josh giesbrecht

Processing

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 18:32:51 GMT

Processing is a neat little language that I discovered recently. It looks like a great little environment to prototype ideas in.

According to the website, "Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and sound." It's built on top of Java, but abstracts away a lot of the annoying details, and is combined with a clean, minimal IDE that keeps things simple and fun.

The language is syntactically Java, but lets you write only what you need to write. If all you want is to draw an ellipse, you can just tell it to draw an ellipse in one statement, no mucking about with setting up graphical output or classes or whatever. If you want to do some simple animation, just put your per-frame code into a draw() call, set the framerate, and let 'er rip. The website has a great set of tutorial code that not only teaches, but makes little things that look pretty cool.

At the same time, if you need to step outside the bounds and get a hold of some Java library, you can write a full-fledged Java program that can still use the additional Processing function calls.

The IDE is beautiful in minimalism, designed clearly for the task of letting people program without having to worry about details. Open a new "sketch" (Processing's name for a program or project), type your code, press Play, watch it run. If it looks cool, with a single menu option you can build standalone executables for Windows, MacOS, and Linux; or export it in applet format, complete with a nice clean webpage that contains it for easy viewing.

The syntax highlighting and autoformatting is good enough, but if you really want to write your code in another editor, you can switch the Processing app to a non-editing mode where it simply runs the code as it is currently saved. No re-opening needed, if you save a new copy elsewhere and press Play in Processing, it will auto-refresh and run the new code.

While the language was initially aimed at programmed media projects, it has been used for interesting data visualization experiments, a-life experiments, and other more "computational" tasks. There are also a bunch of additional libraries, including OpenGL support, networking, and a controller interface. (See the Exhibition, the forums, or the examples at Codetree.)

Give it a try, if nothing else it's a great way to have fun making some bouncy little unusual animated toy over a lunch break. If you're trapped in legacy code, gotos, and/or layers upon layers of interfaces to trace through, it's nice to take a deep breath and play with something that reminds you that coding is fun! =)

And while I'm posting excellent NYT stories

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 20:36:25 GMT

I really should point people to this one on Evangelical Christian groups promoting clean air.

I feel a little better about the world now.

Why can't we all just get along?

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 20:35:03 GMT

In this article on rioting in Paris, I found this incredibly timely quote:

"We see among the rioters kids of 13 to 15, who are swept along, who are encouraged to take all the risks, and the others, the ringleaders, who are used to creating trouble, they terrorize everyone, and don't want to stop," said Franck Cannarozzo, a deputy mayor of Aulnay. "Rather than playing on their Playstations, they attack the police."

In the interest of promoting conflict resolution, I think it would be in the French government's best interest to issue a PS2 to every household, along with a "Peace Voucher" that's redeemable for two new release games.

Keep violence off the streets and in our videogames where it belongs!

"Star Wars" Propaganda

Sat, 05 Nov 2005 00:08:54 GMT

Go read this now, and BE AMUSED.

Google needs help finding Lisp

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 20:01:36 GMT

It's tragic that Practical Common Lisp isn't even on the first page of results when you google for Lisp tutorial, so I'm doing my part to correct that.

(Hey, if it works for 'failure', it should work for this.)

who, him? he's not with me

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:50:34 GMT

For the record, I would prefer that this guy not be what comes to mind when people think of Christianity, thanks a lot that'd be great bye.

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 19:00:09 GMT

Anyone who complains about the parentheses in Lisp has not had to read and debug an XML-based build config file.

Ralph Klein does something right

Wed, 29 Jun 2005 19:19:14 GMT

No pun intended. And he hasn't actually done it yet, but it's an interesting idea. Following the passage of the same-sex legislation last night, Ralphy is saying that Alberta might stop solemnizing marriages altogether. For those readers who are also ifMUDders, you may remember miseri suggesting this same thing not too long ago.

Why should government define marriage, anyway? If we (crazy churchfolk) are serious about trying to "defend" marriage as a sacred thing, why is the secular defining our sacred? (Of course, that raises the question of how much we should really care what the government defines marriage as, anyway.)</b></a>

Reliable sources are which again?

Wed, 18 May 2005 19:20:12 GMT

I've never been all that amazed by Wikipedia. Sure, it's the collaborative knowledge of thousands upon thousands of geeks - great, so I finally have the definitive reference on Klingon, but can it be trusted to be reliable when any would-be editor can alter or add facts? How do I know that there isn't a mistake in an article that hasn't yet been corrected?

