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• Dealing with coworkers when developing, need advice [closed]

  - by Yippie-Kai-Yay

  I developed our current project architecture and started developing it on my own (reaching something like, revision 40). We're developing a simple subway routing framework and my design seemed to be done extremely well - several main models, corresponding views, main logic and data structures were modeled "as they should be" and fully separated from rendering, algorithmic part was also implemented apart from the main models and had a minor number of intersection points. I would call that design scalable, customizable, easy-to-implement, interacting mostly based on the "black box interaction" and, well, very nice. Now, what was done: I started some implementations of the corresponding interfaces, ported some convenient libraries and wrote implementation stubs for some application parts. I had the document describing coding style and examples of that coding style usage (my own written code). I forced the usage of more or less modern C++ development techniques, including no-delete code (wrapped via smart pointers) and etc. I documented the purpose of concrete interface implementations and how they should be used. Unit tests (mostly, integration tests, because there wasn't a lot of "actual" code) and a set of mocks for all the core abstractions. I was absent for 12 days. What do we have now (the project was developed by 4 other members of the team): 3 different coding styles all over the project (I guess, two of them agreed to use the same style :), same applies to the naming of our abstractions (e.g CommonPathData.h, SubwaySchemeStructures.h), which are basically headers declaring some data structures. Absolute lack of documentation for the recently implemented parts. What I could recently call a single-purpose-abstraction now handles at least 2 different types of events, has tight coupling with other parts and so on. Half of the used interfaces now contain member variables (sic!). Raw pointer usage almost everywhere. Unit tests disabled, because "(Rev.57) They are unnecessary for this project". ... (that's probably not everything). Commit history shows that my design was interpreted as an overkill and people started combining it with personal bicycles and reimplemented wheels and then had problems integrating code chunks. Now - the project still does only a small amount of what it has to do, we have severe integration problems, I assume some memory leaks. Is there anything possible to do in this case? I do realize that all my efforts didn't have any benefit, but the deadline is pretty soon and we have to do something. Did someone have a similar situation? Basically I thought that a good (well, I did everything that I could) start for the project would probably lead to something nice, however, I understand that I'm wrong. Any advice would be appreciated, sorry for my bad english.

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• Gettings Terms asscoiated to a Specific list item

  - by Gino Abraham

  I had a fancy requirement where i had to get all tags associated to a document set in a document library. The normal tag could webpart was not working when i add it to the document set home page, so planned a custom webpart. Was checking in net to find a straight forward way to achieve this, but was not lucky enough to get something. Since i didnt get any samples in net, i looked into Microsoft.Sharerpoint.Portal.Webcontrols and found a solution.The socialdataframemanager control in 14Hive/Template/layouts/SocialDataFrame.aspx directed me to the solution. You can get the dll from ISAPI folder. Following Code snippet can get all Terms associated to the List Item given that you have list name and id for the list item. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.SharePoint; using Microsoft.Office.Server.SocialData; namespace TagChecker { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { // Your site url string siteUrl = http://contoso; // List Name string listName = "DocumentLibrary1"; // List Item Id for which you want to get all terms int listItemId = 35; using (SPSite site = new SPSite(siteUrl)) { using(SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb()) { SPListItem listItem = web.Lists[listName].GetItemById(listItemId); string url = string.Empty; // Based on the list type the url would be formed. Code Sniffed from Micosoft dlls :) if (listItem.ParentList.BaseType == SPBaseType.DocumentLibrary) { url = listItem.Web.Url.TrimEnd(new char[] { '/' }) + "/" + listItem.Url.TrimStart(new char[] { '/' }); } else if (SPFileSystemObjectType.Folder == listItem.FileSystemObjectType) { url = listItem.Web.Url.TrimEnd(new char[] { '/' }) + "/" + listItem.Folder.Url.TrimStart(new char[] { '/' }); } else { url = listItem.Web.Url.TrimEnd(new char[] { '/' }) + "/" + listItem.ParentList.Forms[PAGETYPE.PAGE_DISPLAYFORM].Url.TrimStart(new char[] { '/' }) + "?ID=" + listItem.ID.ToString(); } SPServiceContext serviceContext = SPServiceContext.GetContext(site); Uri uri = new Uri(url); SocialTagManager mgr = new SocialTagManager(serviceContext); SocialTerm[] terms = mgr.GetTerms(uri); foreach (SocialTerm term in terms) { Console.WriteLine(term.Term.Labels[0].Value ); } } } Console.Read(); } } } Reference dlls added are Microsoft.Sharepoint , Microsoft.Sharepoint.Taxonomy, Microsoft.office.server, Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles from ISAPI folder. This logic can be used to make a custom tag cloud webpart by taking code from OOB tag cloud, so taht you can have you webpart anywhere in the site and still get Tags added to a specifc libdary/List. Hope this helps some one.

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• BIP 10.1.3.4.x June 2010 Update Available

