Code Project Pick: Learn Strategy Game Programming
One of the most difficult programming endeavors is game programming and the most difficult endeavor in this genre is that of the strategy game or more affectionately known as the war-game. Christ Kennedy, a Code project contributing author, now shows interested game developers how to build a basic strategy game with his article below.
In this concise article Christ explains all of the basics needed to understand his presentation and provides a framework for developers interested in this type of programming that, once understood, can be extended into the more complex regions of historical simulation programming.
So that interested developers can pursue this article further, several excellent books on Artificial Intelligence are provided after the article along with a tool that can help you easily get started with programming graphics in the .NET environment
Black Falcon
Battlefield Simulator
By Christ Kennedy
Introduction
This application is a battlefield simulator game with three types of units: Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery. The map consists of several different terrain types lined in a ’six-sided-square’ grid as seen in many turn-based video games. The computer player’s artificial intelligence is challenging to the player, and may provide insight for programmers with the regular use of several variations of breadth-first-search algorithms as well as one depth-first-search move-sequence solution algorithm, which are explained below.
As a class and DLL, the battlefield project can be used to build a larger war game with its own economy and cast of characters to enrich game play.
Background
The Koei company may not have invented the computer based video games, but they brought to the PC and console some of the greatest turned-based war-games ever seen. I’ve played a bunch: Nobunaga’s Ambition, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Bandit Kings of Ancient China, Genghis Khan, L’Empereur, Liberty or Death, and … I could name a bunch more, but I think you get the idea. These games are all very similar, and yet they each bring a different part of the past to life for you to reenact and, more often than not, alter the recorded course of history.
What I’ve done here is something that I’ve been meaning to do for ages, write a Koei-like war game, but the last attempt I made at this, about five years ago, was doomed from the start. I spent a month building everything except the battle screen, including the characters, the economy, and the merchants that travelled up and down the Italian peninsula, in a project I called Borgia which was supposed to be based in Renaissance Italy, but when I got to the battle screen, the heart of the action, I was stumped by the complexity of field deployment, and the whole project went bunk.
Battlefield, however, is the complete opposite. There are no merchants here, and no need to worry about being allies with the Pope or upsetting the free-cities of Tuscany either, because all you have here are Red and Blue companies, Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery units, and a half dozen military ranks. You can load a map already drawn for you, or use the map editor to draw your own, pick the units to take to the field, and sound reveille! You’re off to battle.
Black Falcon Software Presents: Branding SharePoint Services 2007
Microsoft’s SharePoint Server is probably the finest document management server available on the market. It has all of the necessary features to allow any sized company to manage their documents across an entire organization or for a single division. And for those that cannot or do not want afford t he licensing fees of the full server implementation, Microsoft offers their Windows SharePoint Services engine without charge. Though the sub-set of the full server implementation it nonetheless provides all of the necessary document management services that a company would require.
Due to its growing popularity many IT organizations have been experimenting with customizing their SharePoint services so that it brings a more seamless experience to the user when accessing services through a corporate portal. Here is where SharePoint becomes rather weak and completely frustrating.
SharePoint was originally designed to do one thing and one thing well… service document management. There was little thought on Microsoft’s part to expand this software to do much beyond this. However, many developers are attempting to do just that. In response, Microsoft has released tools to aid in th is effort, which includes the recently free version of SharePoint designer 2007.
Unfortunately, most of these tools fall short of being able to provide robust platforms for extending SharePoint and the motley set of documentation that litters the Internet from Microsoft to individual developer efforts at this process has made the entire endeavor more confusing with the feeling that it is one giant “hack”. In effect it is. In addition, using SharePoint for processes that it wasn’t really meant to handle such as a semi-replacement for IIS becomes a little ridiculous considering that SharePoint relies on IIS in the first place to serve up its web-pages.
Branding a SharePoint site to bring it in line with corporate interfaces appears to be one of the more popular endeavors in these efforts but again, the documentation is all over the place making researching this process a rather tiresome, if not frustrating ordeal.
Black Falcon Software now brings a little guidance to this aspect of working with SharePoint with its own guide to branding a SharePoint site. The free download will assist those developers who want or need to brand a SharePoint site with a solid starting point for their efforts as well as give them the areas where further research may be required.