But apparently the CBC doesn't mind the ephemeral nature of facts found on Wikipedia. This in-depth look at the Sudan crisis has the following sources:

SOURCES: US Department of State, Wikipedia, Arab Net, CIA World Factbook.

Wikiwha? Okay, so I'm sure that the other sources did a good job of confirming the Wikipedia's accuracy, but this still makes me double-take.

What's next, news reporting with blogs as the sources?

A fantastic quote

Sat, 23 Apr 2005 05:27:17 GMT

From a mailing list email I just received comes this excellent quote:

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."

- Soren Kierkegaard

I really need to finish reading that Kierkegaard collection that I've got around here somewhere.

Random moment

Fri, 22 Apr 2005 19:43:31 GMT

Sitting here at my desk at work over lunch, relaxing after a nice bento box meal, and playing Go ...

...am I officially left-coast now?

Because Lisp makes you cool

Fri, 08 Apr 2005 05:59:57 GMT

For those of the programming persuasion, next time you've got the itch to try a new programming language, why not go super-old-school and try out the 45 year old that C-style languages still haven't quite found all the features of?

Practical Common Lisp is a very, well, practical book on how to program in Common Lisp. The book is just being published now by Apress, but the author has been allowed to keep the entire book's contents online for free, so there's no excuse for not giving it at least a look.

If you're like me, and I know I am, you probably heard of Lisp as that prerequisite language for the AI course you want to take, except by the time you took the class they decided to drop using Lisp, so you were left thinking that Lisp is some sort of AI-specialized language that died when people stopped using Prolog, except weirdly you still did actually use Prolog in that course, but either way it's now left on the mental shelf of "useless academic languages that nobody ever uses" right beside Pascal, which thank goodness you never actually had to learn in first year, because really, what's the point?

Anyway, unlike pretty much every other intro to Lisp that I've come across in my poking around, this book actually gets you doing interesting, practical hands-on stuff early on and stays well clear of any "academic" focus to show that Common Lisp is an industrial-strength language. I'm part-way through the book myself, and looking forward to finishing it. The final exercises at the end walk you through programming a web-based streaming MP3 server from the ground up - sounds nifty to me.

The book is very well-structured to my style of learning. It's sort of the inverse of Programming Perl - it gets you to do something before you necessarily know what it all means, rather than drowning you in details before you can even get to control statements.

Of course, I'm also trying to brush up my C++, plus playing around with a new OS install, and etc etc, so I'm not exactly working my way through this very quickly. I'm definitely impressed with both the book and the language, though. I don't know if I'll be in a position to use Lisp professionally, but it gets one out of the everything-looks-like-C rut. Plus wrapping one's mind around Lisp's native support for self-generative code, the slickness of the REPL concept, etc, just stretches the mind. Makes it a lot easier to grasp similar concepts when they show up patched-on and half-implemented in C++, at least. And maybe it'd do nicely for that little web-based tool I was going to build for myself ...

GTA:SA advertises ... when?

Wed, 02 Mar 2005 15:28:14 GMT

The BBC offers up this wonderful typo, or at least I hope it was:

Grand Theft Auto publisher Rockstar Games said its policy was not to advertise a product around programmes where less than half the audience was below the age required to buy it.

So, they'll be putting San Andreas ads in Teletubbies and Zoboomafoo, then?

Antigrav is also the r0x0rZ

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 06:30:26 GMT

In raving about Pirates!, I failed to mention that I managed to borrow a PS2 and a copy of Antigrav. Not having a TV, I haven't bothered to pick up a console of my own. What I forgot is that my video card has a TV in, so borrowing a console to prove that the port actually works was perfect. And while I had a PS2, it was time to try out the newest game from Harmonix.

Antigrav is a fun, futuristic board-riding game, sort of like snow/skateboarding except on a hoverboard with jets. The controls are not your standard skate-game fare: to turn left, you lean left. To duck, you duck. Antigrav uses the PS2's Eyetoy peripheral, which comes included. (Unlike some games that have a custom peripheral included, however, I've seen a street price equivalent to other console games, which is excellent.) For those who don't know, the Eyetoy is basically a USB webcam. Once you've got it lined up to have you in the camera's field of vision, with some decent lighting conditions, it's a snap. You calibrate it to your face, and it tracks both your face and hand movements. You steer with your head movements, and arm / hand motion lets you do mid-air tricks (plus grabbing points when you ride on rails).

