example code (original) (raw)

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example source code

Building a game — open source code This is the actual source code from a new web game. See the game at thissideofsanity.com and read how this was built starting at on this web page.

The theory of computer science is very pretty. Real world programming (except at a few companies that specialize in high quality products) is an ugly mess.

I thought it might be very useful to show the compromises that are required in real world programming.

This is a game. The owners are unable to afford reasonable development resources. They are relying primarily on broken equipment they can find in their closet. They can’t even afford the fee to sign up for Apple’s developer program or provide me with a working smart phone, but they insist that they need a phone app version as well as a web-based version of the game.

When I first started programming, programmers were rare and we were given high quality equipment. Nowadays there are far more programmers than jobs and we are treated as expendible, replaceable garbage.

The first problem is that programmers and programming are an expense to business people. Therefore, their attitude is to do everything possible to cut down the expense of programming, just as they take measures to cut down their electricity bill.

This is the source of the inevitable lack of sufficient equipment or adequate work environment. It just doesn’t make sense for businesses to spend more for a higher quality product (unless they are a company like Apple, which has a sales reputation of making high quality products).

This is why they treat programmers as interchangeable parts. You are in competition with programmers from India who have PhDs and will work for $10 an hour.

This example is about the real world struggles of trying to get real world work done under the ridiculous conditions provided by business.

license

This is example code from the SlamZee project and This Side of Sanity, released under Apache License 2.0.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the “License”); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

This narrative uses anchor links so that you can follow the building of this software in chronological order. Go to thissideofsanity.com to see the working software.

Working with a broken computer running outdated software is a real hassle. It makes it very difficult to get anything written at all. If you are wondering why I’m not using modern techniques, it is because I am working under absurd conditions. For some of the problems, see below.

example source code

This is example code from the SlamZee project and This Side of Sanity, released under Apache License 2.0.

This is written with procedural programming techniques because the site owners can only provide an antique computer (that crashes a lot) and comes with a broken keyboard (no shift key or space bar) and a broken mouse (no horizontal or vertical scroll). I am doing the best I can under the circumstances.

data base

My first step was to build the structure of the data base. This took surprisingly long because the demands of MySQL and/or phpMyAdmin caused the computer to crash every few minutes and in between various windows or parts of windows would display various kinds of random garbage.

create code to connect to the database

Next I wrote some simple procedural PHP to connect to the data base and report success or failure, along with a matching piece of code in a simple test page that attempted to open the data base connection and report the result. The simple wrapper code is reproduced below and the simple data base connection sode is located at

The simple procedure for connecting to the database is in databasefunctions.php.

Note that I don’t even create the normal html, head, and body tags. The error correction in modern browsers will compensate and I will see my results without any clutter code.

The good news is that the data base connection worked.

display current top 25 rankings

I have seeded the data base using a combination of information from Star and TMZ, with fake vote totals that reflect the opinions of those two sources.

Now I need to display these totals.

The sample code, the first item in index.php, creates the HTML header, opens the data base connection, does an SQL query for the 25 most hated celebrities, and then cycles through the rows outputting an ordered list.

Once again I use outdated PHP functions and I also mix computation and presentation. Very bad example. Slap my fingers.

The results:

Go see the source code at index.php.

preparing for interactivity

Now I modify the source code slightly to put labelled spans around the vote counts so that I can update them with AJAX.

The example code only shows the parts that have changed.

Go see the source code at index.php.

add JavaScript to send vote increment

I add a JavaScript function that sends a message to increment the vote count for a single celebrity and a link for the user to press. Later this link will be replaced with a pretty button.

Go see the source code at index.php.

fixed cross-domain JavaScript

I was surprised that the working code for AJAX suddenly stopped working. After a ridiculous amount of time testing, I discovered that I had a cross-domain JavaScript problem.