If you like the guide or have suggestions or comments please leave comment with this post or send an email to Black Falcon Software’s support email address… support@blackfalconsoftware.com
Black Falcon
Tools & Code: Mono Tools Plugin Released for Visual Studio
Mono Tools Plug-in for Visual Studio
By Michael Desmond
11/11/2009
Article Source
Novell on Tuesday announced the release of Mono Tools for Visual Studio, a Visual Studio 2008 add-in that enables Windows-based developers to create .NET applications for Linux, Unix and Mac OS X. The solution promises to greatly simplify cross-platform .NET development, by allowing Visual Studio developers to use the same tooling, interface, libraries and resources for cross-platform development that they use for traditional .NET coding.
“From within Visual Studio you just say “Run on Linux,” and a little pop up comes up asking you which Linux machine you want to take [the code] to,” said Novell VP of Developer Support Miguel de Icaza, of the Mono Tools interface. “You are still developing against .NET and the .NET libraries. It is completely the .NET tool chain and .NET compiled code right up to the debugger. And then the debugger integrates into the Visual Studio interface.”
Mono Tools includes integrated test and debug, allowing developers in Visual Studio to detect incompatibilities in code in the move from .NET and Windows to Mono and Linux. Code can be compiled and run on a local, Windows-based Mono stack, as well as on remote Linux servers.
Mono Tools is based on work done by the Mono Project, a Novell-sponsored initiative to create a cross-platform, open source implementation of the Microsoft .NET Framework. The Mono effort leverages the ECMA-approved C# and Common Language Runtime (CLR) industry standards, providing compatibility with .NET Framework 3.5.
Portions of the .NET foundation stack, including Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation, are not supported by Mono. De Icaza noted that existing .NET applications containing unsupported code features would need to be adapted before moving cross-platform via Mono Tools or other solutions. Mono does support Windows Communication Foundation, with the notable exception of Microsoft’s Windows CardSpace (code named InfoCard) identity system.
By Developer Demand
Joseph Hill, product manager for the Mono Project at Novell, said Mono Tools was developed in response to programmer demand.
“We did a survey a while back. We found a lot of nascent use of Mono across the board — a lot of interest in it and a lot of interest in cross-platform environments,” Hill said. “But the thing holding it back was lack of support from Visual Studio.”
De Icaza said Mono Tools for Visual Studio could end up being an important factor in attracting talent to the Mono developer community.
“We don’t want people to move away from Visual Studio. They might love Resharper or their favorite add-in for databases,” de Icaza said. “We can bring these features to .NET developers who might otherwise find themselves with a steep learning curve.”
Mono Tools also attempts to appeal to ISVs and others with its ability to create pre-rolled application appliances. Mono Tools’ SUSE Studio interface lets developers package Mono applications with a tuned version of the SUSE Linux operating system, creating a fully packaged app-and-OS combination that can be run with little or no on-site configuration, de Icaza said.
“We call this the appliance model, where developers instead of delivering a piece of the puzzle can deliver the complete solution,” de Icaza said.Mono Tools for Visual Studio is available in three editions. Professional Edition is an individual license for $99, Enterprise Edition is intended for individual developers in an organization and costs $249, and Ultimate Edition provides five enterprise developer licenses and includes a limited commercial license to redistribute Mono across platforms. It costs $2,499.
About the Author
Michael Desmond is editor in chief of Visual Studio Magazine and former editor in chief of Redmond Developer News. He has served as senior editor of news at PC World and executive editor at Multimedia World magazine, and has written for dozens of publications and Web sites. Desmond has also written four computing books, including Microsoft Office 2003 in 10 Simple Steps or Less.
Software Engineering: The Sociology of Software Project Failure
Recently a new report has come out stating that recent trends in software development have shown a rate of failure at approximately 68%. Such failure is not judged simply by the fact that a project failed to be implemented go in but instead among several factors, which include unsatisfactory results, missed implementation date, budget overruns as well as project cancellation. Given this criteria, it easy to understand why the percentage of failure is so high and why it has remained hovering at this rate since the inception of modern software development. In other words, it is a stark indication that the Information Technology field has yet to mature like every other technical or process-driven field (ie: manufacturing).
When reading such reports the analysis of project failure has consistently revolved around what development processes were used or not used and the number of software engineering mistakes that were made; all of which by now have been substantially proven by SE analysts over many years of studying project failure as the cardinal mistakes technical managers constantly and consistently make.
In fact, the reporting style of such an indicator in the Information Field is so formula driven that one report hardly reads as any different from another. Its as if such reports are simply cranked out on a random basis with the same reasoning and the same failure numbers just to keep reminding professionals in the industry that it still stinks when it comes to quality output. The interesting thing to note is why such reports are never changing and have been consistent for some 35+ years in a field that promotes modernization of technologies?