I was impressed. I didn't play through the game, I only got through the first couple courses, but the experience is a blast. Racing down colorful, futuristic streets and through the skies in the flying sections while crouching, jumping, leaning, and gesturing madly to pull off tricks is really fun. The pacing isn't so frantic that you strain yourself, in fact I was always surprised that I had broken a sweat after racing through a couple of tracks as it never felt too exerting. (That might be a sign that I'm really out of shape, but I prefer to think of it as exercise which is fun enough that it doesn't feel like exercise.)

Now that I know I can get a PS2 setup running well on my decently-sized monitor, a PS2 and Antigrav are officially on my To-Buy list. The fact that it's non-couch-potato activity means that it might even bump ahead of Pirates, as I'm in dire need of more sources of exercise.

Maybe if I'm lucky, some EAC project will pick up on this sort of innovation, and I'll get to play with an Eyetoy at work someday ...

NYT: "Winnipeg + hockey = r0xorz"

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:49:38 GMT

Apparently, Winnipeggers may now bask in the glory of their cynicism towards the NHL, as NYT tells the world that yes, Manitoba is laughing at you all.

I don't really have anything constructive to add to that, except, "HA HA." Also, Bettman and the player's union leaders are all equally dorks.

(Free registration required, probably, but if you're one of my Manitoban comrades, it's worth it to read this one.)

Arr, "Pirates!" is awesome

Thu, 17 Feb 2005 22:49:37 GMT

I borrowed the new "Sid Meier's Pirates!", and wow is it awesome. Beautiful open-ended gameplay, just like the original ... ah, the memories, the childhood years spent on glorious exploration and plunder of the Caribbean!

If anyone wants to get me a late birthday present, and be my hero, get me Pirates! (Is it more syntactically correct to have two exclamation marks there?)

The subtle danger of robot soldiers

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 16:56:19 GMT

I know, the subject line sounds like I'm waxing sci-fi-poetic, but this is unfortunately serious.

According to NYT, 'A New Model Army Soldier Rolls Closer to the Battlefield'. It's a fairly thorough article, covering how appealing the idea is to the military, as well as the fact that intelligent robot soldiers are still a long way off.

It also mentions the concern that giving robot intelligence the choice to distinguish friend from foe might be risky - what happens if a robot blows up a school bus instead of a troop carrier?

All of this is well and good, but to me, the biggest danger is perhaps the least obvious for those designing the machines. The writer mentions it, very briefly:

"There is a lag between technology and doctrine," said Mr. Finkelstein of Robotic Technology, who has been in the military robotics field for 28 years. "If you could invade other countries bloodlessly, would this lead to a greater temptation to invade?"

Bloodlessly? That word alone reveals the source of the real problem, which robot soldiers would amplify tremendously. The sad fact is, we only care about our own losses. Look at Iraq, where the loss of American soldiers to the war is a far greater issue in the debate than the over 15,000 non-combatant civilians who have died, never mind the complete lack of respect for due justice or human rights that occur there.

How would America have viewed the Iraq war if no American soldiers had been present to die there? What if there had been zero American losses? Would they have paid attention to the fifteen thousand innocent lives who were caught in the crossfire?

Would they have called it "bloodless"?

Toyota unveils Mecha Mark I

Fri, 10 Dec 2004 18:28:39 GMT

Un-freaking-believable. One small step for man ... one big freaking mecha stomp for owners of this sweet, sweet prototype.

Okay, so it's not really that big. Yet.

Toyota's R&D engineers are now my heroes. The i-unit is nice, but read further down about the i-foot.

Who can't be divided?

Thu, 02 Dec 2004 18:59:57 GMT

Oh, this is good.

"We cannot defend our country and save our homes and families by waiting for our enemies to attack us. To remain on the defensive is the surest way to bring the war to Canada." - Dubya

No, see, you're missing the point, Georgie. The world actually LIKES Canada. They don't want to go to war with us. That's probably because we don't force our viewpoint down their throats at gunpoint, or through economic blackmail.

"We are bound by history and geography and trade and by our deepest convictions," Bush said of the relationship between the two countries. "With so much at stake, we cannot be divided."

Something about this just seems oddly ironic, but I can't quite put my finger on it. The strongest reason I voted Liberal is in the hopes that a Liberal government would continue to have the cajones to set its own foreign policy and stand by it, no matter what stupid things our economic allies pursue. For Canada's sake, I hope I was right.

Commander Keen Wins Lawsuit

Tue, 30 Nov 2004 19:26:44 GMT

... er, I mean Valve. Right.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4054643.stm

The story isn't nearly as important as the fact that it contains the word "keen" three times. Which, if you're easily amused, is amusing. And I am easily amused.

