My paper about multi-agent systems was accepted by the GECCO 2010 conference in July and I will be the designated speaker I’m preparing now my trip to the US :>
Also I’ve switched my development to Visual C++ 2010. Finally some continuous integration… The first prototype of the core of EF2 is nearly finished, I’m currently thinking about some datatypes (map locations, unit lists etc.). In June I will get a new PC, from there on development will be much faster
Be happy and stay tuned…

This week I started at my new working place, a local CRM company. I still have to sleep over the new impressions and experiences I got from there and recover from the first (expected) “shock” that it’s something completely new. But the most important thing (and the source from which I derive my endurance) is that one can succeed anywhere if one just put one’s mind into it. There is no such thing as magic in the world, anything can be explored by one’s mind!
So I welcome the new challenge to get acquainted with new technologies, new people and new concepts! And being now able to support a new (bigger) appartment is a plus

With my job applications finished I have now some time for a new project. I decided to write down what I have learned about GUI programming and design. This gives me also the opportunity to reflect on my current knowledge and find some hidden errors or anomalies in the code. The structure is already clear, I only have to fill in the words

More progress on EF2: There is still a lot of work to do but the base engine of the user interface *compiles* Now I’m updating and fixing the Core, i.e. the game simulator (the part that simulates StarCraft, WarCraft etc.)… kind of a mess because in EF1 I installed a lot of optimizations… but at least I’m seeing some progress

A very interesting paper about the parallels of the philosophy of Objectivism and Object Orientated Programming (OOP):
Object-Oriented Programming
and Objectivist Epistemology:
Parallels and Implications

Recommended if you are a programmer with some interest in logic and philosophy

I’ve just finished the optimization of the redrawing. Now only those parts of the screen that really do need a redraw are redrawn. There is still some slowdown with large number of moving elements (>100) but I think some sorting and a little inaccuracy (i.e. redrawing more than it is needed but saving lots of calculations) will do the trick. Besides I’m programming a GUI, usually there aren’t so many moving parts Well, at least in non-fancy applications
I need to do some additional work for those “rounded corners”, which can be problematic (well, basically it’s a transparent corner), but other than that it is ready to be connected to the Evolution Forge engine. In January I will then start with updating the Core. As soon as the SC2 beta is out I will implement the game et voila, EF2 is complete. :>

Today I’ve finished the primary works on the SDL library and resource management. It’s faster, better structured and more easy to add and manage resources (text, coordinates, colors, bitmaps, videos etc.). Now I’m working on the next layer, the gui elements. Goal is to make it as program-independant as possible by moving all program-dependant data up in the next layer.
Templates, callbacks, design-patterns, resource management, garbage collection, all that becomes relevant the larger the program gets End of the month I expect to breach the 50,000 LOC barrier for the whole project, then I’ll have to research the SC2 beta version (if it ever comes out…) and create a first prototype of EF 2.0. Stay tuned!

Currently I’m continuing the development of the graphics engine of Evolution Forge. I’ve separated it into an own library and created a proper interface. Now I’m making some adjustments and bugfixing. I hope this will serve as a nice base for some future programs My plan is to recreate and then complete some of the prototypes I’ve developed over the years. Besides “Evolution Forge 2″ I really want to retry programming a “Tierra” clone, my last attempt a few years ago didn’t have enough CPU power for any evolution to be visible and I guess it was programmed in Pascal… oh well, we’ll see.

A game producer has analyzed usage statistics of their I-Phone game and noted that 80% of the players in the high score list consisted of pirates and that 0% of those players bought the game later in the shop.
So much for that argument by the pirates!

heise online (german)