Software development is not done in a vacuum; it is part of a larger process that must include several parties coming together to produce a deliverable; the users who will eventually be using the software, the technical managers who will be providing guidance to the projects, and the developers themselves who will create the actual product. With three distinct parties all who have vested interests in a successful outcome, you would think they would do everything possible to make sure their projects are successful. However, this is hardly the case.
The “ugly truth” is that actual software development is done within the constraints of a corporate culture that supersedes the interests of the parties to any individual project. And it is this culture that provides an underlying sociology that most often causes software project failure even before any project is actually begun.
Black Falcon Software Presents: SQLHelper – Easy To Use .NET SQL Server Database Access Layer
Long the favorite of .NET developers who use SQL Server, Microsoft’s Application Data Block, “SQLHelper”, has been a staple for a lot of database applications. This software component is still available. However, it long ago gave way to the much more powerful but rather complex Microsoft Enterprise Library that included an upgraded version of this popular component.
However, Microsoft’s “SQLHelper” had an Achilles Heel, in that it provided so many overloaded method signatures that most developers found the software confusing to step through or even understand when analyzing it.
To be fair though, Microsoft’s original component was not all that difficult to get into but its style did put developers off.
The result was that many developers took the component and rewrote it to their own liking using the basic source code as the foundation for this new work. This same component has also been rewritten to support a host of other database engines including Sybase and Oracle.
With the advent of Microsoft’s Enterprise Library, the popular “SQLHelper” software still remains a favorite for database application development due to its ease of implementation and simplicity. Yet, this software is now a part of the original offerings that went along with the first two versions of the .NET Framework. With the Enterprise Library and other new additions to Microsoft’s stable of database tools such as LINQ and the ADO object relational mapping tools along with a host of third-party offerings, being able to develop straight forward database applications has become somewhat of a challenge as these new tools bring constant change and increasing complexity to requirements that simply don’t warrant it.
To return to the original concepts of simplicity and ease of use, Black Falcon Software has released its own “SQLHelper” module to the .NET development community at large as a free and open-source module.
All project and source code modules are provided in both their C# and VB.NET versions for both the 2.0 and 3.5 .NET Frameworks along with complete documentation for the API. In addition, for ease of testing a complete test-client module has been.
To get this software, simply go to the link below to perform the download.
If you like the software please leave your comments here or write to Black Falcon Software at the following address… support@blackfalconsoftware.com
Suggested Reading…
Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Programming (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) |
Black Falcon Software Presents: MDBHelper – Easy To Use .NET MDB Database Access Layer
Microsoft’s popular Access Database is probably the simplest database tool still available for desktop applications. Its only competitor has been the highly popular SQLite database engine for those who prefer a complete localized SQL implementation.
However, most .NET developers do not require nor often use the Access development environment for their application requirements since this is more or less a user-driven implementation for more simplistic database development. Those Access applications that do reach any level of complexity are eventually upgraded to a distributed level application in order to make maintenance easier and more uniform to the IT organization that utilizes the .NET Frameworks.
To this end many developers would prefer an easy to use database access layer to their existing Access databases instead of having to write such a tool from scratch. Now Black Falcon Software has released its MDBHelper module to the .NET development community at large as a free and open-source module.
All project and source code modules are provided in both their C# and VB.NET versions for both the 2.0 and 3.5 .NET Frameworks along with complete documentation for the API. In addition, for ease of testing a complete test-client module has been provided along with a copy of Microsoft’s freely distributable Northwind Access Database.
To get this software, simply go to the link below to perform the download.
If you like the software please leave your comments here or write to Black Falcon Software at the following address… support@blackfalconsoftware.com
Tools & Code: Microsoft SharePoint Designer Offered As Free Download
SharePoint Designer Offered as Free Dev Tool
3 April 2009 · by Kurt Mackie
Go to article source here…
Download SharePoint Designer here…
Microsoft on Wednesday announced that its SharePoint Web portal design tool is now available as a free download, which can be accessed here.
Microsoft decided to offer Office SharePoint Designer 2007 for free because it didn’t want price to be a barrier to SharePoint users, according to Tom Rizzo, senior director of product management for the SharePoint team. Microsoft has so far sold more than 100 million SharePoint licenses, he added in a video announcement.
SharePoint Designer 2007 was still listed at Amazon.com for $238.49 on Friday, but it is being removed from Microsoft’s price catalog and will only be available from Microsoft as a free download as of April 1.
