system. :) But it'd take too much time. What can I do? I have no more than one week. I want a totally complete project in a short amount of time. Implement some features in well-tested project Do a code review Debug memory, performance and concurrency issues Do unit testing So, about the questions: Is it legal? I'm ready to sign NDA if it's necessary. I'll have tourist visa. Is it possible? I'm really sure that bureaucratic companies with lots of HRs and PMs will not allow such experiments. But small companies can afford it. I'm ready to guarantee support on my code after leaving home :) P.S. I still havn't started learning French :) I hope it will not take too much time :) P.P.S. Yes, it's girlfriend-approved. What's in it for me? It's fun. It's fun to see new systems and people who created them. It's fun to complete meaningful things. Quickly. What's in it for them? Feature, debug, review or test. If my short-term colleagues will like this style of working I can invite them to make same trip into my company :) I think in Russia it's even more exciting :)

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• Getting my younger brother started on programming

  - by SmartLemon

  My younger brother is 13 years old, I started programming when I started to develop Android applications when I was 15, last year my brother gained an interest in it and he would always pestering me about letting him make something himself, so I wrote him a few tutorials and he built himself a small application that had a few buttons that did something, I think you put in your dob and it would tell you what day you were born on, he took a couple of days building up to his final application, maybe even a week, learning everything he needed. Since then he hasn't really done much more because I have been engulfed in work and such where I have my own programming problems to sort out. I told him that when he was my age (I am 17) that he should be better then me, he was a bit sceptical about this however. I dont think he has as much logical reasoning as I would think he needs to solve more complex problems, but shouldnt that just develop over time as it did with me? He has been pestering me for the past week or something to write him more tutorials, but I didn't have time. All I had with me was a playlist I had downloaded from the new boston from youtube for C++, it's about 73 videos. He is currently about 20-30 videos in, he has come to ask me a few questions about it and thats it. Should I have really properly started him with C++? Should I stop him now and start him again on python or ruby? I know that C++ shouldn't really be a beginners language, especially for someone who is only 13, by the time this question is answered will probably be up to learning about inheritance or something. Some people may see this as not a real question, but it is, and should be used as a reference for others. I want to know, should I start him on a different language whch is more easy? What language then? And would it be better for me to teach him myself (I would make time) or just continue him with the new boston? There are a few more questions throughout this question but these are the main ones. Part of the question people seem to be neglecting is me asking whether I should change what language he is learning to another, or since he is already pretty far through the tutorials should I just leave him with C++ and he can learn the other languages freely by himself?

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• Visual Studio 2010/2012 Context Menus and a Keyboard

  - by SergeyPopov

  As a software developer, I spend a lot of time using Visual Studio. I have to say that I completely satisfied with Visual Studio generally. Nevertheless, sometimes Visual Studio starts annoying me. One issue which poisoned my existence for a long time is that context menu behavior in VS2010 is a little different than it was in VS2005/2008. Unfortunately, in VS2012 this behavior remains the same as in VS2010. So, what is the issue? Working with Visual Studio, I use the keyboard in most cases. I also use the Apps key on the keyboard to open context menus in the code editor. Moreover, long time ago I am got used to using some key sequences, and press the keys without even thinking. In VS2008, a mouse pointer position didn’t affect context menu navigation if I used the keyboard. Every time I opened a context menu I was sure that, for example, the "Apps, Down, Down, Enter, Up, Enter" key sequence always invoke "Organize Usings > Remove and Sort" function. But in VS2010, this behavior has been changed. If a mouse pointer is located over an opened context menu, the menu item under the mouse pointer becomes selected immediately! So, now the "Apps, Down, Down, Enter, Up, Enter" key sequence will not lead to expected results all the time. In some cases, the result may be a little scary. If you are using Visual SVN extension, this key sequence may invoke "Revert whole file" function. Of course, this is not a fatal problem because "Undo" function restores all the changes, but this behavior strongly annoys me. In Visual Studio 2012, context menu behavior is a little different than in VS2010, but a mouse pointer position still affects the keyboard navigation in the context menu, and this behavior is still annoying. I tried to find the way how to change this behavior, but I didn’t manage to find the answer quickly. Then I decided to go right though, so I wrote a small utility which fixes this issue. This utility watches for Apps key, and if the key is pressed in Visual Studio, the utility moves the mouse pointer to the top of the screen before opening the context menu. You can find binaries and the source code of this utility here: http://code.google.com/p/vs-ctx-menu-fix/downloads/list This utility works fine in Windows 7 and Windows 8 x64. I wrote the first version in January, 2011; now I just added Visual Studio 2012 support. I hope you will find this utility useful! :)

