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Recent Posts

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17176
Site/Forum Features / Re: Gothic Idea for new page on the site/forum -- random thread page
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2010, 12:44 PM »
well.. one thing to do would be to piggy back on the search functionality, which already lets you select which boards to search and put in some terms.

so one solution would be to:
add options/parameters to the search page to make it randomize within the results it returns
allow you to specify no search terms (meaning find a set of random threads that meet other criteria)
add options to bias results to only older unread ones

And then you could add an "im feeling lucky" button to the main page that just conducted one preset search, but people could make their own bookmarks for arbitrary lucky "searches"

The one drawback for this would be that the search function puts a pretty heavy load on the server and i'm not sure how wise it is to increase it's use in this fashion, compared to an "Im feeling Lucky" function which could be designed for minimal db use.
17177
Living Room / Re: External harddisk broken?
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2010, 11:58 AM »
related thread on hard disk crashing and recovery here:
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=2870.0
17178
General Software Discussion / Re: post-screenshot editor, torn edge in between, and highlight lines
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2010, 10:51 AM »
it wouldn't be hard to add, however Tuxman's comment reflects something i've been thinking myself.. which is that i can't help but wonder if it's a wise course to keep trying to add more and more image processing features to a screenshot tool as custom code, or whether it wouldn't be smarter to focus on improving the interfacing with other external (commandline) tools.. SC already is designed for this but i could improve it, by passing info about current selection and multiple files.

17179
General Software Discussion / Re: post-screenshot editor, torn edge in between, and highlight lines
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2010, 10:35 AM »
Any toolkit can get this job done?

i'd like to know that too.. it would actually be a useful feature.. splitting out some middle portion of an image with ragged edge between the sides.
17180
Site/Forum Features / Re: Gothic Idea for new page on the site/forum -- random thread page
« Last post by mouser on January 27, 2010, 10:03 AM »
a simple Random type button to add to the menu bar.

yes, and maybe when you hit random, and it shows you a random general thread.. the page where it shows you the general random thread would have some alternative random buttons that would give you slightly different things.

like "Random unreplied post" | "Random popular topic" | "Random blog post"
17181
Developer's Corner / Re: What's your *favorite* programming language and *why* ?
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2010, 11:48 PM »
I can't say I have a favorite language at this point.. If you had asked me 10 years ago I would have said C++.  I still use C++ more than any other language, and have used it for over two decades now.  But I can't bring myself to say it's my favorite language because i've spent the last decade looking for a replacement language that I could really fall in love with, and still haven't found one.
17182
DcUpdater / Re: Download link
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2010, 12:58 PM »
Thanks for pointing that out -- The current version is indeed 1.26.01 from Jan 6, 2010 -- will fix the web page today  :Thmbsup:

17183
General Software Discussion / Re: Generic Card/Board Game Prototyping and Playtesting Tools
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2010, 12:25 PM »
I think you are right about the future of table-top gaming with regards to the surface-like touch screen tables, and also the coming 3d/holographic projection tables.
It would be EXTREMELY fun to get a running start at producing a toolset that could be used for such things.
17184
General Software Discussion / Re: Generic Card/Board Game Prototyping and Playtesting Tools
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2010, 12:05 PM »
sounds like we might be rounding up a group of people here who could be interested in participating in this project eventually.  :up:

17185
General Software Discussion / Re: Generic Card/Board Game Prototyping and Playtesting Tools
« Last post by mouser on January 26, 2010, 11:40 AM »
I don't want to playtest with other people in a multi-player environment, but rather on my own

good point -- it needs to be able to let you playtest it as a single developer, with two windows, one for each player, showing that player's view.

it must be quick to change.
this is definitely a drawback of almost every system i've looked at.
17186
Find And Run Robot / Re: Exception Error (EAccessViolation)
« Last post by mouser on January 25, 2010, 11:19 PM »
one thing you could do is
  • exit FARR
  • find the FindAndRunRobot.ini file (check in both the FARR find and run robot directory and in the DonationCoder subdir of your MyDocuments folder), and rename/move it.
  • retstart FARR

this file is not deleted on uninstall, and so if something is wrong with it, it could cause your problem.
dont delete it, because if it is the cause of your problem i want to see it!
17187
General Software Discussion / Re: Generic Card/Board Game Prototyping and Playtesting Tools
« Last post by mouser on January 25, 2010, 08:28 PM »
If I am understanding you correctly, you want to create a very generic type of program but one that is also easy to use to create any type of game.


