CodePoint 2008 - The 1st Annual Greenfoot Coding Contest - opens for business on 15th October.
If you use Greenfoot, or if you like writing Java programs, or if you want to win a great prize, have a look at the web page for
You can win a Wii Games Console, or an iPod Touch, or even a Greenfoot coffee mug!
Technorati Tags: Greenfoot
For the past few months, we have worked on creating the Greenfoot Gallery - and now it’s finally officially open.
The Greenfoot Gallery is a place for people to publish their Greenfoot scenarios, and try out other people’s work, comment on it, rate it, etc. Think of it as a kind of YouTube for Greenfoot games. Have a look!
You can use the Gallery (look at scenarios, play) straight away, or you can create an account for yourself to comment on them or upload your own.
Uploading content to the Gallery is easy: Use the ‘Export’ function in Greenfoot, and you’re almost there.
I recently gave a talk in our department’s series of Book Talks. In this series, a staff member introduces a book they like or they were influenced by. The book I presented was the wonderful Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter.
One of the many things Hofstadter talks about in this book are self-reproducing programs – programs which create copies of themselves. (In other words: programs whose output is the same as their source.)
While thinking about this, I decided to write one myself.
Greenfoot is finally getting proper support for mouse input. This has been the single most requested feature for some time. This means that you can now write games that use the mouse as a control. Such as Minesweeper.
Programming is not hard.
Sure, there are plenty of examples you can pull out of the bag that have really brain-numbingly complex algorithms in them, and they are indeed hard to program, but they are really the exception. For most programmers and most programs, this is not the case.
Most programs that fail do so not because the implementation is done badly or fails altogether, but because they implement the wrong things. Its not that the programming was hard, but that they programmed something nobody wants.
Deciding what you should program is where all the beef is.
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Just as everyone else, I regularly get spam. One of the common scams are “phishing” mails - pretending to be from a bank or other institution where you might type in your password.
Today, I got one that appeared to be from the NatWest bank. With this one, the scammers actually had a better starting point with me than most, since I actually do have an account at that bank (so it’s not quite as obvious as being asked to update my details at some bank in Timbuktu that I’ve never heard of).
But I don’t think the scammers quite thought this through to the end, as you might notice looking at the URL that the “Log in” button links to - stupidity or just refreshing honesty?
Welcome back, dear readers, to the fourth part of Sophie’s journey of writing a DrWho computer game with Greenfoot and Java.
If you have read the previous parts, then thank you for sticking with us for so long! (If not, you may like to start reading here: Part I, Part II, Part III).
I’ll try to make it short today – it’s been a long day, and it’s getting late. But this programming session I’d like to record took place five days ago, I have only sparse notes, and I’d like to get it down before I forget too much. I have been busy this week, so I haven’t had time to write this up earlier, but there was so much lovely and encouraging feedback on the previous posts that encouraged me to continue writing this up.
Thus, without further delay, on to the next task: Reaching the TARDIS with the energy pellets!
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The third part of my endeavours to write a Dr Who computer game with my daughter
If you’re reading this, then you probably already have an idea what this is about: An ongoing project to write a Dr Who-themed computer game with my daughter Sophie, who is 10 years old. (Yes, she’s 10 now - it was her birthday earlier this week!)
This is the third part of this story. In part I we got the Doctor to move, and in part II we added some Daleks. This time, we giving the Doctor something to do, something worthy of the last of the Time Lords: Collecting energy pellets for the TARDIS.
Collecting user data without any concern for privacy or users’ wishes has become commonplace on the web.
It’s wrong, and we should start to act against it by avoiding the sites that don’t respect users’ privacy.
And if you are a designer of such a system: Do the Right Thing. Let your users control their data.
Second part of my endeavours to write a computer game with my daughter
A few days ago, I have written about starting to teach my daughter some programming by inventing and implementing a game with Greenfoot and Java. Here’s the second part of that journey.
This time, I had thought a little more in advance about what might be a good thing to tackle next. Putting floors in, so that the Doctor would just walk on those levels (and ladders to go up and down)? Or other moves: jumping, ducking, etc?
I decided the most interesting thing would be to put some opponents in - other actors that you could run away from, and who could catch you. With the Doctor, it’s pretty obvious who that should be: the Daleks! (They are the Doctor’s prime enemy, after all.)
When I came home from work, I suggested this to Sophie. Happily, she agreed.