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Closed 10 years ago.
Is there software that can help create flow charts, class diagrams etc to help software development planning.
Thanks
You can create all kinds of charts and diagrams with something like Microsoft Visio or the open-source Dia.
If you want to auto-generate things like this, take a look at using a UML-based tool. A list of some UML tools is available here.
As a open-source fan and contributor, I tried Dia on Ubuntu, but it was way too clumsy for what I needed to do. One thing I wanted to do was get raster or vector snapshots of fairly complex multi-page diagrams and put them in a wiki page, and Dia really couldn't cope with that - the fonts went all wonky and so on.
If you try Dia and find it doesn't work for you, and you have access to a Mac, try OmniGraffle. It's pretty slick.
I use Graphviz in conjunction with doxygen. Search for both on Stack Overflow, there are lots of tips,such as this page.
In particular, as a highly-iterative developer, I really like that the diagrams I create with Graphviz are stored in a simple textual fashion and so can be included in version control and diff nicely.
There's a very nice iPad/iPhone version of Graphviz called Instaviz which allows you to exchange diagrams with your desktop machine and tweak them on the pad.
We used Rational Rose in class to do that. It also does much more:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/awdtools/developer/rose/
I use this Software Ideas Modeller, or rather, used to before everything was built into Visual Studio (Ultimate with the many plugins that are available for it).
Related
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Closed 10 years ago.
I have recently begun game development, working mainly with C++ and SDL. After creating few simple clones, I want to work on something more complex. Something with a lot more physics than I am used to, and complex game objects.
So far, I have been using a basic tile editor I made in SDL to create binary maps, but now I want to work on something meatier. Something in which I can place objects and define their properties. 2D, of course, but with more utility than a simple tile editor.
I have been searching, but I haven't really found any articles which are aimed at developing such utilities.
Where can I find information to help me develop this toolkit? And what should I use? I have been looking at Qt, but I'm not really sure. I would appreciate any help and possible guidance for this endeavor of mine.
(I know that excellent utilities do exist, but I want to develop one myself, and then hopefully integrate my basic physics engine into it. It may be re-inventing the wheel, but a very good learning opportunity.)
Tiled seems to answer most, if not all of your questions.
Where can I find information to help me develop this toolkit?
A good place to start is by looking at open-source projects, which tiled is.
And what should I use? I have been looking at Qt, but I'm not really sure.
You need to be more specific. What requirements do you have? Tiled seems to do most of what you say you need, and is written in Qt, so Qt is definitely up to the task. It's also written in C++, which you are already familiar with.
I would recommend not reinventing the wheel, and using an existing, open-source map editor (like tiled) to do what you need. If there's a feature you HAVE to have, you can always contribute or extend the editor.
Since you're going into making a more complicated game, my recommendation is to first define your requirements. Once you've done that, write the game (not an engine).
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Closed 9 years ago.
I am currently developing an rpg type game in C++. I have developed a few games in the past but have used heavily inclusive APIs. For this game I am looking into developing it more myself. I still want the graphic and animation functions to be (mainly) implemented using the library. Here is a break down of the game:
It will be a top down tile-based game when not in battle where the character is free to walk around and speed will be determined by a speed stat
Once in battle it will be a turn-based battle system with (not completely final) 3 man team on each side
Some information will be stored online and will be used in the game but that will not need to be checked often
What I am asking is; what would most likely by the best library or API for me to use for this purpose? I have searched and have been able to find a few that I believe may suit my needs but none that have been popular. Perhaps I am looking for something too specific but any help or recommendation would be greatly appreciated.
P.S. Along with a recommendation, a link for a decent tutorial or documentation would be most appreciated.
There is always the popular libsdl. There are many tutorials for this library online inluding the dedicated
http://www.sdltutorials.com/
You can always use as much or as little of a library's functionality as you like.
Have you had a look at this?
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/
If you look in the forums, people have written their own compatible libraries for AI, Physics etc etc that they seem to be happy to share. Also there are lots of compatible tools like this http://www.ambiera.com/coppercube/ and lots of language wrappers.
As an addendum to Caustic's answer, I suggest looking into Ogre3D. Like Irrlicht, it is primarily a rendering engine, leaving much of the work to be done by yourself. From personal experience, I cannot recommend one over the other.
I am sorry to swear. I believe you should use SFML because it is an all-around nice library for graphics development.
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Closed 10 years ago.