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• Usage of Pirated software at a company

  - by hakesh

  Hi, I am redirected from stack over flow since the topic is ethics rather than about programming. Thank you for letting me know that. and please give me advices. So, I started to work at a company as an engineer a couple of months ago. It's a small company and what they basically do is answering service on phones. Now they are switching from normal phones to IP phones so that computers take more important place in the work. However, all the computers used by workers are equipped with pirated software ,even their operating systems are. Moreover, they don't even buy one license to make copies for other computers. In other words, they do not spend any money for the software in office. I am not saying copying a licensed one is legit, but the situation is too much. There is one guy who did installing those pirated soft. He does not feel any sense of guilt and even justified when I asked about it. and he is not even a specialist. He just searched on the internet to install pirated software. Our boss does not have any knowledge of computers, so he took cheaper way. How do you guys think about this? Since I am still new to the company, I am not doing maintenance or managing on those cracked computers. But I have to use those software daily. And later on I will be doing support, help desk kind of staff. I really don't want to take responsibility for operating pirated software. and from an aspect of developer and engineer, pirated software are not able to get legal support and it may work unexpectedly. So, I am thinking about changing job. Am I thinking too much? should I wait until I have more credit from the boss and try to change his policy? So far, the boss does not take any words from me. Any opinions are welcome. Thank you

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• Employer admits that its developers are underpaid and undervalued. Time to part ways?

  - by Psionic

  My employer recently posted an opening for a C# Developer with 3-5 years of experience. The requirements and expectations for the position were fair, up until the criteria for salary determination. It was stated clearly that compensation would depend ONLY on experience with C#, and that years of programming experience with other languages & frameworks would be considered irrelevant and not factored in. I brought up my concern with HR that good candidates would see this as a red flag and steer away. I attempted to explain that software development is about much more than specific languages, and that paying someone for their experience in a single language is a very shortsighted approach to hiring good developers (I'm telling this to the HR dept of a software company). The response: "We are tired of wasting time interviewing developers who expect 'big salaries' because they have lots of additional programming experience in languages other than what we require." The #1 issue here is that 'big salaries' = Market Rate. After some serious discussion, they essentially admitted that nobody at the company is paid near market rate for their skills, and there's nothing that can be done about it. The C-suite has the mentality that employees should only be paid for skills proven over years under their watch. Entry-level developers are picked up for less than $38K and may reach 50K after 3 years, which I'm assuming is around what they plan on offering candidates for the C# position. Another interesting discovery (not as relevant) - people 'promoted' to higher responsibilities do not get raises. The 'promotion' is considered an adjustment of the individuals' roles to better suit their 'strengths', which is what they're already being paid for. After hearing these hard truths straight from HR, I would assume that most people who are looking out for themselves would quickly begin searching for a new employer that has a better idea of what they're doing in the industry (this company fails in many other ways, but I don't want to write a book). Here is my dilemma however: This is the first official software development position I've held, for barely 1 year now. My previous position of 3 years was with a very small company where I performed many duties, among them software development (not in my official job description, but I tried very hard to make it so). I've identified local openings that I'm currently qualified for, most paying at least 50% more than I'm getting now. Question is, is it too soon for a jump? I am getting valuable experience in my current position, with no shortage of exciting projects. The work environment is very comfortable, and I'm told by many that I'm in the spotlight of the C-level guys for the stuff that I've been able to accomplish during my short time (for what that's worth). However, there is a clear opportunity cost to staying, knowing now with certainty that I will have to wait 3-5 years only to be capped at what I could potentially be earning elsewhere this year. I am also aware that 'job hopper' is a dangerous label to have, regardless of the reasons.

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