Code Monkey

One Friday at PAX Prime 2011

PAX Prime. Gaming mecca. Hordes of nerds descending on the unsuspecting inhabitants of Seattle.

Having never been to a convention so large, I didn't know what to expect. I did expect it to be fun.

It was awesome.

 

A 20-minute hands-on demo of Rage, a Bethesda post-apocalyptic fps. Someone at the booth mentioned it being the result of if "if Fallout and Oblivion had hot nasty sex." You're rescued from some cryogenic capsule and quickly sent to kill some bandits. Amed with a trusty pistol, you venture into a cave and begin working your way through these mutilated thugs. Shoot one in the arm and he grabs his arm; shoot a leg and they limp; shoot them a few times and they fall to the ground, shooting back from there. The other cool mechanic? When you loose all your life, you go through a little minigame to get back up and shock anyone nearby. Careful though, cause you can only use it every once in a while.

Wizards of the Coast had a fun little booth, promoting Neverwinter. You walk in to an area with ruins of broken walls. After choosing a character (pulling from staples like the fighter, the wizard, and the rogue), you and a few other are led to a small room where you play through a small scenario. Rescue the damsel in distress guarded by the mighty dragon? But the best bit? Rolling a giant die a foot across to see what happens!

Next stop, a look at the new Joe Danger game by the folks from Hello Games, based in the UK. They had several stations set up to demo their game; they even shipped a 60" monitor with their luggage across the pond. Incredibly nice folks and a very fun game, a sidescrolling vehicle extravaganza. Race through in several different modes, disarming missiles, doing double backflips, and dodging traffic.

Lastly, a long wait for Uncharted 3 where you got to try some multiplayer and then watch a 10 minute demo behind closed doors. Mulitplayer is a nice thing to add but nothing special; it plays similarly to that in Uncharted 2. The single player demo was a blast though. If you thought the action was over the top in the first two games, the third trumps them both. It has all the ludicrous scenes one would want from an Indiana Jones movie: infiltrate a landing strip, boarding a plane as it zooms down a runway, avoiding falling out of the back of a plane while fighting off goons, and making your way through a plane as it falls out of the sky. Classic.

Those were all the demos there was time to try. In one day, there wasn't enough time to hit the other big name games (Borderlands 2, Guild Wars 2, and The Old Republic to name a few) or stop and try out any board or miniature games.

Next year, a 3-day pass. Definitely.

Introducing the Windward Javelin, now 20% more pointy!

Here at Windward Studios, we're always hard at work improving our reporting solutions. After looking through suggestions and brainstorming we settled on a list of major additions that would improve the flexibility and usability of our reporting engine.

Lo and behold, Windward Javelin!

• Javelin is a standalone installation running on a server. Any interaction (like running a report) is done by making calls to that server. Easier to use; easier to maintain.
• The Javelin API is RESTful. All major programming languages can make calsl to a RESTful API. This makes reporting even easier to integrate into your system. What is REST?
• Javelin has an additional scheduling component. You can schedule report to be generated and automatically emailed out.
• Bundled with a sample HTML portal to work with Javelin. You don’t need a programmer to get started using Javelin.

Right now, we do have the following restriction. Javelin needs to be installed on an IIS enabled computer (meaning a Windows OS machine). However, there are no such restrictions for any clients interacting with Javelin (your application can run in any operating system).

Windward Custom Functions: Military payroll calculator

Source code for the Java project can be found here.  Source for the .NET project can be found here.

Version 10.1 of the Windward reporting tools introduced equation and functions, similar to what exists in Microsoft Excel. Alongside that came the ability to define custom functions that integrate into both or GUI design tool (AutoTag) and server-deployment servers.

Custom function are a piece of code that allows you implement your own logic in either Java (for the Java engine) or C#/J# (for the .NET engine and AutoTag).

In our case, we want to calculate the salary of someone in the military. For input, we have a payscale code (for example, "O4") and the number of years they've been part of the military (say, 3 years). For output, we have a single number (the salary).

We start with an XML file containing the pay grades, years, and associated salaries (MilitaryPayLookupTable.xml). The step we take below are for Java, but the process is very similar for .NET.

We then take the sample that ships with the Java engine, "JavaCustomFunctionExample."

1. Open the WindwardCustomFunctions.java file in your IDE or text editor of choice. In the screenshots we use IntelliJ.
2. Because we are adding a function, change the value of "numberOfFunctions" from 3 to 4. 
3. Add information about the function in the static block.
4.  Implement the function. Windward functions can take the following types as parameters: Object (when you aren't sure what the type will be), Object array (for example "Object vals[]"), and Number. In our case, the implementation is:  We are using the rank and years of service to look up the salary in the XML file.
5. Compile the file and create a JAR called WindwardCustomFunctions.jar.
6. Replace the WindwardCustomFunctions.jar in your Java engine install with your new one.

