Algorithmics For Hard Problems

Sat, 19 May 2012 15:49:00 +0000

I just finished up the Spring semester. Took a class called "Design and Analysis of Algorithms". [Got an "A", yeah!] Great course, great instructor, but the book, "Algorithmics for Hard Problems"...is another kettle of fish. This is an upper level graduate course in Computer Science within the Computational Theory track at Johns Hopkins University. So lots and lots of math is to be expected. Lots of mindfuckery to ensue, etc... So it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that the text will be verbose. This book walked right past verbose and into the netherland. Allow me to sum up this book in one sentence: the author ran out of math symbols halfway through chapter 2 and started making...

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Binary Trees, The Question Game, And Car Rides!

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:55:54 +0000

Intro Here's a fun little tutorial that shows the usage of a binary tree with a simple question and answer game. Think of something like '20 Questions' and you get the idea. The major areas of this are: - binary tree structures, - recursively writing a binary tree to a file - recursively reading a binary tree from a file - fun with classes Sometimes you can do this with a neural network, but there's also a time and place for a more simple structure. Further extrapolation this can be used for a directed FAQ for troubleshooting, or actual species identification. If you are not familiar with some of the concepts of a binary tree - check out my other tutorial here on it. Back story If you are not...

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Invoking Evil Code Via The Portal To Hell Method _()

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:13:00 +0000

Invoking Evil Code via the Portal To Hell method _() using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Evil_Overloading_Bounds; namespace EVIL_Overload { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var x = 4; if (0._() < x < 10) { Console.WriteLine("It is between"); } } } } So you probably guessed that it doing a between bounds check. < has type signature int * int -> bool thus the second must fail because you can do bool < int . Normally you'd be write, if it wasn't for the "Portal To Hell" extension method _(). At least you know from that point on-wards that coder has done a deal with...

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New Mentor- Jon.Kiparsky

Sun, 13 May 2012 19:55:47 +0000

Congratulations to jon.kiparsky for his yeoman's work in the Java forum! We are promoting him to Mentor, which is long overdue! Let's give him a round of applause!

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Bro Down And Crush Some Code

Thu, 10 May 2012 02:43:00 +0000

CNN had this gem on brogramming two days ago: QuoteAt one of the world's biggest gatherings of Web culture, a 28-year-old executive talks about landing a tech job by sending a CEO "bikini shots" from a "nudie calendar" he created. On campus at Stanford University, a hot startup attracts recruits with a poster asking if they want to 'bro down and crush some code.'" And the world's largest Internet registration company entices Web entrepreneurs with a Super Bowl ad in which two female celebrities paint its logo onto the body of an apparently naked model. Forget what you think you know about the benignly geeky computer programmer who lives for the thrill of finding a single misplaced...

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One Liner Challenge!

Sun, 06 May 2012 14:58:39 +0000

This is a Python Challenge to make the ugliest one liner possible! The rules are simple, use Python (2 or 3, I don't care) to create a massive one liner piece of code, the uglier the better! The official deadline will be May 13th at Midnight (so May 13th 11:59pm is the latest [but we're pretty flexible here at DIC]). Also, these 1 liners must equate to 1 statement, so separating statements on the same line with ';' is not good. Lastly, with any Python challenge, I ALWAYS get people asking "can I use a different language", this time, I want to challenge you to use Python. You can use an Online Interpreter to test your code, so you won't even need to download anything new. On top of that, there...

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Calculating The Runtime Of A Function

Sun, 06 May 2012 02:52:00 +0000

I see this question come up a lot in the forums! Ho do I determine how long it takes for a function to execute? Maybe you're curious, maybe you're trying to compare the efficiency of algorithms, maybe you want to see how well a builtin function is implemented. In python, this is really easy. import time startTime = time.time() #run code here elapsedTime = time.time() - startTime There you have it, a simple way to check the time it took for a function to run. If this is for testing purposes, I usually will run it about 5 or 10 times and take the average. This is pretty cool, but we can even generalize it a bit. For the purposes of this tutorial, I created this function __author__ =...

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Unintentional Obfuscation

Fri, 04 May 2012 16:40:44 +0000

Hey Everyone! Recently, I came across an old project of mine, and because of the complexity of the project and my failure to include enough comments, the code is now virtually unreadable! This got me to thinking, I bet this has happened to a lot of us. We start a project, we walk away from it for some substantial amount of time, and when we come back it's completely illegible. This is your chance to share your shame! I'm inviting everyone to post your code that you can no longer read! Of course, this being the python board, I am really hoping to see some python code, but everyone is welcome to submit! We're all friends here, there's no harm in showing something bad from the past. Here you...

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Debian - Setting Up Raid 1 (mirroring Harddrives)

Fri, 04 May 2012 06:10:00 +0000

Before we begin, let me point out some benefits of using raid 1 mirroring. First, your mp3 files won't have their meta tags jumbled up and mangled by typical hard drive corruption. Also your movie files won't suddnely stop playing past certain points due to corruption. Umm... your exe files won't randomly give you errors about not being winows 32bit or 64bit executables... So all that stuff is good. So if you need to store files intact for long periods of time, you should spreed them across two HDDs which will be able to check for corruption and auto-heal themselves on the fly. Now then, let us begin. In this entry we will setup a RAID 1 (mirror) on our debian system. This is simply a bare procedure. For help...

