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• Ternary and Artificial Intelligence

  - by user2957844

  Not much of a programmer myself, however I have been thinking about the future of AI. If a fully functional AI is programmed in a binary environment as is used in current computing, would that create a bit of a black and white personality? As in just yes/no, on/off, 1/0? I will use the Skynet computer from the Terminator series as a bad analogy; it is brought online and comes to the conclusion that humanity should just be destroyed so the problem is resolved, basically its only options were; fire the missiles or not. (The films do not really go into what its moves would be after doing such a thing, but that goes into the realms of AI evolution so does not really fit with this question.) It may also have been badly programmed. Now, the human mind has been akin to a ternary system which allows our "out of the box" thinking along with all the other wonderful things our minds can do. So, would it not be more prudent to create a functional ternary system and program an AI using it so the resulting personality would be able to benefit from the third "maybe" (so to speak) option? I understand that in binary there are ways to get around the whole yes/no etc. way of things, however the basic operations are still just 1's and 0's. Again with using the above bad Skynet analogy; if it could have had that third "maybe" option as part of its core system, it may have decided to not launch due to being able to make sense of the intricacies of human nature and the politics of such a move etc. In effect, my question is; Would an AI benefit more from ternary computing as opposed to binary due to the inclusion of -1, or 2, dependent on the system ("maybe," as I call it)?

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• When using MVVM, should you create new viewmodels, or swap out the models?

  - by ConditionRacer

  Say I have a viewmodel like this: public class EmployeeViewModel { private EmployeeModel _model; public Color BackgroundColor { get; set; } public Name { get { return _model.Name; } set { _model.Name = value; NotifyPropertyChanged(Name); } } } So this viewmodel binds to a view that displays an employee. The thing to think about is, does this viewmodel represent an employee, or a "displayable" employee. The viewmodel contains some things that are view specific, for instance the background color. There can be many employees, but only one employee view. With this in mind, when changing the displayed employee, does it make sense to create a new EmployeeViewModel and rebind to the view, or simply swap out the EmployeeModel. Is the distinction even important, or is it a matter of style? I've always leaned toward creating new viewmodels, but I am working on a project where the viewmodels are created once and the models are swapped out. I'm not sure how I feel about this, though it seems to work fine.

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• Photos being copied all over the place

  - by plua

  We have a rather popular website with plenty of photos. Our whole business depends on our content - and the photos are important in this. We invest a lot of time, effort, and money into taking these pictures. On our website we have clear copyright notices, we have the website name and logo in the photos, and we have a Photo Licensing page which states the prices of licensing our photos. Despite all this, our photos are copied by personal and commercial websites alike. We really want to do something about this. We do not want them to take out the photos and leave it at that. We want them to pay for the usage, as we clearly state on our website. Now a few questions come to mind: Can we legally force them to pay right away? Or are we obligated to first write a "Cease and Desist" letter? Photos are used on websites throughout the world. Are there any worldwide rules for this? Has anybody experience with doing these things outside of their home country? Should we hire a lawyer in any country? Or could a local lawyer contact oversees companies directly?

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• OpenGL : sluggish performance in extracting texture from GPU

  - by Cyan

  I'm currently working on an algorithm which creates a texture within a render buffer. The operations are pretty complex, but for the GPU this is a simple task, done very quickly. The problem is that, after creating the texture, i would like to save it. This requires to extract it from GPU memory. For this operation, i'm using glGetTexImage(). It works, but the performance is sluggish. No, i mean even slower than that. For example, an 8MB texture (uncompressed) requires 3 seconds (yes, seconds) to be extracted. That's mind puzzling. I'm almost wondering if my graphic card is connected by a serial link... Well, anyway, i've looked around, and found some people complaining about the same, but no working solution so far. The most promising advise was to "extract data in the native format of the GPU". Which i've tried and tried, but failed so far. Edit : by moving the call to glGetTexImage() in a different place, the speed has been a bit improved for the most dramatic samples : looking again at the 8MB texture, it knows requires 500ms, instead of 3sec. It's better, but still much too slow. Smaller texture sizes were not affected by the change (typical timing remained into the 60-80ms range). Using glFinish() didn't help either. Note that, if i call glFinish() (without glGetTexImage), i'm getting a fixed 16ms result, whatever the texture size or complexity. It really looks like the timing for a frame at 60fps. The timing is measured for the full rendering + saving sequence. The call to glGetTexImage() alone does not really matter. That being said, it is this call which changes the performance. And yes, of course, as stated at the beginning, the texture is "created into the GPU", hence the need to save it.