  - by Tim Dexter

  A new patchset for 10.1.3.4.0 and 10.1.3.4.1 is available on Metalink. some notes: The patch number is 9791839. This patchset includes 28 new bug fixes since the last patchset release on March 31. This is a culmulative update that includes all the fixes and enhancements from previous updates. The patch will supercede the other two updates. Install instructions are in the readme inside the patch There is also a new BIP client patch available, 9821068. No new template building features to my knowledge but there is an update to the template viewer to allow you to test and debug you siny new Excel templates. Server 8529759XMLP_TEMPLATE_DESIGNER CANNOT SAVE / UPLOAD TEMPLATE 8566455 BI PUBLISHER SCHEDULER DOES NOT START WITH JNDI DATA SOURCE 9295667RESPONSE OF GETSCHEDULEDREPORTINFO RETURNS STATUS AS 'UNKNOWN' INSTEAD OF 'SCHED 9542413 UNABLE TO CREATE A NEW TEMPLATE FROM UI 9546137 EXCEL ANALYZER TEMPLATE FAILS FOR A STRUCTURED XML WHEN IT IS UPLOADED 9556338 SIEBEL - BIP PARAMETERS SORT ORDER 9560562 BI PUBLISHER CACHE DIRECTORY FILLING UP AND POINTING TO INVALID DIRECTORY 9646599 USER ROLE DEFINED AS PRIMARYGROUP IN ACTIVEDIRECTORY GROUP ARE NOT RECOGNIZED 9664768 ER: NEED TO BIND USER ATTRIBUTE VALUES DEFINED IN ACTIVEDIRECTORY IN DATA QUERY 9665075 BI PUBLISHER AFTER 9546699 NOTIFICATIONS FOR REPORTS FAIL 9669973 ER: NEED TO SUPPORT PRE-PROCESSING XML WITH XSL FOR EXCEL TEMPLATE 9704401 ER: NEED TO SUPPORT DEFAULT GROUP FOR ALL USERS IN LDAP/AD SECURITY 9711899 SEARCH PARAMETER IS NOT VISIBLE WHEN SCHEDULE A REPORT 9753736 SOME ROLES FROM ACTIVEDIRECTORY ARE NOT LISTED IN ADMIN ROLE-FOLDER MAPPING 9771354 MULTIPLE PARAMETERS IN 10.1.3.4.1 DATA TEMPLATE ACT ACT DIFFERENTLY FROM 10.1.3. 9772982 "REFRESH OTHER PARAMETERS ON CHANGE" DOESN'T WORK PROPERLY Core  8599646 ER:EXTRA SPACE ADDED BELOW IMAGE IN A TABLE CELL OF TEMPLATE IN FIREFOX 9377593 SOME ROWS HEIGHT IN HTML/EXCEL OUTPUT ARE TOO BIG IN BI PUBLISHER 9487030 NAVIGATION TREE REPEATING TWICE IN PDF DCCUMENT CREATED BY BI PUBLISHER 9509432 PERFORMANCE ISSUE WHEN USING PDF TEMPLATE 9534424 PS: DOCUMENT-REPEAT-FULLPATH-ELEMENTNAME SHOULDNT USE DOT "." AS PATH SEPARATOR 9553360 FORMPROCESSOR CANNOT PARSE SOME PDF TEMPLATES 9554959 TEXT IN AUTOSHAPE IS NOT PROPERLY CUT OFF FOR LINE WRAPPING 9569417 AFTER APPLYING PATCH 9509432 PDF TEMPLATES WITH DBDRV PRODUCE NO OUTPUT 9571670 ER: EXCEL TEMPLATE TO SUPPORT XSLT LOGIC AND XSL CUSTOM EXTENTIONS 9589809 XSL:CALL-TEMPLATE IS MISSING IN GENERATED XSL FILE 9605920 BOOKMARK TESTCASE FAILED DUE TO ER9283933 9689634 PRINT FLOW CHART USING ACROSS 3 DOWN 0 GIVES EXTRA BLANK PAGES You might have noticed some fixes and ehancements to the Excel templates so I can get back on those now. There is a part two to the Mapviewer BIP Mashup coming ... just need aanother 4 hours in the day to squeeze it in.

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• Fixing a NoClassDefFoundError

  - by Chris Okyen

  I have some code: package ftc; import java.util.Scanner; public class Fer_To_Cel { public static void main(String[] argv) { // Scanner object to get the temp in degrees Farenheit Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in); boolean isInt = true; // temporarily put as true in case the user enters a valid int the first time int degreesF = 0; // initialy set to 0 do { try { // Input the temperature text. System.out.print("\nPlease enter a temperature (integer number, no fractional part) in degrees Farenheit: "); degreesF = Integer.parseInt(keyboard.next()); // Get user input and Assign the far. temperature variable, which is casted from String to int. } // Let the user know in a user friendly notice that the value entered wasnt an int ( give int value range ) , and then give error log catch(java.lang.Exception e) { System.out.println("Sorry but you entered a non-int value ( needs to be between ( including ) -2,147,483,648 and 2,147,483,647 ).. \n"); e.printStackTrace(); isInt = false; } } while(!isInt); System.out.println(""); // print a new line. final int degreesC = (5*(degreesF-32)/9); // convert the degrees from F to C and store the resulting expression in degreesC // Print out a newline, then print what X degrees F is in Celcius. System.out.println("\n" + degreesF + " degrees Farenheit is " + degreesC + " degrees Celcius"); } } And The following error: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_06\bin>java Fer_To_Cel Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Fer_To_Cel (wrong name: ftc/Fer_To_Cel) at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method) at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:791) at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:14 at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:449) at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:71) at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:361) at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:355) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:354) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:423) at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:308) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:356) at sun.launcher.LauncherHelper.checkAndLoadMain(LauncherHelper.java:480) The code compiled without compile errors, but presented errors during execution. Which leads me to two questions. I know Errors can be termed Compiler, Runtime and Logic Errors, but the NoClassDefFoundError inherits java.lang.LinkageError. Does that make it a Linker error, being niether of the three types of errors I listed, If I am right this is the answer. For someone else who obtains the singular .java file and compiles it, would this be the only way to solve this problem? Or can I (should I ) do/have done something to fix this problem? Basically, based on a basis of programming, is this a fault of me as the writer? Could this be done once on, my half and be distributed and not needed be done again?

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• cocos2d-x simple shader usage [on hold]

  - by Narek

  I want to obtain color ramp effect from this tutorial: http://www.raywenderlich.com/10862/how-to-create-cool-effects-with-custom-shaders-in-opengl-es-2-0-and-cocos2d-2-x Here is my code in cocos2d-x 3: bool HelloWorld::init() { ////////////////////////////// // 1. super init first if ( !Layer::init() ) { return false; } Vec2 origin = Director::getInstance()->getVisibleOrigin(); sprite = Sprite::create("HelloWorld.png"); sprite->setAnchorPoint(Vec2(0, 0)); sprite->setRotation(3); sprite->setPosition(origin); addChild(sprite); std::string str = FileUtils::getInstance()->getStringFromFile("CSEColorRamp.fsh"); const GLchar * fragmentSource = str.c_str(); GLProgram* p = GLProgram::createWithByteArrays(ccPositionTextureA8Color_vert, fragmentSource); p->bindAttribLocation(GLProgram::ATTRIBUTE_NAME_POSITION, GLProgram::VERTEX_ATTRIB_POSITION); p->bindAttribLocation(GLProgram::ATTRIBUTE_NAME_TEX_COORD, GLProgram::VERTEX_ATTRIB_TEX_COORD); p->link(); p->updateUniforms(); sprite->setGLProgram(p); // 3 colorRampUniformLocation = glGetUniformLocation(sprite->getGLProgram()->getProgram(), "u_colorRampTexture"); glUniform1i(colorRampUniformLocation, 1); // 4 colorRampTexture = Director::getInstance()->getTextureCache()->addImage("colorRamp.png"); colorRampTexture->setAliasTexParameters(); // 5 sprite->getGLProgram()->use(); glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE1); glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, colorRampTexture->getName()); glActiveTexture(GL_TEXTURE0); return true; } And here is the fragment shader as it is in the tutorial: #ifdef GL_ES precision mediump float; #endif // 1 varying vec2 v_texCoord; uniform sampler2D u_texture; uniform sampler2D u_colorRampTexture; void main() { // 2 vec3 normalColor = texture2D(u_texture, v_texCoord).rgb; // 3 float rampedR = texture2D(u_colorRampTexture, vec2(normalColor.r, 0)).r; float rampedG = texture2D(u_colorRampTexture, vec2(normalColor.g, 0)).g; float rampedB = texture2D(u_colorRampTexture, vec2(normalColor.b, 0)).b; // 4 gl_FragColor = vec4(rampedR, rampedG, rampedB, 1); } As a result I get a black screen with 2 draw calls. What is wrong? Do I miss something?

