Achieving Efficiency
Feb 16This one could go on for a bit, so I’ll try to be short and set out things into sections.
Bugs and Fixes
So there’s been a lot of problem with bugs near the end of the programming assignment. When I first started out there was next to nothing in the way of bugs. But now it seems as I stitch the final part of the canvas, other parts are beginning to rip. My main script is programmed chronologically, so now I work at the bottom of the page, it feels like I’m working in the basement of a large building where all the little things make the building tick, strange analogy but it’s what it feels like.
What I always find, as a programmer of sorts, is that the smallest most insignificant parts of programming cause the most damage and hassle, why? Because they have to assert themselves somehow! If they’re not noticed in the final outcome then to make things equal they’re a pain in the backside behind the scenes! That’s my theory on it anyway. I’m sure I’m not the only crazy guy thinking this.
I think I’ve spent more time overall on this assignment debugging it, than actually doing some proper coding. It’s a bit annoying at times as I feel like I’m not getting anywhere, then suddenly out of nowhere I’ll manage to fully fix the problem and feel slightly better about it! Here’s a couple of the main bugs which are currently killing my will to live.
Problem Number 1
First and foremost, there is a major problem with my puzzle coding, I’ve designed it so that there are no hard-coded parts to the script, it’s all database driven. And by doing this means I only have to add new entries to the puzzle table for it to appear in the game. Dynamicity at its’ purest. Anyway at the moment I can only seem to add a maximum of two items to the puzzle, by items I mean items required to complete the puzzle. The reason is most likely to do with whitespace or something that’s going terribly wrong inside my insane two tier foreach loop:
foreach ($items_required as $item_required) {
if (in_array($item_required,$inv)) {
foreach ($objects as $object) {
if ($count == 1) {$object = str_replace(" ","",$object);}
if (in_array($object,$items_required)) { $i = $i + 1;}
}}}
Ok so for people not php orientated, or not code orientated in general. Here’s what this little beast does.
Time to get designing
Feb 05Now that Gaye has let us free into the realm of HTML and CSS design, lol. I can get on and make the three sites for her assignment. It’s better now we have free reign, whereas before we were supplied an HTML sheet which wasn’t the most stable looking piece of code. For what we needed to design it just wasn’t cutting it. There wasn’t even a proper Navigation area for the page, just list of links, which happened to be placed at the bottom inside another div…Fun.
I think i managed to create one of three using the HTML template given to us by Gaye, but the other two were impossible, in the sense that they would look god awful. But that’s just my own opinion. I guess it’s down to preference, I for one can’t create a site with pre-created html. Let’s see what I can come up with…
The three sites have to be based on the Logo Designs I used in Mike’s lesson:
- Rendezvous
- Source Share
- Experian
Rendezvous
Jan 30I really enjoyed doing the Logo design for Rendezvous, it’s a powerful word and can be shown in so many ways. A few posts back I showed one of the concept versions of the logo. Below is the final version of rendezvous. I’m really happy with the final result, let’s hope my Lecturer thinks the same.
Rendezvous Final Design
The concept before lacked what this has now achieved. By joining the letters together created a union between the logo which hold more power and gives a much more striking finish. A use of simple colours, Red Black and White brought out the identity of the company with it. I tried to used white space to create the “R” which in my opinion worked well.
The Deadline Trilogy
Jan 30That title sounds like a film. A really cheap film.
I’ve just been writing up all the dates for up-coming assignments when I realised that I need to hand in three on the same day, or a better way to put it; The deadline for the three are the same day. Never the less I’ve near completed two of them so it’s not all bad. The third is a Networking assignment, and after having a quick scan over it I’m not too worried about it. Seems pretty straight forward. After all it is called ‘Networking Basics’, hopefully it’s as basic as I’ve perceived.
The php game is coming along now, after a fiasco with some MySQL; Graham finally sorted out the main problem and got, what seemed to be a simple idea, working. Apparently my table structures are awful… To which I replied, “Yea but it works doesn’t it? Yeeaah that’s right!”
