Gentle Reader: This is the second part of a two-part set of posts. For this one to be useful, please take a look at Part I. Also, I’m not an expert on military operations or organizations; so if there’s any error in a basic infantry platoon, feel free to correct me. I am aware, however, of the 7-1 ratio of Service to Combat units in the modern military, and that this is only a simple component of a far more sophisticated structure—that’s why I selected it!
In the first installment of the Wrong Way Warrior, we saw how an OOP developer put together a simple proof-of-concept using what he thought was a prudent approach to a battle simulation. He’d provide the Warrior with certain characteristics and then subclass those characteristics to concrete warriors that would share the capabilities of the parent class. In addition, the concrete warriors would be given a movie clip representation of the warrior.
After the first design was sent to the customer, the response was less than favorable. It was described as “a children’s game” at best. The military advisor described it as a caveman battle plan where all of the combatants are similarly armed with a club to attack adversaries. The problem was that it was bound to a fairly static design, and it would be impossible to be used for a simulation that had more complex behaviors. However, the other submissions were not much better, and so the customer provided a simple organization within the military to simulate—the basic infantry platoon. After all, they’re paying your company $1.5 million to develop the simulation. (This was news to the developer!) Figure 1 shows the organization in terms of a new set of movie clips:
Figure 1: Movie clip representation of platoon
Continue reading ‘Wrong Way Warrior: Getting Flexibility with Design Patterns—Part II’
I’ve been working on documentation, and I began thinking about the concepts of design patterns/OOP/principles and algorithms as the forest and trees, respectively. The documentation involves Server Side ActionScript (SSAS, which is ActionScript 1.0) and good old ActionScript 3.0 on the client side. (In this context, client refers to the client making requests from the server, and not Client as a class that makes requests from other classes in a design pattern.)
In previous posts I’ve admitted to being an algorithm junkie, and for the last several days that’s exactly the habit I’ve been feeding. Since I was documenting SSAS—ActionScript 1.0— which has no user classes or typed data, I can say with a straight face that I really didn’t have a lot of choice. However, the client side work with AS 3.0 could have been more OOP-like and maybe a little Strategy pattern could have been used just to get everyone off on the right foot.
Continue reading ‘ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns/OOP/Principles and Algorithms: The Forest and Trees of Programming’
Note: This is one of those posts that begs for reader comments. PHP is a much-loved language of mine, but I just don’t do the kind of applications that require PHP often. As a result, it stays on the shelf until I need it. So, while very familiar with PHP, I do not claim a high level expertise in it. However, judging from the online PHP discussions and PHP publications, lots of developers are well versed in the language. So, for you PHP’ers out there, your comments are welcomed. (Likewise if you’re not familiar with PHP, feel free to comment as well.)
PHP, My Old Friend
PHP has always been a developers programming language. From its inception, you could write PHP using Notepad or TextEdit and not have to worry about some cranky API or IDE. Alternatively, there are plenty of development applications for creating PHP, such as Dreamweaver. Further, you could write email apps as easy as a ‘Hello World’ example. Not only is PHP open source, it is constantly updated and improved by developers working on it because it is important to them. You can plunk it down on top of an Apache server (also open source) and use MySQL (also open source—but maybe not for long) for a database. It runs on Linux, Windows and on Mac OS (it comes standard with Macs as does an Apache server). Further, PHP 5 has real abstract classes! What’s not to like?
Continue reading ‘ActionScript 3.0 and PHP 5: Doing Design Patterns’
A Three-Question Survey
I’m working on a new post about ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns at work. To help get an accurate measure of what folks are doing in the ActionScript work world, I put together a simple survey. The survey is made with radio buttons and check boxes; so it only takes a minute to fill out. Click below to take the World’s Easiest Survey:
ActionScript Design Patterns at Work Survey
We thank you in advance, and when we get the post up, you’ll see the results from the survey.
The Naked Flash Designer
As a general way of making sense out of projects, they are divided into design and development. The design component usually means graphic design, but it can also include the UI (HCI) and information design—the kinds of things Edward Tufte talks about. In other words, design refers to everything that the user actually sees and interacts with. Those involved in design must expose their work to the user. It is in no way shrouded, and hence naked.
Developers’ work, on the other hand, has better cloaking than a Romulan space ship. If something goes wrong, and the program blows a gasket, the user can see a problem, but if things work, even in the most pedestrian program, the programming is invisible. The entire program can be one hack piled on top of another (as was the case with ActionScript prior to ActionScript 3.0), and no one would ever know. So, we programmers are safe to write any kind of code we want, and as long as it works, everyone is happy.
In many respects, most projects are design ones. The look, feel, navigation and interaction of a program makes or breaks it. A beautifully programmed project isn’t worth a bean if it looks poor, is difficult to navigate or interacts awkwardly with the user. Conversely, if a program looks and acts good, no one cares about what’s under the hood as long as it works.
Continue reading ‘The Naked Flash Designer and the ActionScript 3.0 Algorithm Dope’
Bill Sanders
Recent Comments