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• What to do if you find a vulnerability in a competitor's site?

  - by user17610

  While working on a project for my company, I needed to build functionality that allows users to import/export data to/from our competitor's site. While doing this, I discovered a very serious security exploit that could, in short, perform any script on the competitor's website. My natural feeling is to report the issue to them in the spirit of good-will. Exploiting the issue to gain advantage crossed my mind, but I don't want to go down that path. So my question is, would you report a serious vulnerability to your direct competition, in order to help them? Or would you keep your mouth shut? Is there a better way of going about this, perhaps to gain at least some advantage from the fact that I'm helping them by reporting the issue? Update (Clarification): Thanks for all your feedback so far, I appreciate it. Would your answers change if I were to add that the competition in question is a behemoth in the market (hundreds of employees in several continents), and my company only started a few weeks ago (three employees)? It goes without saying, they most definitely will not remember us, and if anything, only realize that their site needs work (which is why we entered this market in the first place). I confess this is one of those moral vs. business toss-ups, but I appreciate all the advice.

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• Why have we got so many Linux distributions? [closed]

  - by nebukadnezzar

  Pointed to from an answer to another question, I came across this graphic, and I'm shocked how many linux distributions currently exist. However, it seems that most of these distributions are forks of already popular distributions with minimal changes, usually limited to themes, wallpapers and buttons. It would still seem easier to create a sub-distribution with the required changes, such as XUbuntu with XFCE4, KUbuntu with KDE4, Fluxbuntu with Fluxbox, etc. In my mind there are a number of problems with having so many distributions - perhaps less security/stability due to smaller group of developers, and also the confusingly vast range of choice for newcomers to Linux. Some reasons that developers might decide to fork are: Specializing on a particular topic (work-related topic - i.e. for a Hospital, etc) An exceptional architecture, that requires a special set of software Use of non-FOSS, proprietary technology, and such So what other reasons are there that have caused so many people decided to create their own distributions? What are the thought processes that have led to this? And are these "valid" reasons - do we need so many distributions? If you can back your experiences up with references that would be great.

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• I just received a complaint from a user of the website I maintain. Should I do anything?

  - by Chris

  I was sent sent a large wall of text from a user of the website I maintain at my job. They are clearly upset for having to deal with a horribly outdated web application that has not seen any serious updates in over 6+ years. No refactoring has been done, the code quality is terrible, the security unchecked, policy compliances ignored, in addition to being ugly and frankly embarrassing. Keep in mind this is a small business but the website is used by hundreds daily. I'm one of two programmers there, and I've been working there for two years. This person says they are about my age (22) and understand technology (but can't use proper grammar). The complaint mentioned awkward pages and actions on the website, but they don't even have a clue as to the depth of the flaws in this website. Now, I would love to honestly tell them that there's a lot wrong with this company and that this application was built when we were in high school. And that while it's not my fault that the website is terrible, I'm the one in position to fix it. But on the other hand, I could just say nothing and ignore it. Would doing this publicly have any advantage to future employees (showing integrity) or would it just be a completely pointless mistake? Odds are, even if I respond only that one person will ever read it. Regardless, I'm probably just going to ignore it and continue starting my project to refactor the website.

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• Limiting my heavy thinking to my job [closed]

  - by Robin Castlin

  This might be a weird problem which is only to a half relevant to actual programming, but hopefully there are people here that knows what I'm talking about. Basicly I'm proud of how I can deal with coding problems and fix them in short notice and many other aspects like building new systems and such. I'm fast on finding solutions and I often think about the impact my changes does to existing systems and so on, therefor preventing problem from arising at all and such. I am simply happy with how my mind operates when it comes to programming and I wouldn't want to change it at all. The problem, however is when I'm not programming. I find myself rather limited in social situations. I can't determine if it is through programming, but I sometimes think way to much about the consequences when it comes to being social. I know from own experience that most times you earn by not thinking about consequences, but it's hard for me not to. Often my friends tells me "I think too much" and even though I agree, I can't seem to change this behavior. My brain wants to think, and it likes to overthink simple stuff. Does anyone recognize the bad habit of not leaving advanced thinking at work, and in what way do you deal with it? If this isn't a suitable place to ask this question, I apologize and hope you may point me to the right site.

