Simple Game Programming in JavaScript
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In the previous article you learned how to create an animation with JavaScript using a timer mechanism, an image of a ball and CSS styles. This time you'll learn how to create a simple ping-pong game. These JavaScript tools will allow you to create games such as Breakout, Tetris, Frogger and more. By Lisha Sterling. 0809
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Joshua Eichorn is back today with the answers to the questions as posed by the readers of his blog previously.   Your AJAX answers from my AJAX questions post are below, I hope everyone finds them helpful.   The questions answered include:  How can I find out whether a connection is broken? Why would you want to use HTML_AJAX when there are far better tools for the job, pure javascript solutions such as prototype or jquery? What is the best way to 'degrade' a website when Javascript/XMLHttpRequest support is disabled? When utilizing an AJAX API such as Google Maps, how do you execute embedded Javascript commands in a page generated on-the-fly?    ...as well as a few more. Where appropriate, he also includes code to help illustrate his point.
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Apparently PHP5 RC3 is going to be the last release candidate. This is supposed to be coming out at the end of this week, so PHP5 will probably be released next month.  It's a bit like looking through a window into a candy store. The sweetener I most look forward to is the improved object assignment semantics.
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As previously mentioned, Nick Halstead will be revealing the top three places in the results from the programming competition he was hosting. Today starts the top three list with third place - an entry from Karol Grecki:   I was really impressed with Karol's entry and if it was not for the fact that it did not 'run out of the box' it would have been a close cut thing to be the winner. The fact is that because it was a pain to get running the two other judges only gave it 1 point each.   The post includes Karol's solution - a method that involved using the Zend Framework as a backdrop. You can see the application in action on Karol's website or just download the code and play along at home.
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In this installment, a solid programming style has been imposed, a JavaScript class model developed for Preezo which supports single inheritance and simple, tightly bound class definition code. This is important when working with large applications. By Guyon Roche. 1129
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Blog: A group of computer scientists say they've managed to crack the "code" of the checkers board game so that a computer program can win or draw against any opponent.
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Innovative new features are designed to attract casual players looking for a few minutes of fun.
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From the Oracle Technology Network website, there's a new tutorial in the Oracle+PHP Cookbook series that focuses on using PHP and Oracle together with Ajax to create a simple HTML form example.   In this recipe, I discuss all the code necessary to use Ajax to go from a simple Web page to a JavaScript function to an XMLHttpRequest to a PHP script and, finally, to an Oracle database. Along with the code, I do talk about the individual pieces with respect to the whole picture: what each chunk does and why it's important. By reading this HowTo, you will acquire not only some sample code but also, hopefully, a broader understanding of the whole Ajax concept.   They step through the creation of the background database tables, including the insertion of some sample data. Next up is the creation of the query to run our check, then testing the script to ensure things are set up as they need to be, and finally, creating the front-end - writing the HTML and Javascript to make the form.    The end result is a simple form that, when the contents of the text field are changed, a message is sent back to the server to check and see if the email address entered already exists.
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Editors: Shlomo Reifman and Samantha N. Wong Researchers: Joshua Brandt, Fei Mei Chan,  Andrew T. Gillies, Soo Jeong, Edward Knudsen,  Artie Kwok, John Ray and Jody Yen Programmer: Carl Subick
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Rob Thompson has posted about some simple benchmarking he did comparing the speed of a series of "if" statements versus one "switch" with multiple cases.   I got curious about which is actually more efficient at matching a random integer with a set of conditionals. So, I setup a script to create a set of large scripts to test the speed of these different constructs. Using the 'time' command, I measured the speed at which the condition could match a random number.   His results found that the switch statement is generally more than 2 times as fast at matching a simple integer. His tests, however, didn't go through much more than this simple test. It'd be interesting to see what it would do with something more complex (like longer strings or handling the result of an evaluation inside the definition of the switch().
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Free Web game is designed to help kids learn better how to beat the disease.
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On the Zend Developer Zone, they point out a handy little image manipulation class they've come across - GenXDesign's PHP Thumbnail Class - as well as some details about it.    I've seen a lot of implementations of thumb nail functionality in PHP, I've even written a couple of my own. I like this class thought. In looking over the code the first thing you notice is that it's clean code. I don't mean they use the latest whiz-bang method to cshave a few keystrokes.    This code is simple, nicely formatted and easy to read through. My only real problem with the code itself is that it is not terribly well documented. That can be forgiven since easy to read.    Cal talks about some of the other features of the class, including that it works with gif/jpeg/png images, makes it easy to set the quality of the jpgs, and makes it easy to display the dynamic images directly to the browser. Check out the demo for more.
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Nick Halstead has started up another programming competition today - this time it's a bit broader in scope and doesn't focus so much on just PHP.   I have a couple of licenses for Zend Studio Professional that I have been holding back to give away for a competition. So after writing yesterdays programming 'tips' I thought perhaps I should get my readers to submit their own tips and then give away one copy for what I think is the best 'tip' and then I will also hold a online vote for the second copy.   The basic process is to submit your favorite tip to Nick and he'll pick his favorite of the day. This happens each day and at the end of the week, there'll be a drawing for the licenses from each day's top tips.   Submit your entries via his contact form.
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Canadian researchers say they have "solved" checkers, developing a program that cannot lose in the popular game. Chinook, the checker-playing computer program, departs from past game-playing programs use the rule-of-thumb method (right only most of the time) to make decisions.
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Mahjong Puntenteller is a small and easy but very usefull program which calculates the scores of the old and famous game Mahjong. All you have to do is enter the points and who won the game, and it will automaticle calculate your scores.   Beta II is just finished but has already known bugs. Also there is no English language support yet, so for everyone not from Holland you have to wait a few weeks more or grab a dictionarie
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Chess is very hard. As the game proceeds through its early and middle stages, the number of possible moves greatly increases.
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KidBASIC is an easy to use version of BASIC designed to teach young children the basics of computer programming.  It has a built-in graphics mode which lets them draw pictures on screen in minutes, and a set of detailed, easy-to-follow tutorials that introduce programming concepts through fun exercises.   Version 0.3 eliminates the line-numbering syntax of previous versions, replacing it with labels.  Performance has also been increased slightly.  Linux source tarballs are now available.  Help and comments are always welcome.  Check out our web site at http://kidbasic.sourceforge.net for more information.