My PHP script inserts a hard-wired URL of "http://www.slamorjam.com/addvote.php?celebrity="+celebritynumber. When I connected to slamorjam.com instead of www.slamorjam.com (the difference is the lack of the www.), the JavaScript was rejecting any results because of alleged cross-domain scripting. The www. subdomain is mapped to the actual domain. That ain’t cross-domain.

So, a quick fix. I inserted the following bit of PHP to replace the domain name:

I provide the fixed source code with a little bit of extra debugging code at index.php.

increment count in data base

Now we make the AJAX actually work, in this case incrementing a vote count.

The receiving PHP file uses an SQL UPDATE to increment the selected vote count and then an SQL SELECT to get the new total and echoes the new total, which in turn is placed into the correct target span by JavaScript on the browser side.

See the working code at addvote.php.

random celebrity

Our next step is to start displaying random celebrities. The code in the main index file includes a JavaScript for loading a new celebrity every six seconds and a simple include to show the first celebrity. The JavaScript accesses the exact same file for each subsequent celebrity.

First a look at the JavaScript, which uses a simple six second timer and an AJAX load. See index.php.

Then look at the code to generate a random celebrity at newcelebrity.php.

celebrity picture

The previous attempt shows a default picture in the location where a celebrity picture should go. Now we add some simple code that tests to see if we have a celebrity picture stored and if so we display the celebrity picture, otherwise we show the default picture.

The code is at newcelebrity.php.

celebrity info

Now we add the code for celebrity information. There is a little arrow button. If the user clicks oon the arrow, the timer stops on the current celebrity and the information block on that celebrity is fetched from the server and inserted into the web page. If the user clicks on the arrow again, then the celebrity info disappears and the timer resumes.

The web browser client side of the code is at index.php.

A small change is made to the server side code at newcelebrity.php.

The server side of the code is at celebrityinfo.php.

cosmetic changes

The next batch of changes are cosmetic to make the website look better.

In newcelebrity.php we add a div tage to set the background color for the action message.

click the sledgehammer to slam

top 21

The next step is adding code to present the top 21 most slammed celebrities as a picture list. Note that the picture list is not yet connected up to celebrity profiles, but you can easily predict how that step will get added because it is a variation of already existing code.

I changed the default state of the temptationswitch in the JavaScript so that the timer initially rejects loading new celebrities.

var temptingswitch = true;

And I changed from loading the first random celebrity to loading the top 21 most slammed celebrities.

require_once('./top21celebrities.php');

The server side of the code is at top21celebrities.php.

There is some ugliness in the presentation, but I have been told that the owners will make arrangements for artwork and design work, so I am only concerned about software for now.

account utilities

Now we start building the account system. These are four basic routines.

SessionManagement is called near the beginning of processing the main page -- it sets session variables fromt he cookie. Relies on built-in function, but easy to swap out with something soon.

CheckValidUser relies on the work of SessionManagement and returns the user name if there is a valid user, otherwise returns the empty string

GetAccountNumberFromAccountName does exactly what the title says.

GetAccountNameFromAccountNumber also does exactly what the title says.

The code is at accounts.php.

data validation

A few data validation routines.

The code is at datavalidation.php.

new registration

The new registration facility will temporarily go to the index page. Later we will convert it to AJAX. The is done as a two step process to keep the work more simple and cut down on the possible causes of failures in new code.

The code is at newregistration.php.

visitor authorization

Visitor authorization functions.

The code is at visitorauthorization.php.

react to submitted registration form

Add code to the index.php file to react to an incoming new registration form.

The code is at index.php.

The login facility will temporarily go to the index page. Later we will convert it to AJAX. The is done as a two step process to keep the work more simple and cut down on the possible causes of failures in new code.

The code is at login.php.

changes to front page

Now we hook up the new code on the front page. Note that once again this is a temporary method just to get us up and running.

The code is at index.php.

logout

The logout facility will temporarily go to the index page. Later we will convert it to AJAX. The is done as a two step process to keep the work more simple and cut down on the possible causes of failures in new code.