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• Do we ethically have the right to use the MAC Address for verification purposes?

  - by Matt Ridge

  I am writing a program, or starting at the very beginning of it, and I am thinking of purchase verification systems as a final step. I will be catering to Macs, PCs, and possibly Linux if all is said and done. I will also be programming this for smartphones as well using C++ and Objective-C. (I am writing a blueprint before going head first into it) That being said, I am not asking for help on doing it yet, but what I’m looking for is a realistic measurement for what could be expected as a viable and ethical option for purchase verification systems. Apple through the Apple Store, and some other stores out there have their own "You bought it" check. I am looking to use a three prong verification system. Email/password 16 to 32 character serial number using alpha/numeric and symbols with Upper and lowercase variants. MAC Address. The first two are in my mind ok, but I have to ask on an ethical standpoint, is a MAC Address to lock the software to said hardware unethical, or is it smart? I understand if an Ethernet card changes if not part of the logic board, or if the logic board changes so does the MAC address, so if that changes it will have to be re-verified, but I have to ask with how everything is today... Is it ethical to actually use the MAC address as a validation key or no? Should I be forward with this kind of verification system or should I keep it hidden as a secret? Yes I know hackers and others will find ways of knowing what I am doing, but in reality this is why I am asking. I know no verification is foolproof, but making it so that its harder to break is something I've always been interested in, and learning how to program is bringing up these questions, because I don't want to assume one thing and find out it's not really accepted in the programming world as a "you shouldn't do that" maneuver... Thanks in advance... I know this is my first programming question, but I am just learning how to program, and I am just making sure I'm not breaking some ethical programmer credo I shouldn't...

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• Dealing with under performing co-worker

  - by PSU_Kardi

  I'm going to try to keep this topic as generic as I can so the question isn't closed as too specific or whatever. Anyway, let's get to it. I currently work on a somewhat small project with 15-20 developers. We recently hired a few new people because we had the hours and it synched up well with the schedule. It was refreshing to see hiring done this way and not just throwing hours & employees at a problem. Alas, I could argue the hiring process still isn't perfect but that's another story for another day. Anyway, one of these developers is really under performing. The developer is green and has a lot of bad habits. Comes in later than I do and leaving earlier than I am. This in and of itself isn't an issue, but the lack of quality work makes it become a bit frustrating. When giving out tasking the question is no longer, what can realistically be given but now becomes - How much of the work will we have to redo? So as the project goes on, I'm afraid this might cause issues with the schedule. The schedule could have been defined as a bit aggressive; however, given that this person is under performing it now in my mind goes from aggressive to potentially chaotic. Yes, one person shouldn't make or break a schedule and that in and of itself is an issue too but please let's ignore that for right now. What's the best way to deal with this? I'm not the boss, I'm not the project lead but I've been around for a while now and am not sure how to proceed. Complaining to management comes across as childish and doing nothing seems wrong. I'll ask the community for insight/advice/suggestions.

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• Solutions for "Maintenance Mode"

  - by Ka Lyse

  Given a web application running across 10+ servers, what techniques have you put in place for doing things like altering the state of your website so that you can implement certain features. For instance, you might want to: Restrict Logins/Disable Certain Features Turn Site to "Read Only" Turn Site to Single "Maintenance Mode" page. Doing any of the above is pretty trivial. You can throw a particular "flag" in an .ini file, or add a row/value to a site_options table in your database and just read that value and do the appropriate thing. But these solutions have their problems. Disadvantages/Problems For instance, if you use a file for your application, and you want to switch off a certain feature temporarily, then you need to update this file on all servers. So then you might want to look at running something like ZooKeeper, but you are probably overcomplicating things. So then, you might decide that you want to store these "feature" flags in a database. But then you are obviously adding unncessary queries to each page request. So you think to yourself, that you will throw memcached in to the mix and just cache the query. Then you just retrieve all of your "Features" from memcached and add a 2ms~ latency to your application on every page. So to get around this, you decide to use a two tier-cache system, whereby you use an inmemory cache on each machine, (like Apc/Redis etc). This would work, but then it gets complicated, because you would have to set the key/hash life to perhaps 60 seconds, so that when you purge/invalidate the memcached object storing your "Features" result, your on machine cache is prompt enough to get the the new states. What suggestions might you have? Keeping in mind that optimization/efficiency is the priority here.