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• Function like C# properties?

  - by alan2here

  I was directed here from SO as a better stack exchange site for this question. I've been thinking about the neatness and expression of C# properties over functions, although they only currently work where no parameters are used, and wondered. Is is possible, and if so why not, to have a stand alone function like C# property. For example: public class test { private byte n = 4; public test() { func = 2; byte n2 = func; func; } private byte func { get { return n; } set { n = value; } func { n++; } } } edit: Sorry for the vagueness first time round. I'm going to add some info and motivation. The 'n++' here is just a simple example, a placeholder, it's not intended to be representative of the actual code that would be used. I'm also looking at this from the point of view of looking at the property command as is, not in the context of using it for 'get_xyz' and 'set_xyz' member functions, which is certainly useful, but of instead comparing it more abstractly to functions and other programic elements. A 'get' property can be used instead of a function that takes no parameters, and syntactically they are perhaps only aesthetically, but as I see it noticeably nicer. However, properties also add the potential for an extra layer of polymorphism, one that relates to the 'func = 4;' getting, 'int n = func;' setting or 'func;' function like context in which they are used as well as the more common parameter based polymorphism. Potentially allowing for a lot of expression and contextual information reguarding how other would use your functions. As in many places uses and definitions would remain the same, it shouldn't break existing code. private byte func { get { } get bool { } set { } func { } func(bool) { } func(byte, myType) { } // etc... } So a read only function would look like this: private byte func { get { } } A normal function like this: private void func { func { } } A function with parameter polymorphism like this: private byte func { func(bool) { } func(byte, myType) { } } And a function that could return a value, or just compute, depending on the context it is used, that also has more conventional parameter polymorphism as well, like so: private byte func { get { } func(bool) { } func(byte, myType) { } }

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• Another Custom Property Locator: a Library of Books

  - by Cindy McMullen

  Introduction The previous post gave an introduction to custom property locators and showed how create one using JDeveloper.  This post continues on the custom locator theme, with a slightly more complex locator: a library of books.  It demonstrates using the DAO pattern to delegate data access from the Locator, which is likely how many actual backing stores will integrate with the Locator.  You can imagine, rather than a library of books, the data store might be a user database of sorts.  The same sort of pattern would apply. This post uses the BookLocator example originally shown in the WebCenter documentation, but has: updated the source code to reflect the final Property APIs includes the steps for generating the namespace and property definition files via JDeveloper detailed usage of the PropertyService APIs Getting Started If you're new to JDeveloper, you might want to check out this tutorial.  There is also the "Jump-Start to using Personalization" blog post that you might find useful.  Otherwise, if you're already familiar with both, you can skip those tutorials and jump right in to using JDeveloper. Download the BookLocator.zip file (which has been updated from the original post) and unzip it to a new directory.  Start JDeveloper, navigate to the BookLocator.jws file, and open it.   It should look something like this: The Properties Namespace file contains the property definitions and property set definitions you define.  It is explained more in detail in the Namespace documentation.  Although this example doesn't show it, the property set definitions have the ability to reference multiple locators per property.   This can be done by right-clicking on the 'Locator Info' box.  Configure the contents of the Locator Map  by editing locators and mapping them to available property names in the property set definition. Compiling, deploying, and running your locator The rest of the steps in this tutorial basically follow those in the previous blog on custom locators, and won't be repeated here.   A scenario to invoke your locator is included with the sample app: see BookProperties.scenarios_diagram above.  Summary This post demonstrates a simple library of books accessed by the BookPropertyLocator via the DAO layer.  This is a useful pattern for more realistic property retrievals, such as a backing user store.  It also points out the possibility of retrieving properties from multiple locators, which would be quite handy to retrieve user attributes from multiple sources.

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• Behaviour Trees with irregular updates

  - by Robominister

  I'm interested in behaviour trees that aren't iterated every game tick, but every so often. (Edit: the tree could specify how many frames within the main game loop to wait before running its tick function again). Every theoretical implementation I have seen of behaviour trees talks of the tree search being carried out every game update - which seems necessary, because a leaf node (eg a behaviour, like 'return to base') needs to be constantly checked to see if is still running, failed or completed. Can anyone suggest how I might start implementing a tree that isnt run every tick, or point me in the direction of good material specific to this case (I am struggling to find anything)? My thoughts so far: action leaf nodes (when they start) must only push some kind of action object onto a list for an entity, rather than directly calling any code that makes the entity do something. The list of actions for the entity would be run every frame (update any that need to run, pop any that have completed from the list). the return state from a given action must be fed back into the tree, so that when we run the tree iteration again (and reach the same action leaf node - so the tree has so far determined that we ought to still be trying this action) - that the action has completed, or is still running etc. If my actual action code is running from an action list on an entity, then I possibly need to cancel previously running actions in the list - i am thinking that I can just delete the entire stack of queued up actions. I've seen the idea of ActionLists which block lower priority actions when a higher priority one is added, but this seems like very close logic to behaviour trees, and I dont want to be duplicating behaviour. This leaves me with some questions 1) How would I feed the action return state back into the tree? Its obvious I need to store some information relating to 'currently executing actions' on the entity, and check that in the tree tick, but I can't imagine how. 2) Does having a seperate behaviour tree (for deciding behaviour) and action list (for carrying out actual queued up actions) sound like a reasonable approach? 3) Is the approach of updating a behaviour tree irregularly actually used by anyone? It seems like a nice idea for budgeting ai search time when you have a lot of ai entities to process. (Edit) - I am also thinking about storing a single instance of a given behaviour tree in memory, and providing it by reference to any entity that uses it. So any information about what action was last selected for execution on an entity must be stored in a data context relative to the entity (which the tree can check). (I am probably answering my own questions as i go!) I hope I have expressed my questions adequately! Thanks in advance for any help :)

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• Collision in PyGame for spinning rectangular object.touching circles

  - by OverAchiever

  I'm creating a variation of Pong. One of the differences is that I use a rectangular structure as the object which is being bounced around, and I use circles as paddles. So far, all the collision handling I've worked with was using simple math (I wasn't using the collision "feature" in PyGame). The game is contained within a 2-dimensional continuous space. The idea is that the rectangular structure will spin at different speed depending on how far from the center you touch it with the circle. Also, any extremity of the rectangular structure should be able to touch any extremity of the circle. So I need to keep track of where it has been touched on both the circle and the rectangle to figure out the direction it will be bounced to. I intend to have basically 8 possible directions (Up, down, left, right and the half points between each one of those). I can work out the calculation of how the objected will be dislocated once I get the direction it will be dislocated to based on where it has been touch. I also need to keep track of where it has been touched to decide if the rectangular structure will spin clockwise or counter-clockwise after it collided. Before I started coding, I read the resources available at the PyGame website on the collision class they have (And its respective functions). I tried to work out the logic of what I was trying to achieve based on those resources and how the game will function. The only thing I could figure out that I could do was to make each one of these objects as a group of rectangular objects, and depending on which rectangle was touched the other would behave accordingly and give the illusion it is a single object. However, not only I don't know if this will work, but I also don't know if it is gonna look convincing based on how PyGame redraws the objects. Is there a way I can use PyGame to handle these collision detections by still having a single object? Can I figure out the point of collision on both objects using functions within PyGame precisely enough to achieve what I'm looking for? P.s: I hope the question was specific and clear enough. I apologize if there were any grammar mistakes, English is not my native language.