For more information on custom functions, see the Windward Wiki.

Social Media for the Anti-social (update)

An update on my social media challenge from this post is proving to be quite difficult.  It is halfway done and I've run out of things to say.  A few observations:

1. Facebook has worked very well for me to connect to people I usually don't in a controlled setting.  Easy to update, post silly stuff, generally light-hearted (at least the way I'm using it).  It doesn't seem good for growing interpersonal relationships as much as maintaining existing ones.
2. Twitter is even easier if you spend a lot of time online.  Choose a subject (or set of related subjects) and post up links.  If you are sufficiently well respected (or amusing) you can post more personal opinions.  If you have special sources you can post exclusive information.
3. Blogging is a pain.  You can tell from the successive posts that they are getting shorter.  It is a pain to write anything coherent on a daily schedule.

From a long-term point of view, Facebook and blogging seem to bring the most benefits if you don't have an existing following.  Facebook (used sparingly, as opposed to obsessively) is very time efficient to just pinging people.  Blogging is about building expertise and sharing it.  It needs to be useful, interesting, or amusing.  Most likely this means posting once to twice a week to balance coherent useful content with a full time job.

So here's to another two weeks of nonsense from me.

Players ruin the fun of MMOs?

I read a blog post here about how groups and raid in an MMO (like WoW) have a lot of the fun ruined by the seriousness of it.  Yes, it is understandable that some would be quite serious, given the logistic difficulties.

But would it be possible to separate out the players that want to be silly in a way that doesn't affect the serious people?  Seems like the easiest way would be to allow people two join a least 2 guilds, one for serious gaming and anther for pure silliness.  Wonder if it would work...

Difficulty of good web design

Web design is hard.  I'm not talking about the actual html, css, or even the scripting.  I mean designing a site so that it is easy to use and looks "right."  Most of us can take a look at a webpage and say whether or not it feels right or not.

But how many can say why?  And propose actual solutions?  Color theory has been around for a while and is well understood (by others at least).  Magazine layout is pretty well understood as well.

But this interactive level, the slick web "feel", is still quite new.  Dubbed UX (user experience), this is still quite new.  And from the entrepreneur events I've attended, very much in demand.  I wonder how one goes about learning this.  Trial and error?

Boulder Eyes Lasik Quick Review

I went through a laser eye procedure (PRK) about fourth months ago (no, my eyes don't shoot lasers...yet) with Dr. Beyer at Boulder Eyes in Boulder, CO.  I wanted to share my experience because I had difficulty finding review for the practice.  I'll likely go into more detail in the future.

Quick overview: it has gone exceedingly well and I would recommend it.

Pros:

• Gone from not being able to make out people's face from across the room to 20/15 (pure awesomeness)
• No longer have to deal with glasses (double awesomeness)
• Very experience staff put me at ease, seeing as I have only one set of eyes

Cons:

• Minor halo around lights at night (not enough to affect what I can do, but noticeable)
• Recovery took longer than expected (was told the average was a week; ended up taking two); make sure to plan for extra time just in case
• Cost a bit more than the other places I looked at (minor for me considering the importance of the procedure)

If anyone comes across this post has any more questions, feel free to post them.

Why We Hack

I saw an interesting article on hacking here.  Personally, I've always viewed hacking (illegal, legal, or gray)  as a form of exploration.  You are using something in an unintended way. Usually interesting.  Sometimes fun.  Always neat to see.

It pain me that the term has been hijacked to mean: "use electronic to do something illegal."  A terrible shame.

Gaaah! Damn you Blizzcon!

This mirrors my own sentiments rather well.  I've been waiting for Diablo 3 since...well... Diablo 2.  Announcing one class at Blizzcon?  No release date in sight?  A testament to how successful they are, that they can announce a class for a game and count that as major news.

I shouldn't really complain; it is a convention, so it is mainly targeted to people who bought tickets and showed.  I hear it was a blast from that point of view.

The essence of programming...

... is in taking simple pieces of logic and connecting them in a manner that gets you the result you want.  It isn't voodoo science; it isn't magic.

The real difficulty is when you have a result that needs a huge number of pieces of logic to be linked to in a tricky manner.  Note that the individual pieces are quite simple.

If you look at it this way, all major software development issues stemming from programming is not clearly grasping the links (structure/architecture).  If knowing is half the battle, not knowing is being blindsided by a burly Hun before you even knew the battle had begun.