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• When is it too late to go back to coding from a management role? [closed]

  - by LeoLambrettra

  Problem solving keeps the mind sharp and if you are like me then it makes you happy. But what if you went from coding up to Team Lead and then to Project Manager? I have a team of 12 and on a good salary but lately have been thinking that the politics and admin tasks of being middle level management in an Investment Bank is not the right path to happiness. I used to be able to design and code as well as manage but lately it's all budgets, admin tasks and people problems. At 39 is it too late to go be a senior developer again? Basically - Team Lead in a flat structure with good people rocks. But if half your team is offshore then it loses something - There's a lot of politics in Project Management and so many meetings that even if you want to code you start letting your team down by missing deadlines and only suited for small units of work The coding skills haven't gone so to pick up WCF services it just takes a bit of reading and then playing around. I reckon I could switch to a Hedge Fund and go back to developing and be far happier and get more money. My 2 doubts though are 1. Mid life crisis in that I'd get bored with coding again 2. Or maybe I'd like it but there aren't many dev jobs for 40+ so I'd be throwing away a high level management role that took 7 years at thee one bank to get to0 Anybody else made to switch back and survived?

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• How to build an API on top of an existing Rails app with NodeJs and what architecture to use?

  - by javiayala

  The explanation I was recently hired by a company that has an old RoR 2.3 application with more than 100k users, a strong SEO strategy with more than 170k indexed urls, native android and ios applications and other custom-made mobile and web applications that rely on a not so good API from the same RoR app. They recently merged with a company from another country as an strategy to grow the business and the profit. They have almost the same stats, a similar strategy and mobile apps. We have just decided that we need to merge the data from both companies and to start a new app from scratch since the RoR app is to old and heavily patched and the app from the other company was built with a custom PHP framework without any documentation. The only good news is that both databases are in MySQL and have a similar structure. The challenge I need to build a new version that: can handle a lot of traffic, preserves the SEO strategies of both companies, serve 2 different domains, and have a strong API that can support legacy mobile apps from both companies and be ready for a new set of native apps. I want to use RoR 3.2 for the main web apps and NodeJs with a Restful API. I know that I need to be very careful with the mobile apps and handle multiple versions of the API. I also think that I need to create a service that can handle a lot IO request since the apps is heavily used to create orders for restaurants at a certain time of the day. The questions With all this in mind: What type of architecture do you recommend me to follow? What gems or node packages do you think will work the best? How do I build a new rails app and keep using the same database structure? Should I use NodeJS to build an API or just build a new service with Ruby? I know that I'm asking to much from you guys, but please help me by answering any topic that you can or by pointing me on the right direction. All your comments and feedback will be extremely appreciated! Thanks!

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• What technologies are needed to be a freelance web developer / designer targeting small businesses?

  - by Jason Wirth

  First off, I'm not looking for this answer: "learn PHP/MySQL, JQuery, HTML/CSS...." My background, I wear many hats, and do many things. Currently I manage investment accounts with a business partner who is also a friend. He happens to be attending business / law school perusing a joint JD and MBA. As a result, we're putting our into "coast", maintaining our current clients, but not acquiring more. Recently I've picked up some freelance graphic design / web development / online marketing side work (Photoshop, HTML/CSS, WordPress) through some personal networks. The work is enjoyable; now I'm thinking about expanding it into a larger business with these primary goals: augment my finances (I'm shooting for about $1,000-2,000 per mo.), learn new technologies, involve myself with meaningful work. As an entrepreneur I don't mind the aspects of running a business that hassle other freelancers... -- the marketing -- the billing -- etc. I'm considering targeting the small to middle market businesses and organizations where I can contribute in marketing, design, and development building projects from the ground up. Thus I'll have freedom to decide the specific technology (I won't have to work with an existing code base). What kinds of projects should I focus on? What technologies are a good fit for this style of work? For example: It might be fun to develop with Ruby on Rails. However, maybe a lot of projects would be rolling out e-commerce solutions. Thus, I should focus on PHP due to more shopping cart options, skipping ROR entirely.