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• 2D game - Missile shooting problem on Android

  - by Niksa

  Hello, I have to make a tank that sits still but moves his turret and shoots missiles. As this is my first Android application ever and I haven't done any game development either, I've come across a few problems... Now, I did the tank and the moving turret once I read the Android tutorial for the LunarLander sample code. So this code is based on the LunarLander code. But I'm having trouble doing the missile firing then SPACE button is being pressed. private void doDraw(Canvas canvas) { canvas.drawBitmap(backgroundImage, 0, 0, null); // draws the tank canvas.drawBitmap(tank, x_tank, y_tank, new Paint()); // draws and rotates the tank turret canvas.rotate((float) mHeading, (float) x_turret + mTurretWidth, y_turret); canvas.drawBitmap(turret, x_turret, y_turret, new Paint()); // draws the grenade that is a regular circle from ShapeDrawable class bullet.setBounds(x_bullet, y_bullet, x_bullet + width, y_bullet + height); bullet.draw(canvas); } UPDATE GAME method private void updateGame() throws InterruptedException { long now = System.currentTimeMillis(); if (mLastTime > now) return; double elapsed = (now - mLastTime) / 1000.0; mLastTime = now; // dUP and dDown, rotates the turret from 0 to 75 degrees. if (dUp) mHeading += 1 * (PHYS_SLEW_SEC * elapsed); if (mHeading >= 75) mHeading = 75; if (dDown) mHeading += (-1) * (PHYS_SLEW_SEC * elapsed); if (mHeading < 0) mHeading = 0; if (dSpace){ // missile Logic, a straight trajectorie for now x_bullet -= 1; y_bullet -= 1; //doesn't work, has to be updated every pixel or what? } boolean doKeyDown(int keyCode, KeyEvent msg) { boolean handled = false; synchronized (mSurfaceHolder) { if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_SPACE){ dSpace = true; handled = true; } if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_DPAD_UP){ dUp = true; handled = true; } if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_DPAD_DOWN){ dDown = true; handled = true; } return handled; } } } a method run that runs the game... public void run() { while (mRun) { Canvas c = null; try { c = mSurfaceHolder.lockCanvas(null); synchronized (mSurfaceHolder) { if (mMode == STATE_RUNNING) updateGame(); doDraw(c); } } catch (InterruptedException e) { // TODO Auto-generated catch block e.printStackTrace(); } finally { // do this in a finally so that if an exception is thrown // during the above, we don't leave the Surface in an // inconsistent state if (c != null) { mSurfaceHolder.unlockCanvasAndPost(c); } } } } So the question would be, how do I make that the bullet is fired on a single SPACE key press from the turret to the end of the screen? Could you help me out here, I seem to be in the dark here... Thanks, Niksa

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• Agile Documentation

  - by Nick Harrison

  We all know that one of the premises of the agile manifesto is to value Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation. This is a wonderful idea and it takes a tremendous burden off of project implementations. I have seen as many projects fail because of the maintenance weight of the project documentations as I have for any reason. But this goal as important as it is may not always be practical. Sometimes the client will simply insist on tedious documentation despite the arguments against it. This may be to calm a nervous client. This may be to satisfy an audit / compliance requirement. This may be a non-too subtle attempt at sabotaging the project. Ok, it is probably not an all out attempt to sabotage the project, but it will probably feel that way. So what can we do to keep to the spirit of the Agile Manifesto but still meet the needs of the client wanting the documentation? This is a good question that I have been puzzling over lately! I hope to explore some possible answers more fully here. A common theme that my solutions are likely to follow is the same theme that I often follow with simplifying complex business logic. Make it table driven! My thought is that the sought after documentation could be a report or reports out of a metadata repository. Reports are much easier to maintain than hand written documentation. Here are a few additional advantages that we can explore over time: Reports will take advantage of the fact that different people have different needs and different format requirements Reports and the supporting metadata are more easily validated and the validation can be automated. If the application itself uses this metadata than there never has to be a question as to whether or not the metadata is up to date. It is up to date or the application would not work. In many cases we should be able to automatically gather most of the Meta data that we need using reflection, system tables, etc. I think that this will lower the total cost of ownership for the documentation and may provide something useful beyond having a pretty document to look at.  What are your thoughts?

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• Contract / Project / Line-Item hierarchy design considerations

  - by Ryan

  We currently have an application that allows users to create a Contract. A contract can have 1 or more Project. A project can have 0 or more sub-projects (which can have their own sub-projects, and so on) as well as 1 or more Line. Lines can have any number of sub-lines (which can have their own sub-lines, and so on). Currently, our design contains circular references, and I'd like to get away from that. Currently, it looks a bit like this: public class Contract { public List<Project> Projects { get; set; } } public class Project { public Contract OwningContract { get; set; } public Project ParentProject { get; set; } public List<Project> SubProjects { get; set; } public List<Line> Lines { get; set; } } public class Line { public Project OwningProject { get; set; } public List ParentLine { get; set; } public List<Line> SubLines { get; set; } } We're using the M-V-VM "pattern" and use these Models (and their associated view models) to populate a large "edit" screen where users can modify their contracts and the properties on all of the objects. Where things start to get confusing for me is when we add, for example, a Cost property to the Line. The issue is reflecting at the highest level (the contract) changes made to the lowest level. Looking for some thoughts as to how to change this design to remove the circular references. One thought I had was that the contract would have a Dictionary<Guid, Project> which would contain ALL projects (regardless of their level in hierarchy). The Project would then have a Guid property called "Parent" which could be used to search the contract's dictionary for the parent object. THe same logic could be applied at the Line level. Thanks! Any help is appreciated.

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• How to deal with malicious domain redirections?

