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Recent Posts

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3001
Developer's Corner / Re: Introductory C# web-based tutorials
« Last post by kyrathaba on March 01, 2007, 11:18 AM »
The next flash presentation, a review of tutorials 1 through 5, will be ready within the next week's time.  Additionally, there will be a downloadable C# Winforms project that will provide a multiple choice quiz to test knowledge acquisition.
3002
Living Room / Re: Six Free Online Storage Services
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 28, 2007, 12:37 PM »
I've had an eSnips account for several months now.  Handy.  I use it to back up some videos of the kids, and some of my prized freeware applications.
3003
Developer's Corner / Re: Linked Lists versus Lists in .NET
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 28, 2007, 10:46 AM »
Speaking of C++, I wonder if I ought to make the move from C# to C++.NET
3004
Developer's Corner / Re: Linked Lists versus Lists in .NET
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 28, 2007, 06:49 AM »
In other words, for non-speed-critical tasks, lists are more often than not the simpler, and sometimes more efficient, alternative.
3005
Developer's Corner / Re: Linked Lists versus Lists in .NET
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 27, 2007, 01:02 PM »
I'm speaking out of my ignorance here, but weren't linked lists all the rage in C?  If so, was that because array lists weren't in use?  My hobbyist interest in programming started well after the reign of C, so I'm not very knowledgeable about it.  There's an article on www.csharp-online.net that recommends linked lists as a good solution when you need a linked data structure that allows you to easily add and remove elements.  But it seems the List<T> class is generally preferable, to me.
3006
Developer's Corner / Linked Lists versus Lists in .NET
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 27, 2007, 11:49 AM »
I've been reading about linked lists and lists in the .NET Framework.  From my reading, it seems that lists generally outperform or are more efficient that linked lists.  What are some simple scenarios in which the programmer would be better served using a linked list?
3007
Developer's Corner / Re: Introductory C# web-based tutorials
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 23, 2007, 08:54 PM »
Tutorial #5 is now available  :Thmbsup:

http://kyrathaba.dcmembers.com

Tutorial #5 covers constructors, inheritance, and polymorphism
3008
Developer's Corner / Re: Introductory C# web-based tutorials
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 22, 2007, 05:14 PM »
Thanks, jgpaiva.  I'll look into adapting tutorial #5 onward for displaying a timebar.  The currently available tutorials are available here now:

http://kyrathaba.dcmembers.com/

as well as here...

http://www1.webng.co...ink_videos/index.htm
3009
Developer's Corner / Re: Introductory C# web-based tutorials
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 22, 2007, 02:51 PM »
Thanks to you both for the kind comments.

Nudone, I can easily add voice.  I just hadn't for the reasons I stated.  But, if there's an interest in it, and people don't mind the SWF files being larger and therefore a bit slower-loading, I'm all for it.

Mouser, I managed to upload the tutorials to the DC page, but I can't seem to access the url with my browser to view the index page (yes, I'm the sort of guy who can program computers, but can't even figure out how to make his VCR record a show)
3010
Living Room / Re: Best choice for server-side game programming
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 22, 2007, 01:03 PM »
Thanks for the references to exising game engines, Tinjaw.  I'm currently investigating the BYOND system, and it seems like it will do everything I'd like to do in developing a multiuser online gaming experience.  I think I can ascend the learning curve in a few weeks of reading/practice, thanks to my previous exposure to OOP via C#.

Thanks for the good, in-depth coverage of this topic.
3011
Developer's Corner / Introductory C# web-based tutorials
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 22, 2007, 12:52 PM »
I'm doing an introductory series of tutorials on programming using C#.  They take the form of flash presentations that play inside the webpage you visit to view the tutorials.  I believe Mouser is going to be making them available on a DC page soon.