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• F# &ndash; Converting your C# brain to the F# way

  - by MarkPearl

  My brain still thinks in C#!!! I have been looking at F# and trying to figure out the basics of it, but all the time in the back of my mind I am going – what is the C# equivalent to this or that… It’s frustrating because I almost want a F# to C# dictionary the whole time – and simply translate my C# code to F# – which would negate the main motivation for learning F# – as I want learn functional programming - if I was simply doing C# code in a F# syntax I would be gaining nothing! So I am experiencing pain while my brain forms some new neural networks… but luckily I live in a country where we have 11 official spoken languages, and plenty more unofficial languages so I have gone through the pain of learning how to speak a new language before – and I am finding the process is almost identical in learning a programming language that promotes a different way of looking at problems (from Object Orientated to Functional). That beings said… the first thing to learn is the basic syntax… I have searched the web for appropriate places to get a translation – and have been quite disappointed with what is out there for F#. Luckily, OCaml came to the rescue. There are some really good tutorials on getting started with OCaml syntax, one in particular that stood out was the OCamal-Tutorial. What I particularly like about it is that it is doing comparisons between C based languages and OCaml. Give it a read sometime – it’s well worth it and has definitely helped me understand F# a little better.

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• More Tables or More Databases?

  - by BuckWoody

  I got an e-mail from someone that has an interesting situation. He has 15,000 customers, and he asks if he should have a database for their data per customer. Without a LOT more data it’s impossible to say, of course, but there are some general concepts to keep in mind. Whenever you’re segmenting data, it’s all about boundary choices. You have not only boundaries around how big the data will get, but things like how many objects (tables, stored procedures and so on) that will be involved, if there are any cross-sections of data (do they share location or product information) and – very important – what are the security requirements? From the answer to these types of questions, you now have the choice of making multiple tables in a single database, or using multiple databases. A database carries some overhead – it needs a certain amount of memory for locking and so on. But it has a very clean boundary – everything from objects to security can be kept apart. Having multiple users in the same database is possible as well, using things like a Schema. But keeping 15,000 schemas can be challenging as well. My recommendation in complex situations like this is similar to a post on decisions that I did earlier – I lay out the choices on a spreadsheet in rows, and then my requirements at the top in the columns. I  give each choice a number based on how well it meets each requirement. At the end, the highest number wins. And many times it’s a mix – perhaps this person could segment customers into larger regions or districts or products, in a database. Within that database might be multiple schemas for the customers. Of course, he needs to query across all customers, that becomes another requirement. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• I've got my Master's in Software Engineering... Now what? [closed]

  - by Brian Driscoll

  Recently I completed a Master of Science in Software Engineering from Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA, US), because I wanted to have some formal education in software (my undergrad is in Math Ed) and also because I wanted to be able to advance my career beyond just programming. Don't get me wrong; I love to code. I spend a lot of my spare time coding. However, for me writing code is just a means to an end: what I REALLY love is designing software. Not visual design, mind you, but the architecture of the system. So, ideally I'd like to try to get a job doing software architecture. The problem is that I have no real experience in it besides my graduate course work. So, what should I do to make my "bones" in software architecture? UPDATE Just so it's clear, I have over 5 years of work experience in software development and an MCTS cert in addition to my education, so I'm not looking for the usual "I'm fresh out of school, what should I do?" advice.