  - by user359650

  It is possible for anybody to buy a domain name containing negative terms and point it to someone's website in order to damage their reputation. For instance someone could buy the domain child-pornography.com and point it to the address 64.34.119.12 which is the address behind stackoverflow.com and people navigating to the domain in question would end up visualizing content from StackExchange which would be detrimental to StackExchange's image. To illustrate this, I added the entry 64.34.119.12 child-pornography.com to my /etc/hosts file and tested. Here is what I obtained: I personally found this user experience terrible as someone could think that Stack Exchange are in favor of child pornography and awaiting support from the community to create a Q&A site about it. I tested with other websites and experienced other behaviors that I would categorize as follows: 1 - Useful 404 page (happens with stackoverflow.com): For me the worst way of handling this as the image of the targeted website is directly associated with the offending domain. The more useful the 404 page, the bigger the impression that the targeted website would be willing to help with child pornography. 2 - Redirection (happens with microsoft.com): For instance when accessing child-pornography.com you get redirected to www.microsoft.com. It isn't as bad as above as the offending domain name never appears alongside the targeted website's content, but still bad in my opinion as it gives the impression the targeted website bought the offending domain and redirected it to their website to get more traffic. 3 - Server error (happens with lemonde.fr): You get an error from the webserver which page doesn't contain any content that can be associated with the targeted website (e.g. default Apache 404 page, completely blank page). I believe that is good as the identify of the targeted website isn't revealed. Above are the various behaviors I experienced, but I also thought about a fourth way of dealing with this which is described below. 4 - Disclaimer page (haven't found any website implementing that technique): Display a message such as : "You ended here because someone bought and linked the child-pornography.com domain to our website. We do not own this domain and do not associate ourselves with it. This request has been logged by our servers and we will raise this issue with the competent authorities to have this domain taken down. If you want to access our website, please click here." The good thing about this method is that it can be implemented at application layer (good if you don't have control over web server which happens with some hosting solutions), allows you to protect yourself from any liability, and offer the visitor to be redirected to your own website. Which of the above options would you implement to deal with malicious domain linking (IMO only options 3 and 4 are worth considering) ?

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• Why does my ID3DXSprite appear to be incorrectly scaled?

  - by Bjoern

  I am using D3D9 for rendering some simple things (a movie) as the backmost layer, then on top of that some text messages, and now wanted to add some buttons to that. Before adding the buttons everything seemed to have worked fine, and I was using a ID3DXSprite for the text as well (ID3DXFont), now I am loading some graphics for the buttons, but they seem to be scaled to something like 1.2 times their original size. In my test window I centered the graphic, but it being too big it just doesnt fit well, for example the client area is 640x360, the graphic is 440, so I expect 100 pixel on left and right, left side is fine [I took screenshot and "counted" the pixels in photoshop], but on the right there is only about 20 pixels) My rendering code is very simple (I am omitting error checks, et cetera, for brevity) // initially viewport was set to width/height of client area // clear device m_d3dDevice->Clear( 0, NULL, D3DCLEAR_TARGET|D3DCLEAR_STENCIL|D3DCLEAR_ZBUFFER, D3DCOLOR_ARGB(0,0,0,0), 1.0f, 0 ); // begin scene m_d3dDevice->BeginScene(); // render movie surface (just two triangles to which the movie is rendered) m_d3dDevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_ALPHABLENDENABLE,false); m_d3dDevice->SetSamplerState( 0, D3DSAMP_MAGFILTER, D3DTEXF_LINEAR ); // bilinear filtering m_d3dDevice->SetSamplerState( 0, D3DSAMP_MINFILTER, D3DTEXF_LINEAR ); // bilinear filtering m_d3dDevice->SetTextureStageState( 0, D3DTSS_COLORARG1, D3DTA_TEXTURE ); m_d3dDevice->SetTextureStageState( 0, D3DTSS_COLORARG2, D3DTA_DIFFUSE ); //Ignored m_d3dDevice->SetTextureStageState( 0, D3DTSS_COLOROP, D3DTOP_SELECTARG1 ); m_d3dDevice->SetTexture( 0, m_movieTexture ); m_d3dDevice->SetStreamSource(0, m_displayPlaneVertexBuffer, 0, sizeof(Vertex)); m_d3dDevice->SetFVF(Vertex::FVF_Flags); m_d3dDevice->DrawPrimitive(D3DPT_TRIANGLELIST, 0, 2); // render sprites m_sprite->Begin(D3DXSPRITE_ALPHABLEND | D3DXSPRITE_SORT_TEXTURE | D3DXSPRITE_DO_NOT_ADDREF_TEXTURE); // text drop shadow m_font->DrawText( m_playerSprite, m_currentMessage.c_str(), m_currentMessage.size(), &m_playerFontRectDropShadow, DT_RIGHT|DT_TOP|DT_NOCLIP, m_playerFontColorDropShadow ); // text m_font->DrawText( m_playerSprite, m_currentMessage.c_str(), m_currentMessage.size(), &m_playerFontRect, DT_RIGHT|DT_TOP|DT_NOCLIP, m_playerFontColorMessage ) ); // control object m_sprite->Draw( m_texture, 0, 0, &m_vecPos, 0xFFFFFFFF ); // draws a few objects like this m_sprite->End() // end scene m_d3dDevice->EndScene(); What did I forget to do here? Except for the control objects (play button, pause button etc which are placed on a "panel" which is about 440 pixels wide) everything seems fine, the objects are positioned where I expect them, but just too big. By the way I loaded the images using D3DXCreateTextureFromFileEx (resizing wnidow, and reacting to lost device, etc, works fine too). For experimenting, I added some code to take an identity matrix and scale is down on the x/y axis to 0.75f, which then gave me the expected result for the controls (but also made the text smaller and out of position), but I don't know why I would need to scale anything. My rendering code is so simple, I just wanted to draw my 2D objects 1;1 the size they came from the file... I am really very inexperienced in D3D, so the answer might be very simple...

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• Understanding exceptional cases

  - by Justin

  I've been studying the use of exceptions in various php projects (such as Doctrine and Zend Framework). Exceptions seem to be thrown when unordinary input/state occurs. A perfect example is Doctrine throwing an exception when you try to use a invalid query string. I think the creators of the doctrine api understood that first, you can't query data by using an invalid DQL statement, and a developer should immediately be warned that an error has occurred, rather then letting execution continue with the possibility of an error code going un-checked. I also bet that this simplifies reading the code. I can't think of a situation where you would want to use an invalid DQL statement, except unit testing. Since this is true, it's better to avoid plaguing a bunch of code with null/error checks and use exceptions. I've read in books that exceptions shouldn't be thrown when validating dating user input. I've seen examples where of where the guideline is broken. One example is the Zend framework. If supplying an invalid controller or action name, an exception is thrown. Unlike doctrine, the user has more direct control over this sort of input. I know you can configure an error controller and set up a 404 message or what have you, but I'm curious why they have used an exception in this scenario? I guess you can argue the Zend Framework does not know how to continue processing the quest. One last example Is I wrote a function to return some html based on a given resource type. This resource type is hard-coded and sent when a user interacts with a web site (such as clicking a button to display the form to input data). I don't expect users to be mucking around with the request type. Under normal operating conditions, the resource type should be valid. To clean up some logic, I was going to throw an exception if a particular form wasn't found. This is mainly to find the correct form associated with a resource type so proper validation can occur. Does this sound like a valid use case for an exception? Right now it's pretty trivial, but I do plan to implement a restful consumer and re-using a function to map resources to their validation services would be very useful. I can then catch the exception and based on the consumer, return an error message suitable for the request type...

