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  • Why is Java the lingua franca at so many institutions?

    - by Billy ONeal
    EDIT: This question at first seems to be bashing Java, and I guess at this point it is a bit. However, the bigger point I am trying to make is why any one single language is chosen as the one end all be all solution to all problems. Java happens to be the one that's used so that's the one I had to beat on here, but I'm not intentionality ripping Java a new one :) I don't like Java in most academic settings. I'm not saying the language itself is bad -- it has several extremely desirable aspects, most importantly the ability to run without recompilation on most any platform. Nothing wrong with using the language for Your Next App ^TM. (Not something I would personally do, but that's more because I have less experience with it, rather than it's design being poor) I think it is a waste that high level CS courses are taught using Java as a language. Too many of my co-students cannot program worth a damn, because they don't know how to work in a non-garbage-collected world. They don't fundamentally understand the machines they are programming for. When someone can work outside of a garbage collected world, they can work inside of one, but not vice versa. GC is a tool, not a crutch. But the way it is used to teach computer science students is a as a crutch. Computer science should not teach an entire suite of courses tailored to a single language. Students leave with the idea that all good design is idiomatic Java design, and that Object Oriented Design is the ONE TRUE WAY THAT IS THE ONLY WAY THINGS CAN BE DONE. Other languages, at least one of them not being a garbage collected language, should be used in teaching, in order to give the graduate a better understanding of the machines. It is an embarrassment that somebody with a PHD in CS from a respected institution cannot program their way out of a paper bag. What's worse, is that when I talk to those CS professors who actually do understand how things operate, they share feelings like this, that we're doing a disservice to our students by doing everything in Java. (Note that the above would be the same if I replaced it with any other language, generally using a single language is the problem, not Java itself) In total, I feel I can no longer respect any kind of degree at all -- when I can't see those around me able to program their way out of fizzbuzz problems. Why/how did it get to be this way?

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  • Should i continue my self-taught coding practice or learn how to do coding professionally?

    - by G1i1ch
    Lately I've been getting professional work, hanging out with other programmers, and making friends in the industry. The only thing is I'm 100% self-taught. It's caused my style to extremely deviate from the style of those that are properly trained. It's the techniques and organization of my code that's different. It's a mixture of several things I do. I tend to blend several programming paradigms together. Like Functional and OO. I lean to the Functional side more than OO, but I see the use of OO when something would make more sense as an abstract entity. Like a game object. Next I also go the simple route when doing something. When in contrast, it seems like sometimes the code I see from professional programmers is complicated for the sake of it! I use lots of closures. And lastly, I'm not the best commenter. I find it easier just to read through my code than reading the comment. And most cases I just end up reading the code even if there are comments. Plus I've been told that, because of how simply I write my code, it's very easy to read it. I hear professionally trained programmers go on and on about things like unit tests. Something I've never used before so I haven't even the faintest idea of what they are or how they work. Lots and lots of underscores "_", which aren't really my taste. Most of the techniques I use are straight from me, or a few books I've read. Don't know anything about MVC, I've heard a lot about it though with things like backbone.js. I think it's a way to organize an application. It just confuses me though because by now I've made my own organizational structures. It's a bit of a pain. I can't use template applications at all when learning something new like with Ubuntu's Quickly. I have trouble understanding code that I can tell is from someone trained. Complete OO programming really leaves a bad taste in my mouth, yet that seems to be what EVERYONE else is strictly using. It's left me not that confident in the look of my code, or wondering whether I'll cause sparks when joining a company or maybe contributing to open source projects. In fact I'm rather scared of the fact that people will eventually be checking out my code. Is this just something normal any programmer goes through or should I really look to change up my techniques?

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  • Drawing a line using openGL does not work

    - by vikasm
    I am a beginner in OpenGL and tried to write my first program to draw some points and a line. I can see that the window opens with white background but no line is drawn. I was expecting to see red colored (because glColor3f(1.0, 0.0, 0.0);) dots (pixels) and line. But nothing is seen. Here is my code. void init2D(float r, float g, float b) { glClearColor(r,g,b,0.0); glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); gluOrtho2D(0.0, 200.0, 0.0, 150.0); } void display() { glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); glColor3f(1.0, 0.0, 0.0); glBegin(GL_POINTS); for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { glVertex2i(10+5*i, 110); } glEnd(); //draw a line glBegin(GL_LINES); glVertex2i(10,10); glVertex2i(100,100); glEnd(); glFlush(); } int main(int argc, char** argv) { //Initialize Glut glutInit(&argc, argv); //setup some memory buffers for our display glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DOUBLE | GLUT_RGB); //set the window size glutInitWindowSize(500, 500); //create the window with the title 'points and lines' glutCreateWindow("Points and Lines"); init2D(0.0, 0.0, 0.0); glutDisplayFunc(display); glutMainLoop(); } I wanted to verify that the glcontext was opening properly and used this code: int main(int argc, char **argv) { glutInit(&argc, argv); //setup some memory buffers for our display glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DOUBLE | GLUT_RGB); //set the window size glutInitWindowSize(500, 500); //create the window with the title 'points and lines' glutCreateWindow("Points and Lines"); char *GL_version=(char *)glGetString(GL_VERSION); puts(GL_version); char *GL_vendor=(char *)glGetString(GL_VENDOR); puts(GL_vendor); char *GL_renderer=(char *)glGetString(GL_RENDERER); puts(GL_renderer); getchar(); return 0; } And the ouput I got was: 3.1.0 - Build 8.15.10.2345 Intel Intel(R) HD Graphics Family Can someone point out what I am doing wrong ? Thanks.