Currently there are four tutorials in the "C# for the Completely Uninitiated" series.  Tutorial #5 will be available in the next few days.   These tutorials are really intended for an audience of new programmers who have chosen C# as their initial language.  Those who already have OOP experience in other languages, or who are already proficient in C#, will probably not find much of interest in this particular series. 

One of the advantages of the presentation format I have chosen is its ability to show screencasting of actual programming in action.  I have also attempted to interject humor at various points, though my success in that endeavor will no doubt be in the eye of the beholder ;)

The majority of each tutorial is comprised of static frames/pages that make use of a mixture of text, source code listings, and images to help convey information.  Where I feel that it would be helpful, I sometimes show a short screencast.  For example, in the first tutorial, I use a screencast to show users who are brand new to the Visual C# 2005 Express IDE how to create a console project.  Although the tool used (Wink 2.0) also enables voice capture (and does a pretty good job of it, too) I have not yet used that feature, in the interest of keeping the final filesize of each tutorial's .SWF file as small, and therefore fast-loading, as possible.

The first tutorial covers downloading and installing the IDE, and creation of your first project.  Subsequent tutorials that have been released, to date, cover the console class, use of comments, the parts of a C# program, creating custom methods, variables and assignment, method return types, string concatenation and interpolation, assemblies, types, classes, and instantiation. 

After the completion of the fifth tutorial (that I'm working on right now), there will be a Review that quizzes the user over the content of the first five tutorials, and also gives brief, to the point, programming exercises (and their solutions, at the end of the presentation).

My motivation in creating this series of tutorials is threefold: (1) in the process of creating each tutorial, I've reinforced, and sometimes extended, my own intermediate knowledge of the language, (2) as a potential source of help for people brand new to programming, and hopefully a bridge that will encourage greater participation in the C# section of the Programming School, (3) as advertising for DC:  since the tutorials allude to the DC site favorably, and suggest it as a home for programmers and would-be programmers.

The tutorials can currently be accessed at the following URL, although soon they will also be available on a DC page, for which I am indebted to Mouser.  I am also appreciative of his enthusiastic support and encouragement of this project.

http://www1.webng.co...ink_videos/index.htm
3012
Living Room / Re: Best choice for server-side game programming
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 20, 2007, 12:53 PM »
Very nice, Tinjaw.  Thanks for the in-depth explanation.  It clears up a couple of misconceptions that I'd had.

As computers get faster and as broadband Internet connections get fatter, it may soon become nearly impossible to tell the difference between these web-based applications and traditional stand-alone software.

And won't that be sweet  :)  I'm looking forward to video-phone conversations via computers that won't be choppy like today's webcam/chat-client combos.

Databases are invaluable when creating applications larger than a simple telephone directory. They are also required when doing any kind of online game. The data needs to be maintained, securely, by the application provider - be that a hobbyist run MUD or the likes of World of Warcraft. The data will surely be accessed countless times and heavily CRUDed as the application runs...You would not want to store data files on the client computer for an online game. Even though you could take measures to conceal and encrypt the data, it is just too risky. Imagine if you will, storing the information about your World of Warcraft characters on your local hard drive. How long do you think it would take for the Lazy Web to come up with a crack to modify those files and turn freshly minted characters into maxed-out super characters?

Not very long at all, I'm sure.  Just like all the hacks that came out after Diablo was released.  It seems that there are those that simply thrive on "beating" the system, so to speak.  The upside is that such "hackers" usually enjoy letting the programmer know about their exploits.  I suppose it's a form of bragging rights ;)  Sort of like all the experts who hack Windows, then delightedly report the vulnerabilities to Microsoft  ;D

But yes, I definitely see the need for database storage instead of flat files.  From my reading, I know that flat files have been the historical standard in MUDs, but more and more MUDs are popping up that use a database instead.  Also, there are beginning to be more and more MUDs coded in Java or .NET instead of C/C++.
3013
Living Room / Re: Best choice for server-side game programming
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 20, 2007, 10:30 AM »
That's true, Mouser.  Also, there are quite a few linux server packages out there in the $4 to $10 per month range that offer more than adequate server capabilities for the sort of application I'm envisioning (assuming that I develop in .NET and that Mono or whatever equivalent fully materializes).  And, it's more or less a pipedream at this stage:  my skill level is not yet quite adequate, I don't think (though I'm closing the gap, gradually).