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Using "New" In Module?

Tue, 01 May 2012 21:36:50 +0000

Hello, D.I.C heads. I'm hoping you can help me out with this, perhaps noobish question. I know in classes, you use the "new" keyword for the constructor, and this is obviously called when you initiate the class. I saw in a module that someone had used the "new" keyword? IE: Sub New(). How and why is this used? Are there benefits for using this, or is it bulky code? I'm just looking to further my knowledge in VB.NET and hoping this would help me a little. Thanks in advance, help is always appreciated. ~huzi

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Sharpening My PHP Skills And Being More Efficient.

Tue, 01 May 2012 05:05:02 +0000

I feel sort of like my skills with PHP are degrading... Many concepts I see are foreign to me and all too often I tend to over complicate things in an attempt to make my systems as intricate as can be. I'm pretty sure if an employer asked me what my worst feature would be, it's that I bite off more than I can chew as well as over complicating things. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to how to sharpen my PHP skills and possibly learn new (simple) methods?

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Challenge: The Dot Creation Of Numbers (Intermediate)

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:01:59 +0000

Challenge: The Dot Creation Of Numbers (Intermediate) Challenge: You know how in the IDE when you type . you get member information about the object. OK, so I challenge you to do the same for the generation of Number. We'll stick to just Integer ones for now. Via The Digits (Easy-Intermediate) Dim MyNumber1 = Number.One.Two.Three.Four ' Will return an Integer with the value 1234 ' Dim MyNumber2 = Number.One.Negative.Two ' Should be an error, because Sign information (whether the number positive or negative must be first.) Dim MyNumber3 = Number.Negative.One. ' = -1 ' Via The Wording (Intermediate+) The second challenge is to extend this so you can "Dot Input" Numbers as they...

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The Virtues Of A Programmer

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 22:27:00 +0000

I read this a while back, forgot about it, and stumbled upon it again this afternoon while cleaning up Firefox bookmarks. For your reading pleasure, the virtues of a programmer: Laziness The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don't have to answer so many questions about it. Hence, the first great virtue of a programmer. Impatience The anger you feel when the computer is being lazy. This makes you write programs that don't just react to your needs, but actually anticipate them. Or at least that pretend to. Hence, the second great virtue of a programmer....

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English-ising Code

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:33:00 +0000

English-ising Code OK you don't need to be illiterate to see that VB.net is a Programming Language, that isn't shy about it verbosity of word. So I thought let's go crazy and see how close to Written English I can make it. So I started with simple task. English-ify the follow. Dim value = 3 Dim lower = 0 Dim upper = 10 Dim result = "" If lower <= value AndAlso value <= upper Then result = "Yes" Else result = "No" End If What you really want to do is say Is value between lower and upper? If value.IsBetween(lower).And(upper) Then result = "Yes" Else result = "No" End If Example 2: IsEqualTo If (value).IsEqualTo(lower).Or(upper) Then...

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GraphicsGale Sprite Drawing Tool

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:42:00 +0000

This is a tool you hear lots of game hobbyist mention that helps you animate sprites. For a pixel-drawing application, almost any paint program will do, but this tool in particular helps you animate the sprites better. You can see the animation being played in realtime as you edit each frame allowing you to finish off and perfect the movement. GraphicsGale I do the first frame getting the colors the way I want in some other program, and then I open it with this tool to do the animation. It looks complicated to use but it really isn't, and the free version does all you would need it to. It lets you export the file in whatever kind of sprite sheet format you need (and imports frames from sprite sheets). Here's some recent...

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Image Cup Day 3 - US Winners Announced

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:29:00 +0000

Early start today as the teams presented one final time to judges in hopes of winning US portion competition in order to ear their way into the world wide competition down in Sydney Australia. But before the winners were announced there were a few more surprises for the student competitors. First there was a special guest speaker Bill Buxton (@wasbuxton), an ingenious man when it comes to design, to speak about possibilities of the future. Second all the competitors received a new Nokia Lumuia 800 phone. Next Bob Kelly, corporate VP and Windows Azure Marketing of Microsoft spoke next. He announced a new award. The Azure Award, a team that utilizes the cloud (Azure) into their new technologies. Congrats to team LegenDairy for winning...

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BlackBerry 10 Jam! - May 1st-3rd 2012

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:47:00 +0000

Jam Session with BlackBerry 10! Coming May 1-3 Hilton Bonnet Creek, Orlando, Florida; developers will get an exclusive opportunity to have hands on time with the BlackBerry 10 developer platform! You will be one in a handful of developers to get a prototype device to develop with, and a chance to meet fellow developers on the same platform. There will be an assortment of roundtables and labs focused around HTML5, Native Development, Flash, AIR, and Android (runtime). These will be an opportunity to get a keen edge over your competition, or make valuable connections to help you out in your development process. Everyone in the BlackBerry development community, staff or developers; are a delight to work with, and the...

