Should PC’s be easy to use for everyone, or should you actually need some kind of understanding of how they work? I recently saw an article about a new computer aimed at “computer illiterate” users, the Alex PC. Elsewhere on the ‘net, people were arguing about whether or not trying to make it easy for “non-geeks” to use computers and …
Can you make JavaScript’s String mutable?
Here’s a question I was pondering a couple of days ago: Can you make JavaScript’s String object mutable, as in modifiable without having to re-assign the string. Why would this be useful? Sometimes you might share a string between objects, and you’d want changing it in one place get reflected in elsewhere. If you had a single string object, which …
6 programming project mistakes you should avoid
During my adventures in programming, I’ve been involved in many projects. Luckily, despite having made some mistakes, they’ve gone quite well. Here are a few of them, with tips on how to avoid making them yourself.
How much would you pay for good headphones?
Time for some consumer advice today. I’m sure many of us have often thought about getting headphones – and I’m sure many of us already have a pair – but how much is a reasonable amount to spend? And what will a higher-grade (read: more expensive) pair do that’s worth the money? I recently decided to invest on some new …
Rendering graphics in JavaScript games
As I’ve been rewriting TankWar, I’ve been thinking of various approaches to displaying the game’s graphics. At the moment, I can count three feasible approaches for rendering game graphics: DHTML – In other words, using divs with images and moving them around Canvas A hybrid: Canvas with DHTML I’ve considered each of these, and they all have some pros and …
Best of 2009
In the tradition of end of the year posts, here’s some “best of” statistics from this blog for the year 2009. Next week we will return to our regular programming.
Vim / Opera tip: Open highlighted text in Vim
Here’s a quick tip for Opera and Vim users: How to add a menu item which allows you to quickly open highlighted text on a web page in Vim. This trick can be applied with any other application too, like <insert your favorite editor>
Rewriting TankWar: Assessing the damage
I have decided to rewrite TankWar, and I’ll be writing a bunch of blog posts about the process. If you ever wanted to know how to write a scorched earth/worms-like game using just JavaScript, now is your chance to learn ;) This is the first one: Assessing the damage. In other words, take a look at the old code and …
Git interactive rebase tips
Interactive rebase is one of my most used Git commands. It’ll let me slice and dice commits in various useful ways. Here’s a few tips for you to unleash the true potential of rebase :) Basics: editing, combining, reordering and removing commits Breaking a commit into two Taking a part of a commit and bringing it to HEAD Bonus! How …
TankWar has online mode again: This time on Opera Unite
You may recall an earlier post about TankWar, my 100% JavaScript cannons-game. Back when I wrote it, I included online play, but the server went down with a hard disk failure. Now, I have rewritten the online mode – this time that part is also all JavaScript – continue reading to find out what makes it tick.