BTW, what is the distinction between a virtual and a dedicated server?
3014
Living Room / Re: Best choice for server-side game programming
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 20, 2007, 09:23 AM »
Thanks, Fodder.  Yes, I mean something similar to MUDs, as defined by your link.  I actually had a working vb6 program to which several people successfully connected simultaneously and were able to chat and issue commands to effect the virtual environment.  I abandoned that project, however, because vb6 did not natively, without the purchase of 3rd party components, offer robust socket programming.  I couldn't get asynchronous connections going, and had to use a queue (might have been more programmer ignorance than language weakness, though ;>)  I know, however, that .NET offers fairly robust support for network programming.  Also, I'm sure that .NET's OOP is more suitable to such a project than vb6.
3015
Living Room / Re: Best choice for server-side game programming
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 20, 2007, 09:04 AM »
some free hosts have limitations on the types of files they let you store

Yes.  For example, I've never encountered a free web host that would allow .EXE files (unless they were zipped), and I suppose that's quite understandable.

In particular, the "game" my friends and I are hoping to someday develop would be a first-cousin to multi-user dimensions.  It would have quite low server load (probably no more than a handful of people connected at any one time).  However, it sounds to me that, at this point, multiplayer game programming isn't very accessible to the hobbyist programmer on a tight budget.

Of course, I could always serve such a program off my home machine via Filezilla or some equivalent, but that of course comes with the well-known security threats and reliability problems.  Still, these concerns aside (and I'm not saying I'd actually do this), I suppose if I did serve off my machine (just for a handful of friends, say), I could use .NET to write a server that web browsers can connect to.  That would effectively make it multiplatform, since everyone has an internet browser, regardless of their OS.

3016
Living Room / Best choice for server-side game programming
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 20, 2007, 08:17 AM »
Reposted as separate post per Tinjaw's suggestion (also slightly modified the question):

Question: can applets be downloaded from just any old website, and run in a browser?  Do they actually just sit on the server, inert, and not execute until downloaded (if that were the case, I'd think you could host them on even geocities or some other free host)?  There's a game idea I'd like to eventually implement, where the game would just be textual.  I'm wondering if Java or wxWidgets would give me the capability of authoring such a game that would run on my website and allow users to connect to it.

Traditionally, server-side programming has been performed using
Perl, Python, C++, or some other language to create CGI programs, but more sophisticated
systems have since appeared. These include Java-based Web servers that allow you to perform all
your server-side programming in Java by writing what are called servlets. Servlets and their
offspring, JSPs, are two of the most compelling reasons that companies that develop Web sites
are moving to Java, especially because they eliminate the problems of dealing with differently
abled browsers
3017
Living Room / Re: Agree with Bruce Eckel?
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 20, 2007, 06:56 AM »
Yeah, I have a very uneasy feeling about Microsoft programming products.  I give them Kudos for the Express IDEs they've made available for free, but I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't put all my eggs in one basket.  In college, I had one class in Pascal.  Then, in later years, messed around with QuickBasic.  Back in 2002 I puttered around with VB6 for a long while, before finally, more recently, taking up C#.  Now, however, I've been hearing some really great things about Java.  I understand that SE5 incorporated features from C# that might have made Java developers want to switch to C#.  I'm downloading wxWidgets and NetBeans. 