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Imagine Cup Day 2 - Finalists Annouced

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 18:02:00 +0000

Today started off at the Microsoft Store, a breakfast party for the competitors. They had a chance to try out and buy some of the newest laptops, tablets and games (Kinect Star Wars anyone?) as well as challenge each other to a dance-off. After that Microsoft Recruiting came to talk to the competitors (see my next post soon) to give them some tips for getting through the interview process. In addition to that there were also some sessions on how to develop for Windows 8 and mobile development. But that was just killing time until the announcements for the finalists for Imagine Cup. And here they are: Game Design Xbox Zigers Dr. Fishbowl Digital Infinity Credit/No Credit Game Design Phone Drexel Dragons Wasabi Ninjas Panther...

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Microsoft Recruiting Tips

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 17:16:00 +0000

Microsoft Recruiting had a small presentation on how to get a job, here are some tips and things to consider. Interview Basics Keep these factors in mind, they will Logistics: Date Time Place Flights Hotels Recruiter Contact Mind & Body: Sleep Eat Scheduling Dress: Company Culture Weather Comfort Many companies do not necessarily care about what you are wearing. Of course you shouldn't wear inappropriate t-shirts, but if the company you are applying for wears a polo and jeans, odds are you should be fine with that level of dress. What is most important is that you feel confident and feel good in what you are wearing. If you feel good in a business suit, by all means wear a business suit. Confidence is key. The...

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Priority Queues- Arrays

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 23:09:11 +0000

Level: Beginner - Intermediate Assumed knowledge: before you can start this tutorial, you are assumed to have knowledge of: Arrays The difference between primitive data types and Objects (e.g. difference between int and Integer) Conditional statements Loops (for and while loop constructions) Basic Knowledge of Object Oriented Programming (mainly methods) This tutorial will cover the implementation of a Sorted Array by means of (surprise!) an Array. Sorted Arrays can be used to to count sequence of numbers, retrieve the maximum values of an array and to sort data in either an ascending or a descending trend. Furthermore, the insertion method of a Sorted Array ensures that the array does not need to be sorted after an...

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Day 1 At Imagine Cup - Team Presentations

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:21:00 +0000

The competitor's nerves are high strung this morning as they preparing to present their project to a panel of judges. Due to my inability to be in 2 rooms at once I will only be able to cover 3 of the teams I mentioned yesterday. Continue reading to learn about the team's project and presentations! A bit of insight before I discuss the presentations of each team. There is a strict format that all teams will be following, 10 minutes to setup, 20 minutes of uninterrupted presentation, and 10 mins of Q & A from the judges. A timer will be in the room to cut off the presenters or judges when those times are reached. Dr. Fishbowl They designed a game to tackle the issues of reuse, recycling, and sustainablility. In...

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CodeIgniter Text Based Mafia Game || Login/Usersonline Part 3

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 22:20:39 +0000

Hello, Welcome to part 3 of the "CodeIgniter Text Based Mafia Game" tutorials. In this tutorials we are going to make a login to the members area and then make navigation so users are able to browse in the game. These tutorial will have the basic stuff like my old set of tutorials but we are going to take a different approach once we have created a basic forum in the next tutorial. After that I will then be creating advance tutorials which will include some advance techniques and new features. Also keep in mind that I will not be going over CSS because there is nothing different about how to use it in codeigniter, all you need to do is link it in the <head></head>(just as you would on anywhere else) on the...

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Day 0 At Imagine Cup

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:50:00 +0000

Hello and Welcome to my 4 day series on Imagine Cup Coverage. After a long day of flying (and some guy trying to sleep on me) I finally arrived in Redmond last night. Primarily I will be covering the XNA teams as they go through this stage of the competition. I will be posting various pictures updates on the competition in general and specific teams. I am covering 6 teams, so I will try to get around to interviewing them all. If you have been following Imagine Cup to this point or your just starting, you can check out the finalists for this year here. I will be following Dr. Fishbowl, Carnegie Mellon University By steadily learning to take advantage of their resources, and by taking responsibility for byproducts and waste and...

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How To Style The Date Html Input Type Using CSS.

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:14:00 +0000

I wrote a blog post on how to style the html input type="date" on my personal website. Check it out: http://lostinthegc.w...type-using-css/ The good news, some of it works. The bad news, it seems browsers will do things Their Way for the time being. Let me know if you find some other way to style the element.

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Running Java From C#

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 02:38:49 +0000

I just want to run a simple .jar file. I can't imagine why this has become so complicated for me. My code looks like this: Process p = new Process(); // Redirect the output stream of the child process. p.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true; p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false; p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true; p.StartInfo.FileName = "java.exe"; //p.StartInfo.Arguments = " -jar rail.jar \"" + Path.GetTempPath() + "\\railtest.tmp" + "\" " + testString; p.Start(); Going to a command line I type "java.exe" and I get information that verifies that it...

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