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  • core.* files eating up server space (~50MB)

    - by skytreader
    I'm renting server space from someone and, upon logging in my control panel after quite sometime, noticed an abnormal spike (~50MB) in the disk usage. Upon investigating, I found a lot of core.* files scattered around my public_html directory. Each one is more than 5MB in size but no more than 6MB. The * part is all numbers (in programming regex, that should be core\.\d+). I downloaded one and checked the contents. There was a lot of balderdash characters (NUL mostly, but also a scattering of ETB, ETX, STX) but there's this block of readable text which says: This text is part of the internal format of your mail folder, and is not a real message. It is created automatically by the mail system software. If deleted, important folder data will be lost, and it will be re-created with the data reset to initial values. Pretty self-explanatory. A few blocks above the text are some more readable messages that look like logs but is sandwiched in between non printable characters. I've extracted some below. Scan not valid for mh mailboxes Bogus character 0x%x in news state Can't rewrite news state %.80s Error closing backup news state %.80s No state for newsgroup %.80s found Now, a few concerns: Am I under attack? The messages seem to be about my webmail but I don't use my personal webmail that much---only for a vanity email address and an inbox for an outdated comments system. However, lately, I seem to notice a spike in the spam for my vanity mail. (Note: the comments system is covered by a captcha but every now and then some get through. My vanity email has a spam filter but it isn't as good as I'd like). Next, if this is a feature, can I turn it off? Is it advisable to? I've only 150MB so you see why I'm fretting over a 50MB spike. Some final details: my only server-side scripts are in PHP. The directory which accumulated the most number of these core files is the one containing the Wordpress-managed subdomain of my site. I manage my server through CPanel. Lastly, I decided to delete this files and after some checking nothing seems amiss in my websites nor in my mail. They are indeed the ones responsible for the ~50MB spike as my disk space usage is back to expected.

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  • Hierachies....from the Top Down

    - by Joe G
    I've been struggling with how to write on the topic of the importance of hierarchy design.  It's not so much that hierarchies haven't always been important, it's more of that with Fusion, the timing of when the hierarchies are designed should take a higher priority.    I will attempt to explain..... When I was implementing applications, back in the day, we had the list of detailed account values to enter with the obvious parent accounts. Then, after the setup was complete and things were functioning, the reporting phase started.  Users explained the elements that they want on the reports, what totals should be included, and how things should be compared.  Frequently, there was at least one calculation that became a nightmare either because it was based on very specific things that didn't relate to anything else or because it was "hardcoded" so that when something changed, someone need to "fix" the report. With Fusion, the process changes slightly.  You still want to enter all of the detailed accounts, but before you start adding parent values, you should investigate the reporting requirements from the top-down.  It's better to build hierarchies based on the reporting requirements than it is to build reports based on random hierarchies. Build reports based on hierarchies that resemble the reports themselves, and maintain the hierarchies without rework of the reports. For example, if you look at an income statement, you may have line items for Material Costs, Employee Costs, Travel & Entertainment, and Total Operating Expenses.  In your hierarchy, you have detail values that roll up to Material Costs, Employee Costs, and Travel & Entertainment which roll up to Total Operating Expenses. Balances are stored automatically in the cube for each of these.  When you define the report, you pick each of these members - no calculations required.  If a new detail value is added, you simply add it to the hierarchy, and there is no need to modify the report. I realize that there are always exceptions that require special handling, but I am confident that you will end up with much fewer exceptions if you make reporting a priority and design your hierarchies from the top-down.

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  • Speed up your Silverlight Debugging for large projects

    - by Aligned
    I'm working on a 5+ year old ASP.NET project that has 74+ projects and we've been adding new Silverlight applications to run in the ASP.NET page islands. My machine at work isn't the most powerful, so I find myself waiting a lot for the whole thing to build. I'm using Visual Studio 2010, so that takes up a lot of resources as well. This causes me to get distracted and I start looking at the news... I need to combat that more :-). I can't get a new machine, that's up to someone else, so I've found a few tricks to help. 1. Only build the Silverlight project you're working with. This will build all referenced projects (you can see these by right clicking and clicking Project Dependencies) and package a new XAP (you can see all the actions in your output build window). Then refresh your page with the Silverlight app and it's up-to-date. 2. I was working with a co-worker (thanks Jordan) who was using the the Debug -> attach to processes window. In the Attach to: row there is a "Select..." button. In the dialog, click "Debug these code types:" and select Silverlight. Hit ok. Then all you need to do is find your process (you might need to click the refresh button). I'm usually debugging in IE, so I select the first one and push "i" on the keyboard. That brings me to the IE windows open. Find the one with type of Silverlight, x86. It is usually directly above one with type of x86 that has the page title for "title". Click attach and watch your output window spit out messages about loading debug symbols and your breakpoints enabled (if this doesn't happen you chose the wrong process, hit stop and try again). Now you can debug the client code as normal, server code requires a full F5 or attaching to the correct process. To improve this even further, bind the menu item to a key stroke. I chose ctrl + x, x. (Tools -> Options -> Keyboard, search for Debug.AttachToProcess, set the shortcut keys globaly and assign). Most of the time I build the project, then hit ctrl + x, x then i, then enter and I'm debugging. The process I want is usually the first IE in the list.