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• How granular should a command be in a CQ[R]S model?

  - by Aaronaught

  I'm considering a project to migrate part of our WCF-based SOA over to a service bus model (probably nServiceBus) and using some basic pub-sub to achieve Command-Query Separation. I'm not new to SOA, or even to service bus models, but I confess that until recently my concept of "separation" was limited to run-of-the-mill database mirroring and replication. Still, I'm attracted to the idea because it seems to provide all the benefits of an eventually-consistent system while sidestepping many of the obvious drawbacks (most notably the lack of proper transactional support). I've read a lot on the subject from Udi Dahan who is basically the guru on ESB architectures (at least in the Microsoft world), but one thing he says really puzzles me: As we get larger entities with more fields on them, we also get more actors working with those same entities, and the higher the likelihood that something will touch some attribute of them at any given time, increasing the number of concurrency conflicts. [...] A core element of CQRS is rethinking the design of the user interface to enable us to capture our users’ intent such that making a customer preferred is a different unit of work for the user than indicating that the customer has moved or that they’ve gotten married. Using an Excel-like UI for data changes doesn’t capture intent, as we saw above. -- Udi Dahan, Clarified CQRS From the perspective described in the quotation, it's hard to argue with that logic. But it seems to go against the grain with respect to SOAs. An SOA (and really services in general) are supposed to deal with coarse-grained messages so as to minimize network chatter - among many other benefits. I realize that network chatter is less of an issue when you've got highly-distributed systems with good message queuing and none of the baggage of RPC, but it doesn't seem wise to dismiss the issue entirely. Udi almost seems to be saying that every attribute change (i.e. field update) ought to be its own command, which is hard to imagine in the context of one user potentially updating hundreds or thousands of combined entities and attributes as it often is with a traditional web service. One batch update in SQL Server may take a fraction of a second given a good highly-parameterized query, table-valued parameter or bulk insert to a staging table; processing all of these updates one at a time is slow, slow, slow, and OLTP database hardware is the most expensive of all to scale up/out. Is there some way to reconcile these competing concerns? Am I thinking about it the wrong way? Does this problem have a well-known solution in the CQS/ESB world? If not, then how does one decide what the "right level" of granularity in a Command should be? Is there some "standard" one can use as a starting point - sort of like 3NF in databases - and only deviate when careful profiling suggests a potentially significant performance benefit? Or is this possibly one of those things that, despite several strong opinions being expressed by various experts, is really just a matter of opinion?

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• Suggestions for Summer Intern Application Assignments

  - by orangepips

  As part of our application process we want prospective college interns to complete an assignment on their own - either programming or analytical - to give us something tangible to evaluate such as code or a flowchart. I have two ideas for these assignments, one programming and one analytical, I am interested in gathering feedback about these. Programming Assignment Generate an a month's calendar for a given date. The first row should indicate the days of the week (e.g. Sunday - Saturday). Each subsequent row should contain a week's days. The date supplied should be highlighted (e.g. bolded). I am thinking we'll probably proscribe the output format even more strictly - probably down to what the HTML source should look like including CSS classes. Thinking is this forces answerers to actually do some work if they merely copy a solution from the internet. Analytical Assignment Diagram or describe in prose a system for managing a set of traffic lights for traffic at a four way intersection. Each direction (i.e. North, South, East and West) has two lanes (i.e. right and left). The left lane is turn only and has green arrow light to indicate right of way. The system is able to detect if lanes have cars in them and change the lights accordingly. I would expect a flow chart or some prose describing a finite state machine that deals with each contingency. This would hopefully provide some indication of the applicant's ability to reason through a logic problem of sorts and articulate an approach for solving. Areas Seeking Feedback Is it unreasonable to ask this of applicants? If not, is it better to request before or after a phone screen? Are these questions too hard or easy for a collegiate audience? Any suggestions for alternate questions? Do these seem like good tools for analyzing people who would part of a software development life cycle? Programming language suggestions - I'm thinking Java, Python and/or C# (we're actually a ColdFusion shop).

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• So, I though I wanted to learn frontend/web development and break out of my comfort zone...

  - by ripper234

  I've been a backend developer for a long time, and I really swim in that field. C++/C#/Java, databases, NoSql, caching - I feel very much at ease around these platforms/concepts. In the past few years, I started to taste end-to-end web programming, and recently I decided to take a job offer in a front end team developing a large, complex product. I wanted to break out of my comfort zone and become more of an "all around developer". Problem is, I'm getting more and more convinced I don't like it. Things I like about backend programming, and missing in frontend stuff: More interesting problems - When I compare designing a server that handle massive data, to adding another form to a page or changing the validation logic, I find the former a lot more interesting. Refactoring refactoring refactoring - I am addicted to Visual Studio with Resharper, or IntelliJ. I feel very comfortable writing code as it goes without investing too much thought, because I know that with a few clicks I can refactor it into beautiful code. To my knowledge, this doesn't exist at all in javascript. Intellisense and navigation - I hate looking at a bunch of JS code without instantly being able to know what it does. In VS/IntelliJ I can summon the documentation, navigate to the code, climb up inheritance hiererchies ... life is sweet. Auto-completion - Just hit Ctrl-Space on an object to see what you can do with it. Easier to test - With almost any backend feature, I can use TDD to capture the requirements, see a bunch of failing tests, then implement, knowing that if the tests pass I did my job well. With frontend, while tests can help a bit, I find that most of the testing is still manual - fire up that browser and verify the site didn't break. I miss that feeling of "A green CI means everything is well with the world." Now, I've only seriously practiced frontend development for about two months now, so this might seem premature ... but I'm getting a nagging feeling that I should abandon this quest and return to my comfort zone, because, well, it's so comfy and fun. Another point worth mentioning in this context is that while I am learning some frontend tools, a lot of what I'm learning is our company's specific infrastructure, which I'm not sure will be very useful later on in my career. Any suggestions or tips? Do you think I should give frontend programming "a proper chance" of at least six to twelve months before calling it quits? Could all my pains be growing pains, and will they magically disappear as I get more experienced? Or is gaining this perspective is valuable enough, even if plan to do more "backend stuff" later on, that it's worth grinding my teeth and continuing with my learning?

