Recent blog entries for xriso

Begin Rant
I'm sorry, but I have to say this: Advogato sucks. Hmm... let's see why...

• There are no threads in discussions. Can't we get some order in here?
• Users communicate through their diaries. Can we add a little private-message thingy at least?
• The documentation for the site is all over the place.

C'mon. This site is about free software discussion, right? We need to make communication easier, IMHO. Yes, I know a lot of you will think "OK, then do it yourself!". The thing is, it will take me a while to get the feel of the advogato code. Also, I don't know enough of the libraries that the code uses. Other people are better suited to messing with the code.

BTW: If someone adds threads and private messaging, I have an idea: any replies to your comments will be put in your private-message list, if you wish.

If you reply to this through your diary, I probably won't see it. I don't spend all day looking at diaries. If you need to tell me something, you can use my comments form.
End Rant

Well, that was an interesting adventure. I wrote up a nice comment CGI thingy, entirely in C. I put up the little CGI+forms framework under the GPL here.

I've repackaged hexman as well, because I made 2 real levels (medium and hard difficulty). The game still doesn't do levels consecutively, but it works well enough right now. If you downloaded a previous version, there were some bugs that I thought I had already gotten rid of. The next step in development will be more levels, and then something which makes it easier to play. I suppose eventually I will need an install process, and a data dir.

Just wondering: I have my hexman project page set up, but how do other projects get other people on their list? The advogato system seems quite ... obscure. I think this probably has something to do with me only being Observer. If you have an answer, you can use it to test out my comments form. :-)

Oh yeah: Thanks to voltron, angelsun, and baueran for certifying me!

Boohoo... I'm not Apprentice yet. :-)

Begin bragging session.
Anyway, I think I qualify for Apprentice because I have made an OSS project called hexman (which I am documenting better). I've actually done a lot of programming of little things, and I've submitted a few bug reports over the years, but not anything major yet. I consider my C programming skills to be good. I fully understand the grammar of the language (OK, I haven't totally memorized operator precedence yet), and I know some extra programming things. Here's what comes to mind:

• Pointers/arrays
• Function pointers (very cool, IMO)
• Pointer addition
• Screwing around with dynamic memory using malloc(), realloc(), and free()
• String handling
• Linked lists
• B-trees (haven't really used 'em yet)
• Structs, bitfields
• Variable arguments
• Binary logic and bitwise operators
• File I/O
• Modular programming (multiple .c and .h)
• Really simple stuff: loops, strings, displaying, functions, etc.
• How to use man pages <-- Ultra-necessary, IMHO

And, anything I don't know I can learn in a jiffy.
End bragging session.

Update: I fixed a bug in hexman which I thought I had gotten rid of. You can now move properly using the keypad with numlock off.

Update: I'm really working on this thing now. I'll update the diary again when I get finished doing stuff.

Update: OK, I made the PLAYING file. I haven't repackaged yet, I'll do it tommorow.

Nothing much happening right now. I am hacking up a little game right now. It takes place under ground, and you can have dirt falling when it is disturbed. Fortunately, I have a flexible structure so that I can later add water, hot air, buildings, units, etc.

I'm not sure where exactly I should proceed from here. I could either make it a single-unit mission thing, or a multi-unit battle thing. I was originally aiming for the battle, but controlling a single sniper would be kinda cool too.

I suppose with the battle option you could set up scenarios that only give you a sniper, so I should go for that.

Also, shouldn't there be a page with all the Advogato documentation on it? It would be nice to not have to hunt it down in different areas.

PS: If you want, you can certify me as Apprentice or something.