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  • TechEd 2010 Day Three: The Database Designer (Isn't)

    - by BuckWoody
    Yesterday at TechEd 2010 here in New Orleans I worked the front-booth, answering general SQL Server questions for the masses. I was actually a little surprised to find most of the questions I got were from folks that wanted to know more about Stream Insight and Master Data Services. In past conferences I've been asked a lot of "free consulting" questions, about problems folks have had from older products. I don't mind that a bit - in fact, I'm always happy to help in any way I can. But this time people are really interested in the new features in the product, and I like that they are thinking ahead, not just having to solve problems in production. My presentation was on "Database Design in an Hour". We had the usual fun, and SideShow Bob made an appearance - I kid you not. The guy in the back of the room looked just like Sideshow Bob, so I quickly held a "bes thair" contest, and he won. Duing the presentation, I explain the tools you can use to design databases. I also explain that the "Database Designer" tool in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) isn't truly a desinger - it uses non-standard notation, doesn't have a meta-data dictionary, and worst of all, it works at the physical level. In other words, whatever you do in SSMS will automatically change the field/table/relationship structures in the database. We fixed this in SSMS 2008 and higher by adding an option to block that, but the tool is not a good design function nonetheless. To be fair, no one I know of at Microsoft recommends that it is - but I was shocked to hear so many developers in the room defending it as a good tool. I think the main issue for someone who doesn't have to work with Relational Systems a great deal is that it can be difficult to figure out Foreign Keys. The syntax makes them look "backwards", so it's just easier to grab a field and place it on the table you want to point to. There are options. You can download a couple of free tools (CA has a community edition of ER-WIN, Quest has one, and Embarcadero also has one) and if you design more than one or two databases a year, it may be worth buying a true design tool. For years I used Visio, but we changed it so that it doesn't forward-engineer (create the DDL) any more, so it isn't a true design tool either. So investigate those free and not-so-free tools. You'll find they help you in your job - but stay away from the Database Designer in SSMS. Or I'll send Sideshow Bob over there to straighten you out. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • Upgrades from Beta or CTP SQL Server Software is NOT Supported

    - by BuckWoody
    As of this writing, SQL Server 2008 R2 has released, and just like every release, I get e-mails and calls from folks with this question: “Can I upgrade from Customer Technical Preview (CTP) x or Beta #x or Release Candidate (RC) to the “Released to Manufacturing” (RTM) version?” No. Right up until the last minute, things are changing in the code – and you want that to happen. Our internal testing runs right up until the second we lock down for release, and we watch the CTP/RC/Beta reports to make sure there are no show-stoppers, and fix what we find. And it’s not just “big” changes you need to worry about – a simple change in one line of code can have a massive effect. I know, I know – you’ve possibly upgraded an RC or CTP to the RTM version and it worked “just fine”. But hear this tale: I’ve dealt with someone who faced this exact situation in SQL Server 2008. They upgraded (which is clearly prohibited in the documentation) from a CTP to the RTM version over a year ago. Everything was working fine. But then…one day they had an issue. Couldn’t fix it themselves, we took a look, days went by, and we finally had to call in the big guns for support. Turns out, the upgrade was the problem. So we had to come up with some elaborate schemes to get the system migrated over while they were in production. This was painful for everyone involved. So the answer is still no. Just don’t do it. There is one caveat to this story – if you are a “TAP” customer (you’ll know if you are), we help you move from the CTP products to RTM, but that’s a special case that we track carefully and send along special instructions and tools to help you along. That level of effort isn’t possible on a large scale, so it’s not just a magic tool that we run to upgrade from CTP to RTM. So again, unless you’re a TAP customer, it’s a no-no. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • Collision rectangle response

    - by dotty
    I'm having difficulties getting a moveable rectangle to collide with more than one rectangle. I'm using SFML and it has a handy function called Intersect() which takes 2 rectangles and returns the intersections. I have a vector full of rectangles which I want my moveable rectangle to collide with. I'm looping through this using the following code (p is the moveble rectangle). IsCollidingWith returns a bool but also uses SFML's Interesect to work out the intersections. while(unsigned i = 0; i!= testRects.size(); i++){ if(p.IsCollidingWith(testRects[i]){ p.Collide(testRects[i]); } } and the actual Collide() code void gameObj::collide( gameObj collidingObject ){ printf("%f %f\n", this->colliderResult.width, this->colliderResult.height); if (this->colliderResult.width < this->colliderResult.height) { // collided on X if (this->getCollider().left < collidingObject.getCollider().left ) { this->move( -this->colliderResult.width , 0); }else { this->move( this->colliderResult.width, 0 ); } } if(this->colliderResult.width > this->colliderResult.height){ if (this->getCollider().top < collidingObject.getCollider().top ) { this->move( 0, -this->colliderResult.height); }else { this->move( 0, this->colliderResult.height ); } } } and the IsCollidingWith() code is bool gameObj::isCollidingWith( gameObj testObject ){ if (this->getCollider().intersects( testObject.getCollider(), this->colliderResult )) { return true; }else { return false; } } This works fine when there's only 1 Rect in the scene. However, when there's move than one Rect it causes issue when working out 2 collisions at once. Any idea how to deal with this correctly? I have uploaded a video to youtube to show my problem. The console on the far-right shows the width and height of the intersections. You can see on the console that it's trying to calculate 2 collisions at once, I think this is where the problem is being caused. The youtube video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fA2gflOMcAk also , this image also seems to illustrate the problem nicely. Can someone please help, I've been stuck on this all weekend!

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  • How do I prevent ISPs from killing downloads of files in mid-transfer?