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• Use Expressions with LINQ to Entities

  - by EltonStoneman

  [Source: http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman] Recently I've been putting together a generic approach for paging the response from a WCF service. Paging changes the service signature, so it's not as simple as adding a behavior to an existing service in config, but the complexity of the paging is isolated in a generic base class. We're using the Entity Framework talking to SQL Server, so when we ask for a page using LINQ's .Take() method we get a nice efficient SQL query for just the rows we want, with minimal impact on SQL Server and network traffic. We use the maximum ID of the record returned as a high-water mark (rather than using .Skip() to go to the next record), so the approach caters for records being deleted between page requests. In the paged response we include a HasMorePages indicator, computed by comparing the max ID in the page of results to the max ID for the whole resultset - if the latter is bigger, then there are more pages. In some quick performance testing, the paged version of the service performed much more slowly than the unpaged version, which was unexpected. We narrowed it down to the code which gets the max ID for the full resultset - instead of building an efficient MAX() SQL query, EF was returning the whole resultset and then computing the max ID in the service layer. It's easy to reproduce - take this AdventureWorks query:             var context = new AdventureWorksEntities();             var query = from od in context.SalesOrderDetail                         where od.ModifiedDate >= modified                          && od.SalesOrderDetailID.CompareTo(id) > 0                         orderby od.SalesOrderDetailID                         select od;   We can find the maximum SalesOrderDetailID like this:             var maxIdEfficiently = query.Max(od => od.SalesOrderDetailID);   which produces our efficient MAX() SQL query. If we're doing this generically and we already have the ID function in a Func:             Func<SalesOrderDetail, int> idFunc = od => od.SalesOrderDetailID;             var maxIdInefficiently = query.Max(idFunc);   This fetches all the results from the query and then runs the Max() function in code. If you look at the difference in Reflector, the first call passes an Expression to the Max(), while the second call passes a Func. So it's an easy fix - wrap the Func in an Expression:             Expression<Func<SalesOrderDetail, int>> idExpression = od => od.SalesOrderDetailID;             var maxIdEfficientlyAgain = query.Max(idExpression);   - and we're back to running an efficient MAX() statement. Evidently the EF provider can dissect an Expression and build its equivalent in SQL, but it can't do that with Funcs.

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• How do I use IIS7 rewrite to redirect requests for (HTTP or HTTPS):// (www or no-www) .domainaliases.ext to HTTPS://maindomain.ext

  - by costax

  I have multiple domain names assigned to the same site and I want all possible access combinations redirected to one domain. In other words whether the visitor uses http://domainalias.ext or http://www.domainalias.ext or https://www.domainalias3.ext or https://domainalias4.ext or any other combination, including http://maindomain.ext, http://www.maindomain.ext, and https://www.maindomain.ext they are all redirected to https://maindomain.ext I currently use the following code to partially achieve my objectives: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <configuration> <system.webServer> <rewrite> <rules> <rule name="CanonicalHostNameRule" stopProcessing="true"> <match url="(.*)" /> <conditions> <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="^MAINDOMAIN\.EXT$" negate="true" /> </conditions> <action type="Redirect" redirectType="Permanent" url="https://MAINDOMAIN.EXT/{R:1}" /> </rule> <rule name="HTTP2HTTPS" stopProcessing="true"> <match url="(.*)" /> <conditions> <add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" ignoreCase="true" /> </conditions> <action type="Redirect" redirectType="Permanent" url="https://MAINDOMAIN.EXT/{R:1}" /> </rule> </rules> </rewrite> </system.webServer> </configuration> ...but it fails to work in all instances. It does not redirect to https://maindomain.ext when user inputs https://(www.)domainalias.ext So my question is, are there any programmers here familiar with IIS7 ReWrite that can help me modify my existing code to cover all possibilities and reroute all my domain aliases, loaded by themselves or using www in front, in HTTP or HTTPS mode, to my main domain in HTTPS format??? The logic would be: if entire URL does NOT start with https://maindomain.ext then REDIRECT to https://maindomain.ext/(plus_whatever_else_that_followed). Thank you very much for your attention and any help would be appreciated. NOTE TO MODS: If my question is not in the correct format, please edit or advise. Thanks in advance.

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• Switch from back-end to front-end programming: I'm out of my comfort zone, should I switch back?

  - by ripper234

  I've been a backend developer for a long time, and I really swim in that field. C++/C#/Java, databases, NoSql, caching - I feel very much at ease around these platforms/concepts. In the past few years, I started to taste end-to-end web programming, and recently I decided to take a job offer in a front end team developing a large, complex product. I wanted to break out of my comfort zone and become more of an "all around developer". Problem is, I'm getting more and more convinced I don't like it. Things I like about backend programming, and missing in frontend stuff: More interesting problems - When I compare designing a server that handle massive data, to adding another form to a page or changing the validation logic, I find the former a lot more interesting. Refactoring refactoring refactoring - I am addicted to Visual Studio with Resharper, or IntelliJ. I feel very comfortable writing code as it goes without investing too much thought, because I know that with a few clicks I can refactor it into beautiful code. To my knowledge, this doesn't exist at all in javascript. Intellisense and navigation - I hate looking at a bunch of JS code without instantly being able to know what it does. In VS/IntelliJ I can summon the documentation, navigate to the code, climb up inheritance hiererchies ... life is sweet. Auto-completion - Just hit Ctrl-Space on an object to see what you can do with it. Easier to test - With almost any backend feature, I can use TDD to capture the requirements, see a bunch of failing tests, then implement, knowing that if the tests pass I did my job well. With frontend, while tests can help a bit, I find that most of the testing is still manual - fire up that browser and verify the site didn't break. I miss that feeling of "A green CI means everything is well with the world." Now, I've only seriously practiced frontend development for about two months now, so this might seem premature ... but I'm getting a nagging feeling that I should abandon this quest and return to my comfort zone, because, well, it's so comfy and fun. Another point worth mentioning in this context is that while I am learning some frontend tools, a lot of what I'm learning is our company's specific infrastructure, which I'm not sure will be very useful later on in my career. Any suggestions or tips? Do you think I should give frontend programming "a proper chance" of at least six to twelve months before calling it quits? Could all my pains be growing pains, and will they magically disappear as I get more experienced? Or is gaining this perspective is valuable enough, even if plan to do more "backend stuff" later on, that it's worth grinding my teeth and continuing with my learning?

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• More elegant way to avoid hard coding the format of a a CSV file?