The code is at logout.php.

session management

Temporarily relying on the built-in default PHP session management.

The code is at index.php.

change timer

The JavaScript timer is changed to be a general dispatcher for various different activities. It will fire every 1/100th of a second and use countdown timers to decide what actions should be performed.

The code is at index.php.

invitation to play

Minor changes to invite people to play the game:

The code is at index.php.

game server

Now we set up a debugging version of the game server.

The code is at gameserver.php.

run blank game

We modify the code to start running the blank game (which for now just gives the debug message).

The code is at index.php.

game dispatcher

Start the code for the game server dispatcher.

The code is at gameserver.php.

static game layout

Display a static layout for the game round.

The code is at gamefunctions.php.

initiate game record

Create a persistent data base record for a new game.

The code is at gamefunctions.php.

change account functions

Created a new account function and modified an existing account function to support the switch from account name to email being the unique identifier. We will now allow duplicate account (screen) names.

The code is at accounts.php.

report scores

Report the current scores (which better be zero). Note that this code relies on the SQL database assigning a default value of zero to each score when the new game record is created.

The code is at gamefunctions.php.

create round

Create the next round for a game.

The code is at gamefunctions.php.

pick villains

Pick the two villains for the round.

The code is at gamefunctions.php.

display villains

Display the two villains for the round.

The code is at gamefunctions.php.

accept input

Accept game input.

The server code is at gameserver.php.

generate game input

Generate game input from the browser side.

The code is at index.php.

button to slam

Generate game input from the browser side.

The code is at gamefunctions.php.

show new round

Show the next round (until the round is actually incremented, this will show the current working round for debug purposes).

The code is at gameserver.php.

move game creation

The game creation call is in the wrong place -- move so it only occurs at start of new game.

function NewRound($gamechoice,$reporteduser,$gamenumber)

/* dispatch based on what game activity requested */ if ( $startcode != '' ) StartGame($startcode,$reporteduser); elseif ( $roundchoice != '' ) NewRound($roundchoice,$reporteduser,$gamenumber);

Change to StartGame.

The code is at gameserver.php.

Add the game number.

onclick="submitround(1,);"

And send to server.

var submitroundurlstring = "http:///gameserver.php?choice="+whichchoice+"&game="+gamenumber;

And receive game number at server.

<span class="katex"><span class="katex-mathml"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><semantics><mrow><mi>g</mi><mi>a</mi><mi>m</mi><mi>e</mi><mi>n</mi><mi>u</mi><mi>m</mi><mi>b</mi><mi>e</mi><mi>r</mi><mo>=</mo></mrow><annotation encoding="application/x-tex">gamenumber = </annotation></semantics></math></span><span class="katex-html" aria-hidden="true"><span class="base"><span class="strut" style="height:0.8889em;vertical-align:-0.1944em;"></span><span class="mord mathnormal" style="margin-right:0.03588em;">g</span><span class="mord mathnormal">am</span><span class="mord mathnormal">e</span><span class="mord mathnormal">n</span><span class="mord mathnormal">u</span><span class="mord mathnormal">mb</span><span class="mord mathnormal" style="margin-right:0.02778em;">er</span><span class="mspace" style="margin-right:0.2778em;"></span><span class="mrel">=</span></span></span></span>_GET['game']; /* have a game number */

And debug reporting.

echo '

New round with input '.$gamechoice.' for player '.$reporteduser.' and game number '.$gamenumber.'

record the slam

Record the slam made by the player.

Call the routine.

UpdatePlayerSlam($gamechoice,$playernumber,$gamenumber); /* located in gamefunctions.php */

Code for the routine.

The code is at gamefunctions.php.

fetch celebrity slam total

Fetch the current total for a celebrity slam.

The code is at gamefunctions.php.

start round scoring function

Start building the round scoring function.

The calling routine is at gameserver.php.

The actual routine is at gamefunctions.php.

complete round update function

I built this function one section at a time. Rather than bore you (because everything worked on the first attempt), I will show the finished function.