    - by Gorchestopher H
    I run a small website with a few users, low traffic, mostly to share personal mp3 files with a small community. Depending on their ISP, my users can't always download or stream larger files. By larger I mean larger than 1MB. Essentially the host either stops sending, or the client stops receiving. One of the links along the connection chain simply ends its connection before the transfer completes Trace-route shows no connection issues. There are no connection issues with short transfers that don't take more than a few seconds. It's these 10 second transfers that just end up ending. Just doing a straight download with a direct link can yield this error if you have the wrong ISP. Strangely enough, this is most common with users with ISPs who are essentially independent providers that buy service via a fiber link. Unfortunately these providers aren't very knowledgeable, are unable to do any testing, and insist it's a problem with the host. I have gotten my host to transfer my site to different servers of their, to the same effect. Nearly identical sites (affiliate sites actually) experience no such issue. What can I be doing to further troubleshoot this matter? How can I prove that someone is dropping the ball, and identify who that party is? Can I do a 5Mb traceroute? EDIT Maybe I can clear up some misconceptions with my question: The files are not very large. They are simply over 2Mb. The users do not have "slow" connections, they are at least 5mbps. This "time out" happens very quickly, in the realm of 5 seconds, so I don't know if it's a timeout or not. The user often gets 1 or 2Mb in this chunk of time. I have tried streaming with a flash player. I have tried saving the target. Forcing the download. I have tried allowing the browser to stream the file. I have tried different browsers (FF, IE, Chrome). Users are able to download identical files when on different hosts.

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  • Simulate 'Shock absorbtion' with tire rubber in PhysX (2.8.x)

    - by Mungoid
    This is a kinda tricky question and I fear there is no easy enough solution, but I figured I'd hit SE up before giving up on it and just doing what I can. A machine I am working on has no suspension or shocks or springs of any sort in the real machine, so you would think that when it drives over bumps, it would shake like crazy but because its tires (6 of them) are quite large they seem to absorb a lot of shock from the bumps. Part of this is because the machine is around 30k lbs and it just smashes/compresses any bumps in the ground down (This is another issue im still working on) and the other part is that the tires seem to have a lot of flex to them with a lot of air as well. So my current task is to simulate shock absorption in physx without visibly separating the tires from the spindle/axle.. I have been messing with all kinds of NxMaterial, NxSpring, Joints, etc. and have had no luck getting this to work. The main problem is that the spindle attached to the tire is directly in the center and the axle is basically solidly attached to the chassis, so if i give it any spring or suspension travel, that spindle on the tires will move upwards or downwards, looking very odd because now its not any longer in the center of the tire. I tried giving it a higher restitution but that just makes it bouncy without any shock absorption. Another avenue I am messing with is to actively smooth the terrain in front of the tires so that before it hits a bumpy patch, that patch is smoothed and it doesn't bounce. The only issue with this is that it is pretty expensive to do with 6 tires, high tesselation of the terrain and other complex things going on at the same time in this simulation. I am still working on this but I am hoping to mix and match a few different aspects to get the best possible outcome. This is a bit of a complex issue so I'm not expecting anyone to have a definitive answer, just hoping someone may think of something I haven't =-) -Side note: Yes i know PhysX 2.8.x is quite outdated but we have to stick with it for this implementation. We are in the process of going to another physics engine but it is out of scope to apply that engine to this project.

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  • android multitouch problem

    - by Max
    Im aware that there a a couple of posts on this matter, but Ive tried all of them and none of them gets rid of my problem. Im starting to get close to the end of my game so I bought a cabel to try it on a real phone, and as I expected my multitouch dosnt work. I use 2 joysticks, one to move my character and one to change his direction so he can shoot while walking backwards etc. my local variable: public void update(MotionEvent event) { if (event == null && lastEvent == null) { return; } else if (event == null && lastEvent != null) { event = lastEvent; } else { lastEvent = event; } int index = event.getActionIndex(); int pointerId = event.getPointerId(index); statement for left Joystick: if (pointerId == 0 && event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN && (int) event.getX() > steeringxMesh - 50 && (int) event.getX() < steeringxMesh + 50 && (int) event.getY() > yMesh - 50 && (int) event.getY() < yMesh + 50) { dragging = true; } else if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP) { dragging = false; } if (dragging) { //code for moving my character statement for my right joystick: if (pointerId == 1 && event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN && (int) event.getX() > shootingxMesh - 50 && (int) event.getX() < shootingxMesh + 50 && (int) event.getY() > yMesh - 50 && (int) event.getY() < yMesh + 50) { shooting = true; } else if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP) { shooting = false; } if (shooting) { // code for aiming } This class is my main-Views onTouchListener and is called in a update-method that gets called in my game-loop, so its called every frame. Im really at a loss here, I've done a couple of tutorials and Ive tried all relevant solutions to similar posts. Can post entire Class if necessary but I think this is all the relevant code. Just hope someone can make some sence out of this.

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  • Object Oriented Design of a Small Java Game

    - by user2733436
    This is the problem i am dealing with. I have to make a simple game of NIM. I am learning java using a book so far i have only coded programs that deal with 2 classes. This program would have about 4 classes i guess including the main class. My problem is i am having a difficult time designing classes how they will interact with each other. I really want to think and use a object oriented approach. So the first thing i did was design the Pile CLASS as it seemed the easiest and made the most sense to me in terms of what methods go in it. Here is what i have got down for the Pile Class so far. package Nim; import java.util.Random; public class Pile { private int initialSize; public Pile(){ } Random rand = new Random(); public void setPile(){ initialSize = (rand.nextInt(100-10)+10); } public void reducePile(int x){ initialSize = initialSize - x; } public int getPile(){ return initialSize; } public boolean hasStick(){ if(initialSize>0){ return true; } else { return false; } } } Now i need help in designing the Player Class. By that i mean i am not asking for anyone to write code for me as that defeats the purpose of learning i was just wondering how would i design the player class and what would go on it. My guess is that the player class would contain method for choosing move for computer and also receiving the move human user makes. Lastly i am guessing in the Game class i am guessing the turns would be handeled. I am really lost right now so i was wondering if someone can help me think through this problem it would be great. Starting with the player class would be appreciated. I know there are some solutions for this problem online but i refuse to look at because i want to develop my own approach to such problems and i am confident if i can get through this problem i can solve other problems. I apologize if this question is a bit poor but in specific i need help in designing the Player class.