I am interested in doing 3 things:
  • Providing very fast prototyping of card/board games via an online multiplayer application.  In this case, the engine will not try to enforce any rules -- the idea is to provide a flexible and easy system for arranging and moving pieces and cards around.
  • Provide a LIBRARY/API for CODING rules for a real multiplayer card/board game.  Here I'm not trying to make a generic do-everything game engine; my thought would be to view it as a library where a real coder would use this as the starting point and script the game logic using a real programming language, but be able to use all of the foundations of the engine so they could focus on gameplay not graphics/networking/etc.
  • Provide a toolset to help game designers programatically/dynamically generate for online play and for printing, pieces,cards, boards, easily -- to facilitate rapid iterations in prototyping and playtesting.
17188
Living Room / Book: Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)
« Last post by mouser on January 25, 2010, 02:22 PM »
What I especially love about this book is how each thing is written up as an experiment that a child can do and record their notes on their experiments.  Love it.

Fifty Dangerous Things (you should let your children do) is the first book from the people who created Tinkering School. With projects, activities, experiences, and skills ranging from "Superglue Your Fingers Together" to "Play with Fire," along with 48 other great ideas, the book is a manifesto for kids and parents alike to reclaim childhood. Easy to follow instructions, fun facts, and challenging undertakings that will engage and inspire whole households... More importantly, there are many "dangerous" things that are interesting, eye-opening, enlightening or just plain fun! And while there are aspects of danger in virtually everything we do, the trick is to learn how mastery actually minimizes danger. Most of us learn how to walk without toppling over at a very young age, so that walking is no longer dangerous. Next we learn to negotiate stairs. Why stop there? Why not practice and become proficient at walking on the roof or walking on a tightrope?

17189
General Software Discussion / Generic Card/Board Game Prototyping and Playtesting Tools
« Last post by mouser on January 25, 2010, 01:47 PM »
Recently I've been getting more serious about the idea of making card and board games -- not as a profession but as a hobby and academic exercise.

One of the things I've been looking for are tools that would make it easier to:
  • Programatically create sets of cards and card images, and print these out on various card stocks
  • Simulate a virtual card table for online play, quickly and without worrying about coding rules
  • Eventually be able to make an online version that did enforce rules

I've actually found quite a few tools that were designed for collectible card game playing online, card/deck building, generic card/board/table game playing (i.e. rules not enforced), and a few tools designed to actually let you code full games with rules enforced.

mwsplay_small.gif

Here are some of the links I've found to sites that seem useful - if you know others please let me know (Java seems to be the dominant language for these tools; nothing against Java just not sure why it is so dominant in this domain):


However I have not yet found a set of tools that I really feel great about -- that would really speed up Prototyping and Playtesting, and provide a path to eventual online implementation.


And.. well.. I've been thinking about embarking on a project to code a toolset myself that would be useful for other game designers.

It's a bit of a daunting task, and I'm still not really sure I have the time for it.  I still have to investigate more what's already available.

Right now though I feel like game designers could benefit from a new project designed to help them.  And I feel like there is an opportunity to create something useful, with a different, more designer/coder centric approach then these existing tools.

I'd like to hear some feedback about whether people think this is worth doing.. Or what they use.

Actually to be honest, I spent the last several days writing some generic python code to tackle the task of dynamically creating card sets, images for them, laying them out on generic card templates for printing, and actually working with card data in a way that will hopefully set the groundwork for a richer game table engine.  I've also begun writing some scripts to create game data files for some of the online game playing tools (like zuntzu and vassal) which are otherwise a bit cumbersome to set up for prototyping.  I plan to open source and share the code after I get it development and a little more friendly.  Now I have to decide if I want to put the creation of a full-fledged game-table engine/library on my Project List.

Thoughts?
17190
Living Room / Re: Bad Code Offset
« Last post by mouser on January 25, 2010, 12:17 PM »
Ha! Nice  :up:
17191
Site/Forum Features / Gothic Idea for new page on the site/forum -- random thread page
« Last post by mouser on January 25, 2010, 11:47 AM »
Gothic (aka John, the DC server admin) had a fun idea the other day, that we should have a page that showed a few random general-interest thread on the forum at a time.

The idea would be that it could alleviate boredom but also be used to revive some attention to older posts that don't otherwise ever get seen.
I think it's a fun idea and will implement it -- but before I do I thought maybe I should ask if anyone has any ideas or suggestions for how it should function and what it should show and in what format, etc.