Question: can applets run on just any old website?  There's a game idea I'd like to eventually implement, where the game would just be textual.  I'm wondering if Java or wxWidgets would give me the capability of authoring such a game that would run on my website and allow users to connect to it.
3018
Living Room / Agree with Bruce Eckel?
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 19, 2007, 10:09 PM »
Bruce Eckel, author of "Thinking In Java", has been quoted as saying:

Currently, the main vulnerability and important question concerning .NET is whether Microsoft
will allow it to be completely ported to other platforms. They claim there’s no problem doing this,
and the Mono project (www.go-mono.com) has a partial implementation of .NET working on
Linux, but until the implementation is complete and Microsoft has not decided to squash any
part of it, .NET as a cross-platform solution is still a risky bet.

Agree or disagree that .NET is a risky bet?  Is Java the better choice given Microsoft's penchants?
3019
Living Room / Re: What was your favorite saturday morning cartoon?
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 13, 2007, 02:09 PM »
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Jason of Star Command.  Cheesy good!
3020
Developer's Corner / Re: Advanced C# Programmers?
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 08, 2007, 01:57 PM »
It's been three or four weeks ago.  Sorry it's taken me this long to respond.  I've been busy with other things.  I'll try to post the project when I get home.  Basically, the app uses a combo box to allow a user to select a range of values.  Works flawlessly on my machine, but on another person's computer it raises an exception that seems to be related to the combobox.  I redid the project and used a textbox for user-input instead of the combobox and this took care of the problem.  Still, I'd like to understand the exact nature of the problem, for my own edification.  I may need to email the zipped project rather than posting it, because it was for a C# programming school assignment here on DC...
3021
Living Room / Re: ASP or C# ?
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 02, 2007, 06:06 PM »
I expect that if you've learned C# that you might have a learning curve picking up Ruby. But then, maybe learning is exactly what you want to do.

Yes, I would like to learn more (always).  I took a look at Ruby, and the impression I got was that it is quite versatile.  However, the syntax is quite different than what I'm used to, so -- like a small child wrinkling his nose at a newly introduced vegetable -- I shied away from it.  Right now, my rationalization is that I need to learn a LOT more about .NET programming, and the more I play around with other languages, the less focused I'll be on that pursuit.  My coding background is quite limited (one Pascal course in college, then played around with QBasic, then VB6, finally graduating to
C#), so I would like to become proficient in multiple languages.  But, that's a long-term goal.

Thanks for your responses, all.  I'm considerably better informed now.

3022
Living Room / Re: ASP or C# ?
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 02, 2007, 02:20 PM »
I think the Web Developer Express uses ASP.NET (someone correct me if I'm mistaken).  Regardless, it is my (limited) understanding that ASP is a technology for the web.  I just want to know how realistic it would be for me to invest time and energy becoming familiar with it if its use typically is a commercial thing or at the very least requires a paid hosting account.
3023
Living Room / ASP or C# ?
« Last post by kyrathaba on February 01, 2007, 10:09 PM »
I'm certain several of you can answer this question for me:

I've mostly been using Visual C# 2005 Express, but as you know there are several Express IDEs available.  I also have the Visual Web Developer 2005 Express edition.  I understand that equipped with it and a knowledge of ASP, one can code some pretty nifty web applications/services.  My question is this:  isn't finding webhosting with ASP access generally a fee-for-service type thing?  In other words, would I, as a novice programmer mainly learning to program for the fun of it, be able to do much with ASP without having a pay-account on a server somewhere?  I know one can use C# to do lots of stuff with the web/internet, and that's what I've been using all along, but I wondered if spending time and effort with Visual WebDev would be worth it for me personally, as someone with no interest in spending any money ;>
3024
Thanks, you put me onto the right track, and I was able to find the solution. 
3025
Living Room / How to make variable degrees of transparency with a given image
« Last post by kyrathaba on January 30, 2007, 08:15 PM »
Do any of you know whether or not Irfanview or Paint.net can apply varying degrees of transparency to an image?  I think I've read this has something to do with varying an image's "alpha" value?  If so, could anyone describe how this is accomplished.
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