In addition, Microsoft eventually plans to make its Expression Web product compatible with SharePoint. Expression Web is developer tool for creating dynamic Web sites using ASP.NET and PHP scripting, but it currently “does not directly support SharePoint,” according to a SharePoint team letter. The letter didn’t say when that SharePoint compatibility would be enabled.
For those who just bought SharePoint Designer 2007 and have Software Assurance licensing for that product, Microsoft is making a concession of sorts. The company is offering Expression Web to those who had Software Assurance licensing as of April 1, 2009 — to “make it right” for those customers, according to a Microsoft Q&A.
Both dev tools — SharePoint Designer and Expression Web — trace their lineage, in part, to Microsoft Office FrontPage, which is a “legacy” Web development tool. Microsoft’s mainstream support for the current FrontPage 2003 product will end on April 14, 2009, with paid extended support ending on April 8, 2014, according to a Microsoft lifecycle page.
Expression Web licensees have the right to use FrontPage 2003, if they prefer that dev tool, according to the Q&A.
Microsoft plans to ship the next version of SharePoint Designer with the next SharePoint release. That next release, called “SharePoint 14,” may appear in beta form in “the next several months,” according to a blog by Guy Creese, vice president and research director of the collaboration and content strategies service at Burton Group.
Windows OS: ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley Tells Us Windows 7 users can downgrade to XP
Microsoft will allow Windows 7 users to downgrade to XP
April 6th, 2009
Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 10:04 am
Go to article source…
Microsoft and its PC partners are going to allow Windows 7 users to downgrade not just to Windows Vista, but also to Windows XP, Microsoft officials are confirming.
Some company watchers have been wondering about the downgrade rights that Microsoft will offer when Windows 7 ships. When AppleInsider reported this weekend that HP was going to offer Windows 7 users the ability to downgrade to XP, I asked Microsoft about the story.
Here’s what a spokesperson representing the company’s Windows client division told me via e-mail on April 5:
MJF: Does Microsoft have downgrade rights for Windows XP planned as part of Windows 7?
Microsoft spokesperson: Yes. This is not the first time that Microsoft has offered downgrade rights to a version other than its immediate predecessor and our Software Assurance volume-license customers can always downgrade to any previous version of Windows. (Note: Microsoft changed the statement from “Software Assurance” to “volume license” Monday afternoon.)
(The spokesperson clarified later that downgrade rights allow users to install previous versions of Windows, not just the most recent predecessor. In other words, a Software-Assurance-covered volume-license user who wanted to downgrade from Vista could, technically, go back to Windows 2000 or even Windows 95, not just XP. Who knew?)
MJF: Is Microsoft cutting these kinds of rights deals with each OEM individually? Has it made such an arrangement with HP?
Microsoft spokesperson: Downgrade rights policies are the same for all of our main OEM partners and what you are talking about is not a special arrangement. Since the End User right to Windows XP Professional is part of the license terms for these editions, it’s really about making facilitation options easier for our OEM customers and End Users.
(It’s worth noting that the only two versions of Windows Vista for which Microsoft and its PC makers provide downgrade rights are Vista Business and Ultimate — and those must downgrade to XP Professional. I’d think similar limitations would be likely with Windows 7.)
The AppleInsider report claimed that Microsoft and HP had agreed to provide downgrade rights from October (one rumored launch target for Windows 7) and April 30, 2010. Microsoft officials did not comment on whether either date is real. And HP didn’t respond to my request for comment at all. (I am doubtful about the April 30th deadline. Why only provide downgrade rights for a handful of months?)
Update: The Microsoft spokesperson said the April 30 cu-off date in the original story is not something the company is ready to discuss. The exact quote: “No dates have been announced for the end of Windows 7 downgrade right facilitation to Windows XP.”
Update No. 2: An HP spokesperson responded Monday afternoon, concurring with Microsoft’s statement that Microsoft terms and conditions are consistent across OEMs. The spokesperson declined to provide any details, citing “confidentiality” of HP communications.
With Windows 7 looking good (even at this beta stage), why would users want to downgrade to XP, you may wonder. For many businesses, supporting a slew of different Windows releases is a nightmare. They’d prefer to have all their users on one (or possibly two) different versions.
If Microsoft ends up finding a way to insure that legacy Windows apps work on Windows 7 — beyond supporting them with a combination of Virtual PC and MED-V, another option available only to users who buy Microsoft’s Software Assurance licensing — downgrading to an older version of Windows from Windows 7 could look a whole lot less appealing.