I’m hoping to complete the Game by the start of the half term. This will give me the rest of the week to complete the other two assignments. The Zen CSS html sheet for Gaye’s assignment is a bit of a mission. Most of the tags are shared and so when I’m trying to position some of the divs, others further down shift out of place too, it’s becoming slightly frustrating. Once I’ve completed the three styles I’ll post them up with links. But that’s not for a week or two.
Catastrophe!
Jan 19So my computer blew up a few days back, that was a very bad day. All of my current coursework was residing on its’ Hard-drive so I’m just hoping that it didn’t get fried. I got home one evening and turned it on…nothing. So i had a look at the plug and tried a different lead since it was the same type. I think i used my Screen adapter. Plugged it in….BANG! Yea it wasn’t very nice. A few sparks flew out of the PSU soon followed by a lot of smoke. It turned out that it had already blown in the day sometime. And trying another adapter with which hadn’t blown its’ fuse exacerbated the problem causing the PSU to overload.
It took ages to find a new PSU as my computer is a Dell (yea i know). Finding any part specifically made for Dell computer is like trying to find Gold in my backyard, but i eventually found some guy who was selling the exact one on eBay brand new. I think he must have owned a Wholesale or something, he has about 500 of them. Anyway all that aside it got here today so now I have to go into town just to get a 10 Amp fuse….Probably the most pointless trip ever!
I’ll post whether or not my computer is back to life later on…
[Update]
Managed to get the computer working again before the assignment due date. The new PSU got here earlier than expected. Miracles happen occasionally.
2010!
Jan 01New Years Day, it’s meant for recovering from the Eve before. Nothing Else. I’ve found myself listening to Coldplay and eating Haribo. All is good.
My Upcoming Assignment for graphic design is nigh and that means I should really finish it today. Some of the concept logos for the first part are pretty much final now. I know it’s not insanely creative and awesome but it’s still using white space well. The question you should ask yourself while looking at the logo is this, Is it the letter “R” or some random shapes? (lol)
Rendezvous Concept Logo
So anyway, that’s a concept of the final Rendezvous Logo. Let’s see what else i can come up with.
Time to move and get this php game completed. I keep wanting to get on with it but then I find other work that’s more important. I hate it! Today I’m beginning the enemy scripts! Here we go!
Happy New Year!
What day is it again?
Dec 25Oh…Christmas Day! That’s why i got given a large amount of presents. Nice!
I found the most inoffensive holiday greeting today, pretty …non offensive i guess:
“Happy inoffensively non denominational generic winter greetings”
…Lol.
Well now the holiday time is over (for me) it’s time to crack on and get to work, lots and lots of work to do. Well actually not too much, i think there’s two assignments in for January when i go back so it’s ok. I have a Graphics Assignment named “Visual Identity” and a SQL assignment names “MySQL Databases” or something near to that, to be honest i hardly ever look at the titles, I just do them…
Apparently according to my lecturer, Christmas day is the best day to surf the net, it has the lowest usage on average compared to the rest of the year. Pretty cool, but I find it ok anyway 
And then there were doors
Dec 20So, I actually got time to sit down and do some coding for my php game, which went well. I finally got the doors and wall algorithms working with only about 4 lines of code for doors and about 1 line for walls. When i first started out making the algorithms for the two they were huge, even when i wrote it on paper they managed to to take up stupid amounts of time and effort for the task in hand, but then out of nowhere i has the perfect way to solve both of these dilemmas. Spoon feed already prepared data to the scripts from the database, it might seem silly but in reality this makes the script’s dynamicity much better. Each of the functions has become a complete dynamic placeholder for its’ task, making it almost like i first wanted my game to be, “A module or plug-in based design”; plug-ins, lots of ways to easily add sections into the core of the game without re structuring everything. So now all is good and hopefully I can find more time to carry on coding and complete this thing! I think I’m around about 50% complete.
User Movement Algorithm
The algorithm behind the movement is shown (above) and works out all of what i have explained above more or less.
Been a bit busy with getting ready for Christmas at the moment so work has taken a a seat on the bench for the mean time.
Anyway that’s it for Christmas now. Time to get on with work…and enjoy the holidays!