The actual routine is at gamefunctions.php.

end game

Now add the check for the end of game.

The check for end of game is at gameserver.php.

The end game function is at gamefunctions.php.

create first round

Add code to create the first round.

The check for end of game is at gameserver.php.

store time and date

Record the starting time and date of each game.

The end game function is at gamefunctions.php.

bonus rounds

Points double in the bonus rounds (7-10).

The end game function is at gamefunctions.php.

show points

Add graphic bull’s eye to show who earned points each round.

The end game function is at gamefunctions.php.

add contact form

Simple contact form.

The end game function is at contact.php.

broken glass effect

Add a broken glass effect for slams.

Several changes in the main index file at index.php.

And a change in the matching JavaScript in gamefunctions.php.

bar graph

We are going to use a bar graph effect to show the points awarded.

And a change in the matching JavaScript in gamefunctions.php.

remove timer info

At this point we comment out (remove) the timer debug information from index.php. This is a cosmetic change to make the game look better. We can always bring back the timer info if there is a need.

minor account change

Instead of displaying the player’s email address, we display the screen name. This is a very minor change.

echo '<p align="center">currently logged in as ',GetAccountNameFromAccountNumber(GetAccountNumberFromEmail($accountemail)),'<br>';

display trivia question

Display the trivia question.

See the source code at gamefunctions.php.

move bonus round to top

Move the bonus round message to the top of the game.

See the source code at gamefunctions.php.

Add a little bit of code to check to see if the cookie timed out. If so, ask them to log back in rather than let them see a game with lots of SQL errors.

The check for end of game is at gameserver.php.

remove registration form is signed in

No reason to show the registration form if someone is already logged in. So remove it when logged in.

Several changes in the main index file at index.php.

start to hook up radio buttons

React to the form radio buttons.

See the source code at gamefunctions.php.

check for trivia question answer

Check to see when the trivia question is answered.

A couple of changes in the main index file at index.php.

And a change in the gamefunctions.php.

remove trivia question

Remove the question when a choice is made.

A change in the main index file at index.php.

And a change in the gamefunctions.php.

move trivia question

The call for the trivia question was moved from after the slam stuff to before it.

toggle game state

Now we add a variable for whether we are in the trivia or the slam game state and toggle back and forth on trivia answers and slams.

See the main index file at index.php.

lock out slamming

When we are in trivia mode, we lock out the slamming function and even remind people to answer trivia question first.

See the main index file at index.php.

send in trivia data

Send the trivia results to the server.

See the main index file at index.php.

process trivia data

Process the trivia answer.

See code at gameserver.php.

process trivia points

Set player points based on trivia answer.

example code (original) (raw)

example source code

license

example source code

data base

create code to connect to the database

display current top 25 rankings

preparing for interactivity

add JavaScript to send vote increment

fixed cross-domain JavaScript

increment count in data base

random celebrity

celebrity picture

celebrity info

cosmetic changes

click the sledgehammer to slam

top 21

account utilities

data validation

new registration

visitor authorization

react to submitted registration form

login

changes to front page

logout

session management

change timer

invitation to play

game server

run blank game

game dispatcher

static game layout

initiate game record

change account functions

report scores

create round

pick villains

display villains

accept input

generate game input

button to slam

show new round

move game creation

record the slam

fetch celebrity slam total

start round scoring function

complete round update function

end game

create first round

store time and date

bonus rounds

show points

add contact form

broken glass effect

bar graph

remove timer info

minor account change

display trivia question

move bonus round to top

check for timed out cookie

remove registration form is signed in

start to hook up radio buttons

check for trivia question answer

remove trivia question

move trivia question

toggle game state

lock out slamming

send in trivia data

process trivia data

process trivia points

variable height points chart

question generator

add love/like button

game object

celebrity object

start using game object

new header

birth place check

birth place question generator

birth date question generator