Meanwhile, in related news, TechARP — the site that brought us the still-unconfirmed-but-likely-true report that Microsoft is planning to offer PC buyers a free upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 if they purchase new systems starting this summer — is now reporting that users who downgrade to XP also will be eligible for free Win 7 upgrades via the Windows 7 Upgrade Option program.
Mary Jo FoleyMary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 20 years. Don’t miss a single post. Subscribe via Email or RSS.
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Business: “IT failure contributes to UK bank collapse”
IT failure contributes to UK bank collapse
April 1st, 2009 by Michael Krigsman
A failed business strategy involving a large IT blunder contributed to the collapse of Scotland’s largest customer-owned lender, the Dunfermline Building Society. As a result, the Society is writing off a £9.5 million IT loss, despite total profit for the year of only £11 million.
The UK government will pay Nationwide Building Society 1.6 billion pounds ($2.3 billion) in cash to purchase the troubled bank.
The Financial Times reports:
Jim Murphy, Scotland secretary, said the previous management had made “reckless decisions” because of its over-exposure to commercial loans, involvement in the subprime market and unfortunate decisions on technology. Dunfermline was forced to make a £9.5m write-off on last year’s £11m profits because of a failed IT system.
Finextra reports that the company lost focus by attempting to establish a software business selling mortgage-processing systems to other banks:
The company poured £31 million into the loss making Dunfermline Solutions unit, which was set up to develop a mortgage IT system that could then be sold to other financial institutions.
Scottish newspaper, The Herald, describes the misguided business strategy behind this software solutions endeavor:
One expert, who has been involved in advising building societies on their accounts for the past 15 years, told The Herald this week: “The Dunfermline was never a particularly profitable organization. The IT loss was pretty huge compared with the size of their profits – so their buffer against further losses is not as good as it could be.”
He went on: “They have a good brand, healthy margins on their residential lending, but venturing into anything beyond housing association finance risks losses on property development type loans. It is easy to grow your balance sheet by lending to property developers, but it is quite unusual for that size of institution. If you are anything less than a £10bn society, the solution is not to get involved in anything other than simple basic commercial loans.”
Security: We don’t have any… “Massive Chinese computer espionage network uncovered”
Massive Chinese computer espionage network uncovered
Paul Harris in New York
Sunday 29 March 2009
A mystery electronic spy network apparently based in China has infiltrated hundreds of computers around the world and stolen files and documents, Canadian researchers have revealed.
The network, dubbed GhostNet, appears to target embassies, media groups, NGOs, international organisations, government foreign ministries and the offices of the Dalai Lama, leader of the Tibetan exile movement. The researchers, based at Toronto University’s Munk Centre for International Studies, said their discovery had profound implications.
“This report serves as a wake-up call… these are major disruptive capabilities that the professional information security community, as well as policymakers, need to come to terms with rapidly,” said researchers Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski.
After 10 months of study, the researchers concluded that GhostNet had invaded 1,295 computers in 103 countries, but it appeared to be most focused on countries in south Asia and south-east Asia, as well as the Dalai Lama’s offices in India, Brussels, London and New York. The network continues to infiltrate dozens of new computers each week.
Such a pattern, and the fact that the network seemed to be controlled from computers inside China, could suggest that GhostNet was set up or linked to Chinese government espionage agencies. However, the researchers were clear that they had not been able to identify who was behind the network, and said it could be run by private citizens in China or a different country altogether. A Chinese government spokesmen has denied any official involvement.
GhostNet can invade a computer over the internet and penetrate and steal secret files. It can also turn on the cameras and microphones of an infected computer, effectively creating a bug that can monitor what is going inside the room where the computer is. Anyone could be watched and listened to.
The researchers said they had been tipped off to the network after having been asked by officials with the Dalai Lama to examine their computers. The officials had been worried that their computers were being infected and monitored by outsiders. The Chinese government regularly attacks the Tibetan exile movement as encouraging separatism and terrorism within China. The researchers found that the computers had succumbed to cyber-attack and that numerous files, including letters and emails, had been stolen. The intruders had also gained control of the electronic mail server of the Dalai Lama’s computers.
“The investigation was able to conclude that Tibetan computer systems were compromised by multiple infections that gave attackers unprecedented access to potentially sensitive information, including documents from the private office of the Dalai Lama,” the researchers concluded in their report. They have now notified various law enforcement agencies, including international groups and the FBI.
The news also comes as researchers at Cambridge University prepare to release a report today called Snooping Dragon, which looks at suspected Chinese cyber-monitoring of Tibetan exile groups. The report is expected to detail the unexpected scale and sophistication of such efforts by a government against a private body.
