I've been playing with processing.js today. It's been months since the last time I did any programming. This is a new version of the Bezier Matrix found in my home page hamoid.com, but this time using no Flash. I only tested it on Chromium, hopefully it works on other browsers. Please let me know on the comments :)
I've started using the Robotlegs AS3 library to better organize the source code of my Flash map. Sometimes I have a hard time understanding diagrams and documentation. It happened when reading the PureMVC documentation, and it happened again while learning Robotlegs. I believe the documentation sometimes assumes many concepts are familiar. I find many words used are too abstract and non specific. Instead of having to read 20 or 30 pages several times, I'd like a short list with rules, a numbered list of steps required to make it work. I miss a one page long explanation, which I think is perfectly possible. I remember taking diagrams from a popular AS3 book, moving some boxes around and the result would be so much simpler, more symmetric. It was like playing this untangle game. When I first had a look at the Robotlegs diagram I didn't really get it. I found the lines with 90º turns hard to follow, and I had to search for those numbers one by one. So I remade this diagram using curved lines. I tried to make it possible to understand the code flow effortlessly, following just one line from start to end. Hopefully others also find it simpler.
I hope this is seen as constructive criticism. The Robotlegs micro-architecture is an excellent piece of software. I just believe documentation can often be refactored and its dependencies from previous knowledge removed.
Last weeks I've been working on releasing a new version of my Flash map. The old one was a world map. I plan to separate the world from the map, so one could have maps of each country or city. It's kind of hard because the source code is very old and unstructured (ActionScript 1!). But it's getting better. I've been also reading an interesting book called "Hackers and Painters". The author talks about Lisp as a great programming language.
From my experience with Autolisp (for scripting Autocad) 10 years ago I could not experience the greatness of the language. Today I decided to have a look in the Internet and find out what could I do with it in 2010. I found this:
I had heard about codinghorror.com and I knew it was popular, but somehow I never read it until today. I found it very interesting. I totally agree with the fact that programming alone is difficult. Somehow I managed to finish many projects on my own, but I found that working in a team, even if it's an on-line team, makes things easier. The discussion and sharing of ideas avoids getting stuck on problems. Here another interesting read about the difficulty of predicting development time.
These are some web sites I worked on between 2002 and 2007 in Berlin. Some are probably offline or have been replaced by a new site now in 2011.
http://www.nsyachts.com/list.php
Search engine / yacht database
http://www.quetzal-tours.de
http://www.gorillatrekking.de
Site design, programming, search engine optimization. About 60 HTML pages. 11 page PDF catalog. Design concept.
http://www.sich-lieben-lernen.de
Web portal for women, PHP driven. Includes Flash chat and PHP forum. Backoffice to edit all content. Design concept by Juano.
http://www.massimosex.com
HTML website with Flash menu. Scans image folders automatically to avoid editing pages. Simple contact form.
http://www.davidmonros.com
Added new content to the existing website of this know artist from Menorca. Improved Flash menus, added map + video. Note: this site has been replaced by a new one in 2010.
http://www.studiolum.com/en/biblio.htm
With XML import from Endnote 7
Margarita Morales
Mariachi el Dorado
Musagetes Quintett
I will later update this post and explain all the software and hacks we used to be able to create virtual tours quickly and for a low price.
These are some database driven Flash projects I built as a freelancer in Berlin.
electrobot.de
36 kb Flash interface, database driven. Includes audioplayer. Texts, images and music can be updated using the backoffice system.
urbanpachanga.de
mrmcb.com
antida.info
arturo-pantaleon.de
Converting a Flash website designed by DOT-Project into a database driven site.
This project was created for Planeta web / illesbalears.es in October 2005.
I developed the second version of garitocafe.com in 2005. It included over 50 hours of streaming audio and video. Again, it's a fully database driven Flash web site. I created a dual server set up, where part of the data was in Europe and part in USA. The servers communicated with each other. The whole Flash interface was only 30 kb heavy, and all texts and media were loaded on demand. I programmed a mailing list with delivery control so recipients could be easily removed if their addresses no longer existed. The mailing system allowed previewing HTML e-mails with images, and exporting of all contacts in VCard format. The Flash web site had a parallel HTML site so search engines could index and link to any part of the site. The site interface was pure ActionScript, including layout, animation and interactivity. The design concept was again done by EggCommunity and I did all the rest (layout, PHP + MySQL backoffice, animation, ActionScript programming, mailing system).
In 2004 I created this form system for medical investigations about breathing problems. Looking back at it I see it's similar to what Macromedia/Adobe later built with their Flex platform, or the XForms standard: I created my own XML syntax to define forms with thousands of inputs, limits, validation, rules and plugins. This same system was used in 5 different investigations for gathering data from thousands of patients.
The whole interface was only 34 kb heavy (unlike Flex applications which tend to be much heavier, even for a "hello world"). The XML was parsed on runtime, so editing XML form definitions was a very quick proccess.
The project was handed to me by Juan Cardona.