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  • EF Doesn't Like Same Named Tables

    - by Anthony Trudeau
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tonyt/archive/2013/07/02/153327.aspxIt's another week and another restriction imposed by the Entity Framework (EF). Don't get me wrong. I like EF, but I don't like how it restricts you in different ways. At this point you may be asking yourself the question: how can you have more than one table with the same name?The answer is to have tables in different schemas. I do this to partition the data based on the area of concern. It allows security to be assigned conveniently. A lot of people don't use schemas. I love them. But this article isn't about schemas.In the situation I have two tables:Contact.PersonEmployee.PersonThe first contains the basic, more public information such as the name. The second contains mostly HR specific information. I then mapped these tables to two classes. I stuck to a Table per Class (TPC) mapping, because of problems I've had in the past implementing inheritance with EF. The following code gives you the basic contents of the classes.[Table("Person", Schema = "Employee")]public class Employee {   ...   public int PersonId { get; set; }   [ForeignKey("PersonId")]   public virtual Person Person { get; set; }}[Table("Person", Schema = "Contact")]public class Person {   [Key]   public int Id { get; set; }   ...}This seemingly simple scenario just doesn't work. The problem occurs when you try to add a Person to the DbContext. You get an InvalidOperationException with the following text:The entity types 'Employee' and 'Person' cannot share table 'People' because they are not in the same type hierarchy or do not have a valid one to one foreign key relationship with matching primary keys between them..This is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, there is no People table in my database. Second, I have used the SetInitializer method to stop a database from being created, so it shouldn't be thinking about new tables.The solution to my problem was to change the name of my Employee.Person table. I decided to name it Employee.Employee. It's not ideal, but it gets me past the EF limitation. I hope that this article will help someone else that has the same problem.

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  • How to snap a 2D Quad to the mouse cursor using OpenGL 3.0?

    - by NoobScratcher
    I've been having issues trying to snap a 2D Quad to the mouse cursor position I'm able : 1.) To get values into posX, posY, posZ 2.) Translate with the values from those 3 variables But the quad positioning I'm not able to do correctly in such a way that the 2D Quad is near the mouse cursor using those values from those 3 variables eg."posX, posY, posZ" I need the mouse cursor in the center of the 2D Quad. I'm hoping someone can help me achieve this. I've tried searching around with no avail. Heres the function that is ment to do the snapping but instead creates weird flicker or shows nothing at all only the 3d models show up : void display() { glClearColor(0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0); glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT|GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); for(std::vector<GLuint>::iterator I = cube.begin(); I != cube.end(); ++I) { glCallList(*I); } if(DrawArea == true) { glReadPixels(winX, winY, 1, 1, GL_DEPTH_COMPONENT, GL_FLOAT, &winZ); cerr << winZ << endl; glGetDoublev(GL_MODELVIEW_MATRIX, modelview); glGetDoublev(GL_PROJECTION_MATRIX, projection); glGetIntegerv(GL_VIEWPORT, viewport); gluUnProject(winX, winY, winZ , modelview, projection, viewport, &posX, &posY, & posZ); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, DrawAreaTexture); glPixelStorei(GL_UNPACK_ALIGNMENT, 1); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_NEAREST); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_NEAREST); glTexEnvf(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE, GL_DECAL); glTexImage2D (GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL_RGB, DrawAreaSurface->w, DrawAreaSurface->h, 0, GL_RGBA, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, DrawAreaSurface->pixels); glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, DrawAreaTexture); glTranslatef(posX , posY, posZ); glBegin(GL_QUADS); glTexCoord2f (0.0, 0.0); glVertex3f(0.5, 0.5, 0); glTexCoord2f (1.0, 0.0); glVertex3f(0, 0.5, 0); glTexCoord2f (1.0, 1.0); glVertex3f(0, 0, 0); glTexCoord2f (0.0, 1.0); glVertex3f(0.5, 0, 0); glEnd(); } SwapBuffers(hDC); } I'm using : OpenGL 3.0 WIN32 API C++ GLSL if you really want the full source here it is - http://pastebin.com/1Ncm9HNf , Its pretty messy.

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  • How should game objects be aware of each other?

    - by Jefffrey
    I find it hard to find a way to organize game objects so that they are polymorphic but at the same time not polymorphic. Here's an example: assuming that we want all our objects to update() and draw(). In order to do that we need to define a base class GameObject which have those two virtual pure methods and let polymorphism kicks in: class World { private: std::vector<GameObject*> objects; public: // ... update() { for (auto& o : objects) o->update(); for (auto& o : objects) o->draw(window); } }; The update method is supposed to take care of whatever state the specific class object needs to update. The fact is that each objects needs to know about the world around them. For example: A mine needs to know if someone is colliding with it A soldier should know if another team's soldier is in proximity A zombie should know where the closest brain, within a radius, is For passive interactions (like the first one) I was thinking that the collision detection could delegate what to do in specific cases of collisions to the object itself with a on_collide(GameObject*). Most of the the other informations (like the other two examples) could just be queried by the game world passed to the update method. Now the world does not distinguish objects based on their type (it stores all object in a single polymorphic container), so what in fact it will return with an ideal world.entities_in(center, radius) is a container of GameObject*. But of course the soldier does not want to attack other soldiers from his team and a zombie doesn't case about other zombies. So we need to distinguish the behavior. A solution could be the following: void TeamASoldier::update(const World& world) { auto list = world.entities_in(position, eye_sight); for (const auto& e : list) if (auto enemy = dynamic_cast<TeamBSoldier*>(e)) // shoot towards enemy } void Zombie::update(const World& world) { auto list = world.entities_in(position, eye_sight); for (const auto& e : list) if (auto enemy = dynamic_cast<Human*>(e)) // go and eat brain } but of course the number of dynamic_cast<> per frame could be horribly high, and we all know how slow dynamic_cast can be. The same problem also applies to the on_collide(GameObject*) delegate that we discussed earlier. So what it the ideal way to organize the code so that objects can be aware of other objects and be able to ignore them or take actions based on their type?