  - by dsollen

  I know this is trivial issue, but I just feel this can be more elegant. So I need to write/read data files for my program, lets say they are CSV for now. I can implement the format as I see fit, but I may have need to change that format later. The simply thing to do is something like out.write(For.getValue()+","+bar.getMinValue()+","+fi.toString()); This is easy to write, but obviously is guilty of hard coding and the general 'magic number' issue. The format is hard-coded, requires parsing of the code to figure out the file format, and changing the format requires changing multiple methods. I could instead have my constants specifying the location that I want each variable to be saved in the CSV file to remove some of the 'magic numbers'; then save/load into the an array at the location specified by the constants: int FOO_LOCATION=0; int BAR_MIN_VAL_LOCATION=1; int FI_LOCATION=2 int NUM_ARGUMENTS=3; String[] outputArguments=new String[NUM_ARGUMENTS]; outputArguments[FOO_LOCATION] = foo.getValue(); outputArgumetns[BAR_MIN_VAL_LOCATION] = bar.getMinValue(); outptArguments[FI_LOCATOIN==fi.toString(); writeAsCSV(outputArguments); But this is...extremely verbose and still a bit ugly. It makes it easy to see the format of existing CSV and to swap the location of variables within the file easily. However, if I decide to add an extra value to the csv I need to not only add a new constant, but also modify the read and write methods to add the logic that actually saves/reads the argument from the array; I still have to hunt down every method using these variables and change them by hand! If I use Java enums I can clean this up slightly, but the real issue is still present. Short of some sort of functional programming (and java's inner classes are too ugly to be considered functional) I still have no obvious way of clearly expressing what variable is associated with each constant short of writing (and maintaining) it in the read/write methods. For instance I still need to write somewhere that the FOO_LOCATION specifies the location of foo.getValue(). It seems as if there should be a prettier, easier to maintain, manner for approaching this? Incidentally, I'm working in java at the moment, however, I am interested conceptually about the design approach regardless of language. Some library in java that does all the work for me is definitely welcome (though it may prove more hassle to get permission to add it to the codebase then to just write something by hand quickly), but what I'm really asking is more about how to write elegant code if you had to do this by hand.

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• What will be the better way for data retrieval on application that needs to handle limited amount of data.?

  - by Milanix

  This is not really a coding question since, I am not adding any code in here. Since, adding my code snippets itself would make this question really long. Instead, I am pretty interested in knowing a better ways for data retrieval on application that needs to handle limited amount of data which isn't updated regularly. Let's take this example: I am writing an application which gets a schedule as an XML from server. I have written a logic in order to parse XML version and update database only if the version is newer than the local version. Although the update is checked automatically/manually on daily basis based on user preference, the actual version update happens only once per few months or so. Since, this is done by some other authority which doesn't provide API but, rather inform publicly on their changes. The actual XML contains a "(n number of groups)(days in a week) (n number of schedule)" . The group is usually 6 and the number of schedule is usually 2. So basically there would usually be only around 100 strings. Now although I have used SQLite at the moment. I want to know how to make update on database. Should I show progress dialog that the application is updating and exit the app when it's done? Since, my updates are infrequent i don't think this will really harm user experience but, is there any better ways to do it? Because I don't want update to be made when user is searching which is done using database. This will cause an database already open exception. Atleast I have faced this problem before. Is it better to rather parse XML every time when user wants to view certain things or to use SQLite? Since, I make lots of use of adapter in my app to create lists, will that degrade the performance? It would really be a great help if anyone can give me better overview about it. Or may be counter argument against each. Many thanks!

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• How do you make a bullet ricochet off a vertical wall?

  - by Bagofsheep

  First things first. I am using C# with XNA. My game is top-down and the player can shoot bullets. I've managed to get the bullets to ricochet correctly off horizontal walls. Yet, despite using similar methods (e.g. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3203952/mirroring-an-angle) and reading other answered questions about this subject I have not been able to get the bullets to ricochet off a vertical wall correctly. Any method I've tried has failed and sometimes made ricocheting off a horizontal wall buggy. Here is the collision code that calls the ricochet method: //Loop through returned tile rectangles from quad tree to test for wall collision. If a collision occurs perform collision logic. for (int r = 0; r < returnObjects.Count; r++) if (Bullets[i].BoundingRectangle.Intersects(returnObjects[r])) Bullets[i].doCollision(returnObjects[r]); Now here is the code for the doCollision method. public void doCollision(Rectangle surface) { if (Ricochet) doRicochet(surface); else Trash = true; } Finally, here is the code for the doRicochet method. public void doRicochet(Rectangle surface) { if (Position.X > surface.Left && Position.X < surface.Right) { //Mirror the bullet's angle. Rotation = -1 * Rotation; //Moves the bullet in the direction of its rotation by given amount. moveFaceDirection(Sprite.Width * BulletScale.X); } else if (Position.Y > surface.Top && Position.Y < surface.Bottom) { } } Since I am only dealing with vertical and horizontal walls at the moment, the if statements simply determine if the object is colliding from the right or left, or from the top or bottom. If the object's X position is within the boundaries of the tile's X boundaries (left and right sides), it must be colliding from the top, and vice verse. As you can see, the else if statement is empty and is where the correct code needs to go.

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• How to get around the Circular Reference issue with JSON and Entity

  - by DanScan

  I have been experimenting with creating a website that leverages MVC with JSON for my presentation layer and Entity framework for data model/database. My Issue comes into play with serializing my Model objects into JSON. I am using the code first method to create my database. When doing the code first method a one to many relationship (parent/child) requires the child to have a reference back to the parent. (Example code my be a typo but you get the picture) class parent { public List<child> Children{get;set;} public int Id{get;set;} } class child { public int ParentId{get;set;} [ForeignKey("ParentId")] public parent MyParent{get;set;} public string name{get;set;} } When returning a "parent" object via a JsonResult a circular reference error is thrown because "child" has a property of class parent. I have tried the ScriptIgnore attribute but I lose the ability to look at the child objects. I will need to display information in a parent child view at some point. I have tried to make base classes for both parent and child that do not have a circular reference. Unfortunately when I attempt to send the baseParent and baseChild these are read by the JSON Parser as their derived classes (I am pretty sure this concept is escaping me). Base.baseParent basep = (Base.baseParent)parent; return Json(basep, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet); The one solution I have come up with is to create "View" Models. I create simple versions of the database models that do not include the reference to the parent class. These view models each have method to return the Database Version and a constructor that takes the database model as a parameter (viewmodel.name = databasemodel.name). This method seems forced although it works. NOTE:I am posting here because I think this is more discussion worthy. I could leverage a different design pattern to over come this issue or it could be as simple as using a different attribute on my model. In my searching I have not seen a good method to overcome this problem. My end goal would be to have a nice MVC application that heavily leverages JSON for communicating with the server and displaying data. While maintaining a consistant model across layers (or as best as I can come up with).

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