Today's political URLs

Thu, 25 Nov 2004 22:41:19 GMT

I've decided I need to collect links to news stories and facts which I can quickly point to in order to explain my political point of view to people. Today offered a good starting point in the form of a US government report pointing out that the battle in Iraq is winning geographical ground, but losing the real war.

I wonder if this has anything to do with it.

Is this supposed to be depressing?

Mon, 15 Nov 2004 02:25:54 GMT

This story on the development of Half Life 2, that is.

Gearing up to be the best PC game of all time, loved and adored by everyone - and developed with over a year of crunch time. You do know what "crunch time" is, right? I mean, doesn't everyone's job involve living at work and not seeing their families for months on end?

It's over?

Sat, 16 Oct 2004 17:57:41 GMT

No, not my job ... just the death march to finaling NBA Live. Not every SKU is 100% finished yet, but things have slowed down to some sense of sanity. I've actually got the whole weekend off, twice in a row even. Wheee. So hey, if you want to see my name in the credits of a game, go pick up a copy of NBA LIVE 2005. (I guess my name might be in the credits for NCAA March Madness as well, come to think of it, although I spent almost all my time contributing to Live.)

For those who haven't heard, I've been hired on as a regular (ie. non-temporary) full-time employee, as a software engineer for the NBA Live team. I'll be working on the current-gen version of the game, which means I won't get to play with an XBox2. But really, who needs it when I can play the PC version on a 3.4 GHz machine?

I've been at a pre-production workshop for the last two days. Pre-production is basically the first big chunk of the development schedule, where you do a whole lot of brainstorming, planning, picking features, and figuring out how the heck you're going to do things. Having been dropped into the thick of things at the start of alpha, I had zero knowledge of or input into any planning for the 2005 title. So, this workshop was new and interesting in a few ways.

It was basically a description of all of the stages of pre-pro, including all of the deliverables and the associated terminology used within EA. It was also a quick run through all of the sorts of planning exercises we'll be doing for pre-pro of our title. We learned various techniques to brainstorming, how to come up with feature and technical documentation (which they're keeping very light this year - excellent), and we did so by actually taking a first stab at doing these exercises for next year's title. So rather than wasting time planning how to plan, we're practicing how to plan with a usable rough draft of things.

The other interesting aspect of this is the fact that I was there at all. Usually a pre-pro workshop like this would be attended by only the DDs and producers, but with the smaller team size right now they decided to get everyone involved in the process. I think this was an excellent way to go - it gives us SEs an opportunity to toss in ideas and info for feature brainstorming that producers can use, and it gives us a sense of the big picture of producing the entire game. Plus, hey, free catered lunch!

I think the one thing that's making me feel very positive about this whole upcoming year is that everyone in team and cross-team leadership is committing themselves to creating a good "work / life balance" for the upcoming project. I've never liked the idea of the gaming industry taking advantage of employees because of their love for games, and being dropped into a 3-4 month death march to finalling this year's title has turned that into a much more visceral hatred of the "everyone making games must have hellish overtime" attitude. Hearing our producer talk about committing firmly to smaller, incremental pushes to milestones throughout the year is a very good thing. I've got nothing wrong with well-planned, distributed overtime hours, such as picking one or two days before each milestone where everyone stays for late-night coding. But unpredictable, unplanned and continuous overtime right near the end of a project is just stupid, especially in the context of a large, well-established studio with a solid franchise.

I really, really hope that this concept sticks, and grows within the industry. I don't see a reason to sacrifice my life and my relationships for a job, no matter what I'm making. If you want me to apply real, grown-up engineering skills to your project, I expect real, grown-up project management skills in return.

And really, if I want to spend my evenings working unpaid hours doing game programming, I'll get some other day job and work on an indie game at home. At least then my wife would see me. (The Codwif Inc. "hot-tub" RTS, maybe? I hear the Torque engine is adding RTS-supporting features.)

Video games are good for you

Tue, 12 Oct 2004 23:06:42 GMT

The research proves it. Well, at least if you're an Argentinian street kid.

This BBC story has the info.

publisher pain

Sun, 26 Sep 2004 05:25:48 GMT

If anyone has a way in which I can edit pages saved as MS Publisher or Pagemaker files using free or very affordable software, please pretty please let me know. This includes any options that involve lossless conversion to another format and editing / printing from that format. I've banged my head against this problem for a while now and the internet is failing me. No, warez is not an option.