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  • is a factory pattern to prevent multuple instances for same object (instance that is Equal) good design?

    - by dsollen
    I have a number of objects storing state. There are essentially two types of fields. The ones that uniquly define what the object is (what node, what edge etc), and the oens that store state describing how these things are connected (this node is connected to these edges, this edge is part of these paths) etc. My model is updating the state variables using package methdos, so these objects all act as immutable to anyone not in Model scope. All Objects extend one base type. I've toyed with the idea of a Factory approch which accepts a Builder object and construct the applicable object. However, if an instance of the object already exists (ie would return true if I created the object defined by the builder and passed it to the equal method for the existing instance) the factory returns the current object instead of creating a new instance. Because the Equal method would only compare what uniquly defines the type of object (this is node A nto node B) but won't check the dynamic state stuff (node A is currently connected to nodes C and E) this would be a way of ensuring anyone that wants my Node A automatically knows it's state connections. More importantly it would prevent aliasing nightmares of someone trying to pass an instance of node A with different state then the node A in my model has. I've never heard of this pattern before, and it's a bit odd. I would have to do some overiding of serlization methods to make it work (ensure when I read in a serilized object I add it to my facotry list of known instances, and/or return an existing factory in it's place), as well as using a weakHashMap as if it was a weakHashSet to know rather an instance exists without worrying about a quasi-memory leak occuring. I don't know if this is too confusing or prone to it's own obscure bugs. One thing I know is that plugins interface with lowest level hardware. The plugins have to be able to return state taht is different then my memory; to tell my memory when it's own state is inconsistent. I believe this is possible despit their fetching objects that exist in my memory; we allow building of objects without checking their consistency with the model until the addToModel is called anyways; and the existing plugins design was written before all this extra state existed and worked fine without ever being aware of it. Should I just be using some other design to avoid this crazyness? (I have another question to that affect I'm posting).

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  • Should we persist with an employee still writing bad code after many years?

    - by user94986
    I've been assigned the task of managing developers for a well-established company. They have a single developer who specialises in all their C++ coding (since forever), but the quality of the work is abysmal. Code reviews and testing have revealed many problems, one of the worst being memory leaks. The developer has never tested his code for leaks, and I discovered that the applications could leak many MBs with only a minute of use. User's were reporting huge slowdowns, and his take was, "it's nothing to do with me - if they quit and restart, it's all good again." I've given him tools to detect and trace the leaks, and sat down with him for many hours to demonstrate how the tools are used, where the problems occur, and what to do to fix them. We're 6 months down the track, and I assigned him to write a new module. I reviewed it before it was integrated into our larger code base, and was dismayed to discover the same bad coding as before. The part that I find incomprehensible is that some of the coding is worse than amateurish. For example, he wanted a class (Foo) that could populate an object of another class (Bar). He decided that Foo would hold a reference to Bar, e.g.: class Foo { public: Foo(Bar& bar) : m_bar(bar) {} private: Bar& m_bar; }; But (for other reasons) he also needed a default constructor for Foo and, rather than question his initial design, he wrote this gem: Foo::Foo() : m_bar(*(new Bar)) {} So every time the default constructor is called, a Bar is leaked. To make matters worse, Foo allocates memory from the heap for 2 other objects, but he didn't write a destructor or copy constructor. So every allocation of Foo actually leaks 3 different objects, and you can imagine what happened when a Foo was copied. And - it only gets better - he repeated the same pattern on three other classes, so it isn't a one-off slip. The whole concept is wrong on so many levels. I would feel more understanding if this came from a total novice. But this guy has been doing this for many years and has had very focussed training and advice over the past few months. I realise he has been working without mentoring or peer reviews most of that time, but I'm beginning to feel he can't change. So my question is, would you persist with someone who is writing such obviously bad code?

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  • Developing web sites that imitate desktop apps. How to fight that paradigm? [closed]

    - by user1598390
    Supposse there's a company where web sites/apps are designed to resemble desktop apps. They struggle to add: Splash screens Drop-down menus Tab-pages Pages that don't grow downward with content, context is inside scrollable area so page is of a fixed size, as if resembling the one-screen limitation of desktop apps. Modal windows, pop-ups, etc. Tree views Absolutely no access to content unless you login-first, even with non-sensitive content. After splash screen desapears, you are presented with a login screen. No links - just simulated buttons. Fixed page-size. Cannot open a linked in other tab Print button that prints directly ( not showing printable page so the user can't print via the browser's print command ) Progress bars for loading content even when the browser indicates it with its own animation Fonts and color amulate a desktop app made with Visual Basic, PowerBuilder etc. Every app seems almost as if were made in Visual Basic. They reject this elements: Breadcrumbs Good old underlined links Generated/dynamic navigation, usage-based suggestions Ability to open links in multiple tabs Pagination Printable pages Ability to produce a URL you can save or share that links to an item, like when you send someone the link to an especific StackExchange question. The only URL is the main one. Back button To achieve this, tons of javascript code is needed. Lots and lots of Javascript and Ajax code for things not related with the business but with the necessity to hide/show that button, refresh this listbox, grey-out that label, etc. The coplexity generated by forcing one paradigm into another means most lines of code are dedicated to maintain the illusion of a desktop app. What is the best way to change this mindset, and make them embrace the web, and start producing modern, web apps instead of desktop imitations ? EDIT: These sites are intranet sites. Users hate these apps. They constantly whine about them, but they have to use them to do their daily work. These sites are in-house solutions, the end-users have no choice but to use them. They are a "captive audience". Also, substitution will not happen because of high costs. But at least if that mindset is changed, new developments would be more web-like.