I`m a beginner C++ programmer. And I want to pursue my career in system- and driver-programming.
Can you suggest me an opensource projects to I improve my skills in low-level development?
I am looking for a project with the following characteristic:
- on C\C++ language based
- a small project with a small amount of code, yet
- UNIX-based systems designed
Do you know that something like this?
Check the google summer of code projects page! These are all open source, and many of them are based on C/C++. Each project lists ideas that are aimed at outsiders / beginners.
Here is last year's page: http://code.google.com/soc/2008/ Google has not yet decided on which projects are participating this year, but this information will become available within the next couple of weeks (before the end of march 2009) along with a fresh list of ideas.
If you're a student in a College/University you can get lucky and even get mentoring through the GSOC project. But even if not, they will really value any contribution you can make.
Always work on open source projects that you actually use and care about. If you don't use the project yourself, why should you do good work on it?
What about Minix 3? It's a great way to learn about low level programming.
Start your own open source project.
Host it on Google Code
Make something does something great or makes something else easier to use
Use it and iterate it
Along the same lines as Sourceforge Help Wanted, there's a website called OpenHatch.org that lists bugs from open source projects that need attention as well as potential mentors. In particular, you can browse for bitesized bugs that might be a good place for a beginner to start.
Have you tried sourceforge's help wanted?
Edit: And as a personal suggestion, I'm not sure it fits your requirements, but the transmission bittorrent client needs an implementation of Kademlia DHT in C, which is pretty low level networking.
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Closed 10 years ago.
What is the most recommended free/public API for accessing financial market stats and stock quotes (preferrably real-time quotes)? I'm not too picky about how it's exposed (SOAP, REST, some proprietary XML setup, etc.), as long as it's got some decent documentation.
I'm planning to build a simple web dashboard in PHP with some basic data (basically a quick-n-dirty homepage), but may want to grow it into a full blown web app eventually. Any thoughts?
As I find some, I'll post a list here (feel free to comment if you've used any of them before):
Free
opentick (soprano) // link doesn't work
Not Free
XigniteRealTime
Yahoo's api provides a CSV dump:
Example: http://finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=msft&f=price
I'm not sure if it is documented or not, but this code sample should showcase all of the features (namely the stat types [parameter f in the query string]. I'm sure you can find documentation (official or not) if you search for it.
http://www.goldb.org/ystockquote.html
Edit
I found some unofficial documentation:
http://ilmusaham.wordpress.com/tag/stock-yahoo-data/
I usually find that ProgrammableWeb is a good place to go when looking for APIs.
Markit On Demand provides a set of free financial APIs for playing around with. Looks like there is a stock quote API, a stock ticker/company search and a charting API available. Look at http://dev.markitondemand.com
Last I looked -- a couple of years ago -- there wasn't an easy option and the "solution" (which I did not agree with) was screen-scraping a number of websites. It may be easier now but I would still be surprised to see something, well, useful.
The problem here is that the data is immensely valuable (and very expensive), so while defining a method of retrieving it would be easy, getting the trading venues to part with their data would be next to impossible. Some of the MTFs (currently) provide their data for free but I'm not sure how you would get it without paying someone else, like Reuters, for it.
I found the links and tips under this question to be helpful.
Some of the brokerage firms like TDAmeritrade have APIs you can use to get streaming data from their servers:
http://www.tdameritrade.com/tradingtools/partnertools/api_dev.html
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Closed 11 years ago.
I am looking for an open-source project involving c++ GUI(s) working with a database. I have not done it before, and am looking for a way to get my feet wet. Which can I work on?
How about this one http://sourceforge.net/projects/sqlitebrowser/:
SQLite Database browser is a light GUI editor for SQLite databases, built on top of QT. The main goal of the project is to allow non-technical users to create, modify and edit SQLite databases using a set of wizards and a spreadsheet-like interface.
Do a project you can get involved in and passionate about. Hopefully a product you use every day.
Anything that you like and feel that you can contribute to.
In my brief experience contributing to an open-source project, I found two points keep me contributing:
Great people - the other people contributing were fun to collaborate with and hang out with (virtually).
Project you care about - doesn't really matter which project as long as the its goals are something you want to spend your free time working on.
Sourceforge has a help wanted page: http://sourceforge.net/people/
browse the postings to see if a project is in your expertise or find one that sound interesting...
And let me be the first to say thank you for being willing to contribute your time and knowlede to the open source movement.