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• WUBI installation can no longer boot, UUID disk not found

  - by Joel Heenan

  Yesterday my Wubi/Vista installation was working fine. I shut it down at the train station, all good then when I attempted to boot ubuntu at home I got a message saying the UUID for root could not be found. By booting with the Ubuntu live CD I found that the C:\ubuntu\disks folder stat structure was broken, reported as "??? ??? ??" kinda thing. I booted into Windows, scheduled a CHKDSK, ran that on boot which found some errors and rebooted. Still no dice. I am not stressed because it appears my home directory is still there with all my content so I don't mind re-installing the OS (probably will clean it up some). What is the best path from here to repair the WUBI installation? Is there anything else I should do to repair it? I'm looking at whether the drive is dying now to work out why this occured. Possibly I moved the laptop before shutdown had completed.

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• Repository query conditions, dependencies and DRY

  - by vFragosop

  To keep it simple, let's suppose an application which has Accounts and Users. Each account may have any number of users. There's also 3 consumers of UserRepository: An admin interface which may list all users Public front-end which may list all users An account authenticated API which should only list it's own users Assuming UserRepository is something like this: class UsersRepository extends DatabaseAbstraction { private function query() { return $this->database()->select('users.*'); } public function getAll() { return $this->query()->exec(); } // IMPORTANT: // Tons of other methods for searching, filtering, // joining of other tables, ordering and such... } Keeping in mind the comment above, and the necessity to abstract user querying conditions, How should I handle querying of users filtering by account_id? I can picture three possible roads: 1. Should I create an AccountUsersRepository? class AccountUsersRepository extends UserRepository { public function __construct(Account $account) { $this->account = $account; } private function query() { return parent::query() ->where('account_id', '=', $this->account->id); } } This has the advantage of reducing the duplication of UsersRepository methods, but doesn't quite fit into anything I've read about DDD so far (I'm rookie by the way) 2. Should I put it as a method on AccountsRepository? class AccountsRepository extends DatabaseAbstraction { public function getAccountUsers(Account $account) { return $this->database() ->select('users.*') ->where('account_id', '=', $account->id) ->exec(); } } This requires the duplication of all UserRepository methods and may need another UserQuery layer, that implements those querying logic on chainable way. 3. Should I query UserRepository from within my account entity? class Account extends Entity { public function getUsers() { return UserRepository::findByAccountId($this->id); } } This feels more like an aggregate root for me, but introduces dependency of UserRepository on Account entity, which may violate a few principles. 4. Or am I missing the point completely? Maybe there's an even better solution? Footnotes: Besides permissions being a Service concern, in my understanding, they shouldn't implement SQL query but leave that to repositories since those may not even be SQL driven.

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• Is spreading code with refactoring comments a good idea?

  - by Uooo

  I am working on a "spaghetti-code" project, and while I am fixing bugs and implementing new features, I also do some refactoring in order to make the code unit-testable. The code is often so tightly coupled or complicated that fixing a small bug would result in a lot of classes being rewritten. So I decided to draw a line somewhere in the code where I stop refactoring. To make this clear, I drop some comments in the code explaining the situation, like: class RefactoredClass { private SingletonClass xyz; // I know SingletonClass is a Singleton, so I would not need to pass it here. // However, I would like to get rid of it in the future, so it is passed as a // parameter here to make this change easier later. public RefactoredClass(SingletonClass xyz) { this.xyz = xyz; } } Or, another piece of cake: // This might be a good candidate to be refactored. The structure is like: // Version String // | // +--> ... // | // +--> ... // | // ... and so on ... // Map map = new HashMap<String, Map<String, Map<String, List<String>>>>(); Is this a good idea? What should I keep in mind when doing so?

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• two thoughts about career excellence

  - by john.rose

  I love Dickens, warts and all. Sometimes he is sententious, and (like the mediocre modern I am) at such points I am willing to listen non-ironically. This bit here struck me hard enough to stop and write it down: I mean a man whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good service leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care for. It is Woodcourt's kind. (John Jarndyce to Esther Summerson, Bleak House, ch. 60) Woodcourt is, of course, one of the heroes of the story. It is a heroism that is attractive to me. Here is a similar idea, from the Screwtape Letters. In the satirically inverted logic of that book, the “Enemy” is God, the enemy of the devils but the author of good: The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the, fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. (C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters, ch. 14) Though I will be happy with a good Bazaar, I also dream of Cathedrals. Put whatever name you like on it, as long as I get some part in the fun of building a good one.