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  • Registering domain during Christmas holidays

    - by arkascha
    One of the domain names I tried to register previously has been blocked by a domain grabber two days prior to my own attempt. That was about 1 year ago. The attempt to buy the domain from that person failed due to a totally exaggerated price. So I dropped the issue and watched the domain (offered at sedo.com). As expected there were no more offers, the domain was not sold. Now I learn from the whois database that the registration of that domain name ends on 25 Dec 2012 (Christmas holiday). This raises two questions for me, I fail to find reliable answers on the internet. So maybe someone experienced here can drop a statement or a hint: Is it reasonable that the domain name in question really will be free again when that date mentioned in the whois database up to when the domain is registered has passed? I certainly know that the registration can be prolonged, that is not what I mean. I expect (hope) that that domain grabber does not extend the registration, since it costs money and effort and he failed to sell the domain. Provided this is the case and the domain registration is not prolonged, is that date mentioned reliable? Or might it just be some 'default' date? I would like to try to register that domain name as soon as it is unregistered. Since that domain grabber registered that domain only two days before my own registration attempt I would like to prevent such annoying interference next time. So I ask myself: is it possible to register a domain name on a holiday? I mean not to send an email to my provider to do so on that day or before, but to actually have to process taking place as not to wait for 1-2 days after the unregistration? My own provider which I am very happy with does not offer such service on a holiday (which is perfectly understandable). They are 'still checking' if they can offer something automatic. I researched and did not find an answer to the question if that is possible at all. Is an automatic registration attempt on a holiday possible? Where can I do that? Is that reliable?

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  • Best language on Linux to replace manual tasks that use SSH/Telnet? [on hold]

    - by Calab
    I've been tasked to create and maintain a web browser based interface to replace several of the manual tasks that we perform now. I currently have a "shakey" but working program written in Perl (2779 lines) that uses basic Expect coding, but it has some limitations that require a great deal of coding to get around. Because of this I am going to do a complete rewrite and want to do it "right" this time. My question is this... What would be the best language to use to create a web based interface to perform SSH/Telnet tasks that we would normally do manually? Keep in mind the following requirements: Runs on a CentOS Linux system v5.10 Http will be served by Apache2 This is an INTRANET site and only accessible within our organization. User load will be light. No more that 5 users accessing it at one time. perl 5.8.8, php 5.3.3, python 2.7.2 are available... Not sure what other languages to check for, or what modules might be installed in each language. The web interface will need to provide progress indicators and text output produced by the remote connection, in real time as it is generated. If we are running our process on multiple hosts, they should be in individual threads so that they can run side by side, not sequentially. I want the ability to "trap" on specific text generated by the remote host and display an alert to the user - such as when the remote host generates an error message. I would like to avoid as much client side scripting (javascript/vbscript) as I can. Most users will be on Windows PC's using Chrome or IE as a browser. Users will be downloading the resulting output so they can process it as they see fit. I currently have no experience with "Ajax" or the like. Most of my coding experience is old 6809 assembly, Visual Basic 6, and whatever I can cut/paste from online examples in various languages (hence my "shaky" Perl program) My coding environment is Eclipse for remote code editing, but I prefer stuff like UltraEdit if I can get a decent syntax file for the language I'm using. I do have su access on the server, but I'm not the only one using this server so I can't just upgrade/install blindly as I might impact other software currently running on the machine. One reason that I'm asking here, instead of searching (which I did) is that most replies were, "use language 'xyz', but you need to use an external SSH connection" - like I'm using Expect in my Perl script. Most also did not agree on what language that 'xyz' should be. ...so, after this long posting, can someone offer some advice?

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  • Building Enterprise Smartphone App &ndash; Part 3: Key Concerns

    - by Tim Murphy
    This is part 3 in a series of posts based on a talk I gave recently at the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group.  Feel free to leave feedback. Keys Concerns Of Smartphones In The Enterprise These are the factors that you need to be aware of and address in order to build successful enterprise smartphone applications.  Most of them have nothing to do with the application itself as you will see here. Managing Devices Managing devices is a factor that is going to effect how much your company will have to spend outside of developing the applications.  How will you track the devices within the corporation?  How often will you have to replace phones and as a consequence have to upgrade your applications to support new phones?  The devices can represent a significant investment of capital.  If these questions are not addressed you will find a number of hidden costs throughout the life of your solution. Purchase or BYOD We have seen the trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) lately within the enterprise.  How many meetings have you been in where someone is on their personal iPad, iPhone, Android phone or Windows Phone?  The issue is if you can afford to support everyone's choice in device? That is a lot to take on even if you only support the current release of each platform. Do you go with the most popular device or do you pick a platform that best matches your current ecosystem and distribute company owned devices?  There is no easy answer here, but you should be able give some dollar value to both hardware and development costs related to platform coverage. Asset Tracking/Insurance Smartphones are devices that are easier to lose or have stolen than laptops and desktops. Not only do you have your normal asset management concerns but also assignment of financial responsibility. You also will need to insure them against damage and theft and add legal documents that spell out the responsibilities of the employees that use these devices. Personal vs. Corporate Data What happens when you terminate an employee?  How do you recover the device?  What happens when they have put personal data on the device?  These are all situation that can cause possible loss of corporate intellectual property or legal repercussions of reclaiming a device with personal data on it.  Policies need to be put in place that protect the company from being exposed to type of loss.  This can mean significant legal and procedural cost that you need to consider. Coming Up In the last installment of this series I will cover application development considerations. del.icio.us Tags: Smartphones,Enterprise Smartphone Apps,Architecture

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  • Why is the MaskBit maxed out

