iohelix

so i’m trying to make a php game (commanders) from scratch and it’s not going quite as fast or as easy as i’d hoped. there are a lot of little things that you have to plan for when coding an application from scratch, no matter what it is, that will bite you in the ass.

when i first got the idea for this game, i thought “i’ll get the game part of the script working and the rest will be easy”.  nope. first off, i have to get the game part working…  it’s not. not quite. secondly, i get distracted by other things WAY too easily. and thirdly, i really have no idea where i’m trying to take this.

i started off with an overly simplistic plan. not on purpose, but because i have no experience coding anything from scratch, after writing a preliminary few hundred lines of code, and trying to test that code, i began to realize that my storage methods (both within the database, and during code execution) were grossly underestimated. it took an almost complete rewrite of the existing methods and all the code that goes with it to get to a point where the game will actually progress the way that i want it to.

but now that i’ve got the game almost working, there are other issues that are creeping in that i wasn’t ready for. for instance, the game that i am creating is actually a port from a real life board game (Power).  the trouble with this is that issues that are trivially easy for a person to deal with are intricately difficult for a computer to deal with. i’ll spare you the details, sufice to say that my code is becoming much longer than i had planned. porting form a real board game also has the added benefit of having the rules already written, or at least most of them, but the ones that aren’t written are the ones giving me the troubles. what should i do if this situation happens?  what about this other situation?

another issue i have to deal with is myself. when i get in one of those moods, as i’m sure most of you have, where the juices just aren’t flowing, we’ll call it “coders block”, i turn to other items that may not be necessary to the project. i’ve also started another (albeit much smaller, simpler) game (battleship) from scratch which is progressing much faster and therefore holds my interest better. this is bad. even though the new project is nearing completion, i know that i am the type of person who will never think of anything as “completed”.

and on top of all this i am still working on webchess 2.0 (which finally had a beta release not too long ago).

so i now have three projects i’m actively working on, my job, and a freaking network+ test to take on monday.

and i have to spend more time with my wife, who is probably feeling pretty left out at the moment.

so here’s my time division:

• my job (30%)
• my projects (30%)
• eating and sleeping (30%)
• studying (10%)
• my wife (110%)

if it weren’t for my a.d.d., i’d think i have a real problem.

(note: i’m not officially diagnosed with a.d.d., but most everybody i know would love some ritalin)

So I’ve been adding a few RPGs and other games to the site and have had to edit those scripts quite a lot more than I should have to to get them to work on my site. Don’t get me wrong (especially if you happen to be a creator of one of those scripts), I love the games, and they have MANY good features in them, but it amazes me how much people code to their own setup. One example (and the most annoying because it breaks the script immediately), is the use of PHP short tags ( <? ). These little things are the bane of my existance.

There are four ways that you can let the server know that you are about to use PHP.

• PHP Long tags ( <?php ...code... ?> )
• PHP Short tags ( <? ...code... ?> )
• ASP style tags ( <% ...code... %> )
• Script tags ( <script language="text/php"> ...code... </script> )

Lucky for me, I’ve never seen the ASP tags, and have only rarely seen the Script tag, but the short tags are almost as popular as the long tags. Especially when using the shorthand notation for the echo command ( <?= ).

My server at home is set up to be very strict in it’s handling of tags, it only allows the PHP long tags, and for good reason. When using a PHP script with XML, the XML tag ( <?xml ) confuses the PHP parser into thinking it’s a PHP short tag with the unknown entity ‘xml’ following it.

Another thing I see people use often, is Registered Globals. These are extremely handy at saving yourself some keystrokes, but that’s about the only thing they are good for. Registered Globals take variables from a SuperGlobal and place it in the normal variable scope. An example would be an HTML form with a field called ‘name’.  When you send this form, a variable in PHP called either _POST or _GET is created based on which method is used to send the data. To get at the data the user sent, one must call $_POST['name'].  If Registered Globals is turned on, all one needs to do is call the variable $name and there ya go. This practice is not very safe and causes more headaches then they save in keystrokes.

All of these issues, plus some more obscure ones, are why people should not code to their own particular setup, but should code with certain standards that are applicable everywhere.

• PHP Long tags are ALWAYS accepted by the server.
• The _POST and _GET variables are ALWAYS available to the script.
• The HTTP_XXXXX_VARS are NOT always available, as of PHP5 they can be disabled.
• Even the _ENV and _SERVER vars are not always enabled.

So when you go out to write your first bit of code, or even continue work on a project you’ve been working on for years, think of the other people who may be using your script who may not have the same setup as you, and they may not have access to their php.ini file to change those settings. And don’t try to skirt your way around it by running the ini_set function either. That’s almost like putting a virus on someone else’s computer. Just don’t do it.