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• PS2 Eyetoy Recording Quality

  - by Fire

  I have Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and a PS2 eyetoy "Namtai". Don't worry - this is not the sterotypical " how do I get my eyetoy working" question. My eyetoy works fine on Cheese, gucview and various other media software like VLC. However, It seems like I am capped by 25fps. If I recall, the eyetoy is much better than this (~60fps) but cannot find any way to fix this. The best program that I have have found is VLC because its advanced options allow you to change many settings but the framerate setting appears to have no effect. What software or settings can I use to take full advantage of my eyetoy? To give you the full information I wish to attach multiple eyetoys to the system and record from all of them. (Security software like motion and zoneminder, I couldn't get installed correctly on my system- so I haven't tried those yet). edit - I tried the same camera on a Windows system and the frame rate is much better in VLC compared to the Ubuntu system. Mind you with default settings in Windows VLC, the resolution isn't great. However, in Skype for example the resolution is amazing and the framerate is good. It seems there must be some settings I am missing somewhere because it doesn't appear to be a hardware problem...

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• Finite Numbers and ExplorerCanvas

  - by PhubarBaz

  I was working on my online mathematical graphing application, CloudGraph, and trying to make it work in IE. The app uses the HTML5 canvas element to draw graphs. Since IE doesn't support canvas yet I use ExplorerCanvas to provide that support for IE. However, it seems that when using excanvas, if you try to moveTo or drawTo a point that is not finite it loses it's mind and stops drawing anything else after that. I had no such problems in Firefox or Chrome so it took me awhile to figure out what was going on. Next I discovered that I needed a way to check if a variable was NaN or Inifinity or any other non-finite value so I could avoid calling moveTo() in that case. I started writing a long if statement, then I thought there has to be a better way. Sure enough there was. There just happens to be an isFinite() function built into Javascript just for this purpose. Who knew! It works great. Another difference I discovered with excanvas is that you must specify a starting point using a moveTo() when beginning a drawing path. Again, Chrome and Firefox are a lot more forgiving in this area so it took me a while to figure out why my lines weren't drawing. But, all is happy now and I'm a little wiser to the ways of the canvas.

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• Help with collision detection method [on hold]

  - by derek jones

  I was wondering if any of you could spare me some time to go over some collision detection on my platform engine. i tried XNA a few years back but for reasons i wont go into online could not continue, my health is now at a state where i am ready to try again but due to my current circumstances (and age) schooling is out of the question so i turn to you guys for help. Whilst i can adapt the MS sample ok and have some great features, you will agree modifying code is not really learning. So i have spent the last couple of week going over my old MS code and lots of stuff online and decided on what i want and have ported most of it over to code that i understand 90% of. I have my player class that moves about, jumps with gravity, has animations and a bounding box that follows it around. I have my map & basic level class to load levels from text files. Its just how i handle the collisions that i am struggling with as i will want per pixel collision on some tiles(i have code for this in a pong game i made so that should be ok). I'm pretty clear in my mind on what i need to do its just putting it in code and in the right place, here's what i was thinking. I was going to do it all in layers, have a tile layer, a collision layer & an item layer this way i could make a nice map editor in Win Forms at some point. Anyway i need to read in the collision layer the assign each tile a rectangle and collision property, and this is where i get me. Would any of you be able to spare some time and go over this with me ? I will post some code later Regards Del

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• Tile sizes in 2D games

  - by Ephismen

  While developing a small game using tile-mapping method a question came to my mind: I would develop the game on Windows but wouldn't exclude adapting it to another platform. What size(in pixels) would you recommend using for creating the tiles of a tile-mapped game(ie: RPG) with the following requirements? Have an acceptable level of detail without having too many tiles. Having a decent map size. Allow adaptation of the game on a handheld(ie: PSP), smartphone or a computer without too much loss of detail or slowdowns. Allow more or less important zoom-in / zoom-out. Have a resolution of tile that permits either pixel-perfect collision or block-collision. Anything from a good explanation to a game example is useful as long as it can fit the requirements. This question may seem a bit simplistic, but I noticed that many Indies game developer were using inappropriate scales scenery. Also sorry for the poor syntax and the lack of vocabulary of my question, being a non-native English speaker doesn't help when talking about computers programming.

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