Monday, March 31, 2008

...and it's done

Hooray! I finished it! Mostly. I put in about 2 hours of work to create an "About" page that explains in more detail what the application is all about, what it aims to be, and what I will evolve it into. I used some CSS/HTML action to do this and I'm pleased with the results.

I don't really want to talk about this thing anymore. I worked on it for a while, and I'm very excited that it's over. As it commonly happens though, it's now on to another programming project that I've surely been holding on the back burner while I worked on this.

See ya. Oh, I'll link to some pictures and whatnot and update when I find out my prize.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

10 Hour Update

I tweaked the text box display a bit to make it look a bit nicer and easier to navigate. Other than that, I basically just put the application on my web server and made sure it ran properly. I spent a lot of time screwing with some dumb issue about sizing/spacing. Oh, I also changed the layout of the images on the page.

I need to add an info box on the left of the page to explain the concept of the application, and to explain away why it's not exactly what they were looking for. Although, I re-checked the rules, and it doesn't say explicitly what I thought it had.

I'd like to have the images get larger when you mouse over them, but it's not working. I had this working before, so I need to dig that code up. Come to think of it, it should be in my Gmail outbox... *goes and looks*

8 Hour Update

OK, I got rolling again and got a lot done.

I added support for hyperlinks so that when an image is clicked on, it pops up a window taking you to the url linked with that image. This involved adding the field to the XML, adding the parsing code to create the object, and setting up the mouse click event handler.

I played with the text formatting a bit, but for some reason the TextWrapping property isn't working, so I had to cheat and use short enough text. Lame.

I've got some of the webpage formatting working as well too, so it looks pretty. I still need to do some fanciness when mousing over the images, maybe. As well as add some text explaining the thing.

I don't think I'm going to go any farther and make this more of "what they want". I really am starting to not care if it's what they want or not, it's more of a proof of concept anyways, and my application wouldn't fit a contest atmosphere anyways, it's a personal thing.

Meh. We'll see. Back to work.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Boring

Well I ate. I watched TV. My brain wasn't very awake yet, so I didn't try to get too much done, it would have just aggravated me. I showered (ah!) which woke me up a bit. so I'm feeling decent.

I've got a good idea of the main things I want to accomplish, and then hopefully that will lead to some more things, as it naturally does. Not too much left to do really, last night accomplished some key things I had been concerned with.

I've got a meeting coming up for a game I'm designing with some people from school, so that will occupy me for a bit, but in a good way. Tonight I think I may see the late showing of "21" because, well, I like the story that it's based off of, and it will be interesting, and another nice break.

Sidenote: I fear I may need to buy more Coke (again, the liquid) prior to Sunday night... Scary.

OK. I woke up.

So, yesterday was a long day. I had class at 8am, and I didn't go to bed until about 4:30am. The first night is always the hardest since I couldn't start until late and I had already been up for so long, but despite that, I got a lot done. I just woke up at about noon, so I'm enjoying a Coke (liquid, not powder), and I'll make some toast, then I'll start outlining my day. I've got one or two other things to do today before I dive in and devote my entire attention to coding, but I've got some time yet, so I should be able to get 1 block of work in. Until then...

6 Hour Update

ha! I've got all of my main functionality working now, only took 6 hours! Next thing I need to do is make it look nice and clean, and then add my nifty effects. After that, I'll focus on getting the other elements in place (the ones that make it closer to what the contest is looking for).

I'm not too worried about it as I'm hearing that there are very few submissions coming in (like, only 1 other one thus far....) and plus I've already submitted one which is dead-on in terms of what they are looking for. This current application is an entirely different concept. I do however have a third application that's basically as far along as this one currently is (a lot of shared code). That application is a more extensive version of the first application I submitted. If all goes well with this current one, I foresee being about to finish that one as well.

Well, the caffeine has gotten to a level in which I'm now suffering it's side effects rather than it's benefits. Not to mention I've got raster burn. For the ill-informed, that's when your retinas begin to melt onto your face like butter in a camp fire after long exposures to computer monitors. So, given that, I'm deeming this a law of diminishing returns, playing some Quake 3, chilling on the couch, and then getting a bit of sleep before I get at it again tomorrow.

I'll update it before I start, and then each 2 hours of development time from there.

Oh, and don't worry, I've been taking pictures.

4 Hour Update

Moving along, getting work done, son. I've moved away from having hard coded data in my application, and now everything is pulled out of an XML file. This is a huge step because it allows me to move into the realm I'd like to be in, and plus it makes me feel less dirty for hard coding data in the source code... tiskity tisk tisk tisk (sensing that dementia set in?).

Anywho, as each 2 hour block passes, I update and revise my list of tasks. Commonly what happens is that by accomplishing some of the early tasks, you realize you don't need some of the later ones due to various design changes and what not.

I've got one huge milestone I'd like to meet in this next 2 hour block, which is to pull one last piece of hard coded data out of the XML and use it. That will actually be really huge. Aside from adding some nice touches and reworking some things, that is the meat of my top secret application.

Speaking of nice touches, I've got some mad crazy nice ideas about how to do some display effects to really enhance the experience. Uberexcitement. (yeah, it's a word.) Also, I've been a bit worried about conforming to the exact outlines of the contest. I'm not breaking rules or anything, but my idea was not quite on par with what they want, but alas, I've got a solution for that as well.

Break time. This is fun.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

2 Hour Update

At the grocery store I got lunch meat, bread, butter, 24 pack of Coke, and some sushi. For this first two hours I've reacquainted myself with my code as I had to take about a week and a half off from development due to school work. I've gotten a few tiny features working (more like"working again"), but nothing special.

My development methodology is to make a list of simple tasks to accomplish, and then attack them in order. All tasks in the list start off in normal font, and then the task I'm currently working on gets bolded, and all finished tasks are struck through. This works really well and it helps me focus on incremental tasks instead of getting caught up in thinking about everything that needs to be done at once.

I'll take a 20 minute break or so, do some push-ups, play guitar, play some Quake 3 Arena, who knows See ya in 2 hours.

Intro

So, I'm involved in this programming competition put on by a major computing company. The deadline is this Sunday at 11:59pm EST. I took Friday off work, put in double time today, and I'm preparing to lock myself in my apartment until my application(s) are completed. The top prize is $10,000. I've currently got 2 applications in development, in addition to one I've already submitted. My current goal is to get both of them done, but that may shift as the 3 days progress. I'll try and make a post every 2 hours or so. I'm going to go obtain some food, some drink, some caffeine, some other programmer necessities that I come across, and then I'll get started. Don't worry, these posts will get a lot more interesting once I become delirious from lack of sleep and excess of caffeine.