    - by CStreel
    Hi there for some reason the maskbit of my b2FixtureDef is being maxxed out and im not sure why Here is the declaration of the items that are used in the game enum PhysicBits { PB_NONE = 0x0000, PB_PLAYER = 0x0001, PB_PLATFORM = 0x0002 }; Basically what i want is the player to run along a surface is not slow down (i set platform & player friction to 0.0f) I then setup my Contact Listener to print out the connections (currently only have 1 platform and 1 player) Player Fixture Def b2FixtureDef fixtureDef; fixtureDef.shape = &groundBox; fixtureDef.density = 1.0f; fixtureDef.friction = 0.0f; fixtureDef.filter.categoryBits = PB_PLAYER; fixtureDef.filter.maskBits = PB_PLATFORM; Platform Fixture Def b2FixtureDef fixtureDef; fixtureDef.shape = &groundBox; fixtureDef.density = 1.0f; fixtureDef.friction = 0.0f; fixtureDef.filter.categoryBits = PB_PLATFORM; fixtureDef.filter.maskBits = PB_PLAYER; Now correct me if im wrong but these are saying the following: Player Collides with Platform Platform Collides with Player Here is the printout of the fixtures colliding with each other ******** <-- Indicates new Contact Platform ContactA: 2 MaskA: 1 ------ Player ContactB: 1 MaskB: 2 ******** <-- Indicates new Contact Platform ContactA: 2 MaskA: 1 ------ Player ContactB: 1 MaskB: 65535 ******** <-- Indicates new Contact Platform ContactA: 1 MaskA: 65535 ------ Player ContactB: 1 MaskB: 65535 Here is where i am confused. On the second & third contact the player maskBit is set to 65535 when it should be 2 and there are 3 contacts when i am sure at most there should only be 2. I've been trying to figure this out for hours and i can't understand why it is doing this. I would be very grateful is someone could shine some light on this for me UPDATE: **I printed out the class of the contacting objects. For some reason it seems to do the following: First Contact: Correct Result. Second Contact: Player b2Fixture Obtains a new maskBit. Third Contact: Platform b2Fixture appears to be set to the same as the Player b2Fixture. It would seem I have a memory race condition i think**

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  • how did Google Analytics kill my site?

    - by user1813359
    Yesterday I created a google analytics profile for one of my sites and included the JS block in the layout template. What happened next was very strange. Within about 2 minutes, the site had become unreachable. I had been checking the AWStats page for the site when I thought to set up GA. After that had been done, I clicked on the link for 404 stats, which opens in a new tab. It churned for a long while and then showed a nearly blank page, similar to that when Firefox chokes on a badly-formatted XML page, except there was no error msg. But i was logged into the server and could see that that page has a 401 Transitional DTD. Strange! I tried viewing source but it just churned endlessly. I then tried "inspect element" and was able to see an error msg having to do with some internal Firefox lib. Unfortunately, i neglected to copy that. :-( All further attempts to load anything on the site would time out. Firebug's Net panel showed no request being made. Chrome would time out. So, I deleted the GA profile, removed the JS block, and cleared the server cache. No joy. I then removed all google cookies and disabled JS. Still nothing. No luck in any other browser. And now my client couldn't access the site. Terrific. I was able use wget while logged into another server. The retrieved page was fine, and did not contain the GA JS block. However, the two servers are on the same network. (Perhaps a clue.) The server itself was fine. Ping, traceroute looked great. I could SSH in. I tailed the access log and tried a browser request. Nothing. But i forgot to quit and a minute or so later I saw a request from someone else being logged. Later, I could see that requests had been served all day to some people. Now, 24 hours later, the site works once again, but is still unreachable by the client (who is in another city). So, does anyone have some insight into what's going on? Does this have something to do with google's CDN? I don't know very much about how GA works but what I'm seeing reminds me of DNS propagation issues. And why the initial XML error? And why the heck was the site just plain unreachable? What did google do to my site?! Sorry for the length but I wanted to cover everything.

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  • How to set up an rsync backup to Ubuntu securely?

    - by ws_e_c421
    I have been following various other tutorials and blog posts on setting up a Ubuntu machine as a backup "server" (I'll call it a server, but it's just running Ubuntu desktop) that I push new files to with rsync. Right now, I am able to connect to the server from my laptop using rsync and ssh with an RSA key that I created and no password prompt when my laptop is connected to my home router that the server is also connected to. I would like to be able to send files from my laptop when I am away from home. Some of the tutorials I have looked at had some brief suggestions about security, but they didn't focus on them. What do I need to do to let my laptop with send files to the server without making it too easy for someone else to hack into the server? Here is what I have done so far: Ran ssh-keygen and ssh-copy-id to create a key pair for my laptop and server. Created a script on the server to write its public ip address to a file, encrypt the file, and upload to an ftp server I have access to (I know I could sign up for a free dynamic DNS account for this part, but since I have the ftp account and don't really need to make the ip publicly accessible I thought this might be better). Here are the things I have seen suggested: Port forwarding: I know I need to assign the server a fixed ip address on the router and then tell the router to forward a port or ports to it. Should I just use port 22 or choose a random port and use that? Turn on the firewall (ufw). Will this do anything, or will my router already block everything except the port I want? Run fail2ban. Are all of those things worth doing? Should I do anything else? Could I set up the server to allow connections with the RSA key only (and not with a password), or will fail2ban provide enough protection against malicious connection attempts? Is it possible to limit the kinds of connections the server allows (e.g. only ssh)? I hope this isn't too many questions. I am pretty new to Ubuntu (but use the shell and bash scripts on OSX). I don't need to have the absolute most secure set up. I'd like something that is reasonably secure without being so complicated that it could easily break in a way that would be hard for me to fix.

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