Brent Stace’s Weblog

Recently, at work, I’ve gotten a lot of work stacked up for me to do. Don’t get me wrong, I should be able to make another 130% quarter, but it looks like my beginning July is going to be busy. Jenn and I were/are planning on doing some kind of vacation in that first week of July since July 4th is on a Friday this year, but in order to do something I’ll have to do a good amount of working ahead. This means that more time will be devoted to working for USTPO more than working on my program Unoh. For my people who have been receiving the usual weekly Unoh builds, new builds, at least until I catch up at work, won’t be weekly. They will be sporadic. I am, however, comfortable with where I’ve gotten Unoh so far. It’s functional, and stable (as far as I know). There’s only a small list of major things I’d still like to add in (two things are 1) better AI’s and 2) GUI). Everything else seems minor. The next thing I wanna do is the AI’s, so I’m going to need to carve out a huge chunk of time when I start that.

However, changing subject and on the plus side of things, I’ve started getting into a semi-regular workout routine. It feels good again. I’ve had my lifting bench here at home since we moved in, but I haven’t gotten it to an area where I can actually use it until a couple weeks ago. Once I set it up, I started hitting the weights again and, boy, was I sore for a while.

Hopefully, at least for my physical self, doing more USPTO work for this time before July won’t cut into for workouts. Its too bad there’s only 24 hours in a day and that I need to eat and sleep, otherwise I could easily fill that time with something else…like 1) USPTO cases 2) Unoh, 3) working out or 4) Halo.

I finally got around to watching the iPhone SDK roadmap event today. MacRumors.com pointed out something interesting after I watched the event. The iPhone very well could establish itself as a portable gaming system. It’s hardware is superior to most portable gaming systems, it has the accelerometer (sp?) like what is popular in Wii’s, but its just lacking software at this point. It’d be great to have this…but I got thinking about what else apple could do. Why stop at the iPhone for games…they should be in Macs too. And hey - they already built a controller…the iPhone. Think about it….it’s got bluetooth, most macs have blue tooth, so there’s the interface. The mac has crazy huge screens and much more hardware/processing than the iPhone. It be cool if the iPhone could be transformed into a controller for Mac games…until you get a phone call in the middle of using it as a controller. But hey, I wonder if Apple put any thought into this.

The week of XCoding was great; very freeing. It felt great to code more hours than, well, do patent applications. At the end of the week, but it didn’t take a whole week, I did get a fully functional text based Unoh working with the standard Uno cards. Then, I got ambitious and I implemented Mayhem cards (the special card from the Muppet version of Uno that enables hand swapping between players with wild card functionality). I got that working at first, later I discovered some memory bug with it, and now, after fixing that bug, it’ll only swap hands when the computer plays the card. So, let the bug hunt begin on this one!

After implementing the Mayhem card, I’ve decided that the Mayhem card is where I’m drawing the line. Every special edition version of Uno has its own specialty card that does its own special actions (e.g. care-a-lot card for the Care Bears edition (essentially, a wild card that lets a whole round of players play what ever card they want), and who knows the other specialty cards for the Family Guy, Simpsons, etc. special editions). For the Muppet special edition of Uno it was the Mayhem card. Figuring out all those special edition cards, keeping track of what they do, and implementing them into code would take a long time. If I were to keep up with all of that, I probably wouldn’t have Unoh working for over a year. Since I have other games I’d like to program, I’m drawing the line at Mayhem cards. The Mayhem card is the only special edition card, at this time, that I’m choosing to implement. Of note, the Muppet version of Uno’s directions do not specify what happens when a Mayhem card is the first card down at the beginning of a game. So, I’m treating it like a draw 4 wild card (putting back in the deck, and taking another card).

Since the week of XCoding, I’ve only been able to work on the program about 1-2 days a week now, (mostly Thursday nights – my day home early from work). But even so it’s sometimes amazing what I can get done in that time. I send out the latest builds to my closest friends/family and tell them what has changed, and any remaining issues. Even though I know not many of them play/test it for me, the detailed emails serves as a nice history in my sent email box detailing what features were implemented and when, discovered bugs, squashed bugs, etc. Maybe some day I’ll look back on the history and smile at what the program has become since then.

Oh yeah, and anyone wishing for iPhone/iPod touch version – I’ve thought about it, but I haven’t really looked into it yet. The UI I want to use requires Core Graphics and Core Animation. The iPhone SDK supposedly will have the Core Animation API, but I haven’t seen anything that says the iPhone SDK will have the Core Graphics API. So, as of now, I’m not sure if I will pursue this (yes, it would also help to have an actual iPhone/iPod touch also to test). In short, I’m doing a Mac computer version first.

As some of you may know, I’ve been getting back into programming. I took oh…about a 2 year break from it, but when I happened to be browsing Apple’s Sample code called GeekGameBoard for using CoreAnimation (and CoreGraphics) for some sample board/card games, I couldn’t resist trying to figure out how it works to incorporate the ideas into my Unoh program. So far - at first glance - I have only a basic understanding of the sample code. However, after some consulting with my office mate at work, I have had a renewed hope for getting this card game (logically) done. I’m taking a good part of this week off from work to work on this program (I’m actually pretty caught up, and no new work is required yet). So far, I have a substantial part of this program logically done in a text-based GUI. Poor interface I know, but it enables me to not be concerned with GUI until the program is ready for it (until it actually works). This enables me to focus on the more important aspects of the program, make more realistic goals, and builds the program more incrementally. Hopefully, by the end of this week, I’ll have a fully functioning text based Unoh, and maybe I’ll be able to dig into core graphics/core animation sample code to expand the interface.

Then…onto other projects, like one that will allow my parents to not be dependent on the classic environment.

For some time now, Jenn and I have been hosting the occasional poker night at our house. On my new phone I discovered some demo games, and one of them happened to be Poker (Texas Hold ‘em). By playing on that phone I know I’ve gotten better, and I can’t wait for the next poker night. Either the demo is somehow easy or I’m really good at poker, but I started out with 1,500, and now I’m around 45,000. I’m sure real poker will be different because the phone will NEVER bet above 120 (even when the computer has a ROYAL FLUSH), and I can not raise the bet amount past what it tells me I can raise to. So, of course, adding the human element to the game will only make things more confusing/difficult. Anyhow, I’m going to buy Apple’s version of the game for my iPod and see if that is much different and freeing.

Some hands I have not yet achieved:
- Royal Flush
- Straight Flush
- Four of a Kind

I have however achieved the non-existant hands of:
- Royal Straight
- Bastardized Straight (using at least a king, ace, and 2…so it’s essentially a high card ace).

I’m thinking of proposing a variant of Texas Hold ‘em at our next gaming night. I think I’ll call it Virginia Hold ‘em where the Bastardized Straight hand is allowed and counts as a straight where ace is still high and the highest number of high cards wins. I mean, seriously, why can’t the straight hand loop around like that?