Thoughts?
17192
Developer's Corner / Re: Python Language Annoyances
« Last post by mouser on January 25, 2010, 03:22 AM »
Just thought that I should add that, despite my complaints above, which i stand by, i've been coding in Python all weekend, and i do have to admit I'm having a lot of fun with it and getting a lot done.  Love the built in stack-trace printout when it hits an error, and nice module importing/compiling/etc.
17193
Developer's Corner / Re: Python Language Annoyances
« Last post by mouser on January 24, 2010, 09:29 PM »
Disclaimer:
I get very mad at things and have been known to rant incoherently at every piece of software I have ever used.  I am actually now using Python in a new little project, and I can say for some things it's very nice..  And I use PHP quite a lot which has it's own set of problems.  Every language does.

So don't take my harsh words against Python as some indication that i think it's any worse than every other major programming language.

I'm just trying to lay the groundwork for making my own programming language in the coming years ;)
17194
Developer's Corner / Re: Python Language Annoyances
« Last post by mouser on January 24, 2010, 08:02 PM »
Sorry to be harsh, but here's another example of what i think is almost unbelievably shoddy language design, and is a huge warning sign for me that Python should be dumped in favor of a new language at the earliest possible time:

http://www.velocityr...rator-in-python.html

The use of ++variable and variable++ is a very common way of incrementing and decrementing variables, from the days of C and C++ and it can be found in Java and many other languages.

Now.. it's completely fine that Python not implement this -- I am all in favor of eliminating redundant ways to write expressions.  I have no complaint about python not supporting the increment operator.

However, what is totally insanely stupid is to design a modern language where the ++variable syntax is completely legal, and does nothing.

That is a decision absolutely guaranteed to cause problems and i'd be extremely surprised if there wasn't production code with such errors.

It just boggles my mind that someone could design a modern programming language and come up with such a poor design choice.

It's almost as if one of the goals of Python is to make it as easy as possible to write incorrect code that doesn't trigger any obvious errors.  This is not the way languages should be designed.

[In the interest of full disclosure, i should say that i am a native C/C++ coder, and C has it's own share of such things, for example in making this kind of conditional legal but misleading "if (a=5) ..", which was one of the great blunders of language design.  Haven't language designers learned not to do this by now?]
17195
General Software Discussion / Re: Best Python IDE
« Last post by mouser on January 24, 2010, 07:53 PM »
The debate about annoyances with Python was not appropriate for this thread, and so has been moved here: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=21479.0
17196
Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 3-10
« Last post by mouser on January 24, 2010, 05:32 AM »
Tech News Weekly is back!

17197
Find And Run Robot / Re: Exception Error (EAccessViolation)
« Last post by mouser on January 22, 2010, 11:10 PM »
What operating system are you using? Does the error happen at startup? Did the program ever work for you and is just now acting up, or is this the first time you've tried to use it?
17198
Living Room / Re: I hate Valentine's Day!
« Last post by mouser on January 22, 2010, 07:08 PM »
If you don't like Valentine's Day, but your loved one does, a selfless, loving gesture would be to drop your politics, give them a little something (flowers, card, whatever) & make their day.

nicely said.  :up:
17199
General Software Discussion / Re: Best Python IDE
« Last post by mouser on January 22, 2010, 05:34 PM »
by the way, i have to withdraw my recommendation of pyscripter because of a rather glaring and serious bug where it insists on running older versions of files:
http://code.google.c...issues/detail?id=256
17200
Developer's Corner / Python Language Annoyances
« Last post by mouser on January 22, 2010, 05:28 PM »
[EDIT: This discussion was originally on this thread]

first let me just say this, python uses implicit variable declaration (ie you dont have to declare a variable before it is used, you just use it).

to me, this is the single worst most harmful idea in the history of programming languages, and it completely baffles me that it can be found in a modern and popular language.  that single issue is reason enough that no one should be using this language.

this is actually a little related to why the issue of significant indentation is such a bad idea -- because it makes it so easy to introduce bugs that are nearly invisible to the naked eye (using a tab instead of a space, mispelling a variable name, etc.)

the syntax is a personal thing, but just feels wrong to me.. having to declare object functions with "self" as the first parameter (even though when you invoke it you dont pass that.  this optional class documentation string stuff, by just specifying a string after the def line.. it just feels kludgey and dirty.
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