Web 2.1

Much later than planned I finally got around to checking out AS3.

I was quick to upgrade to AS2 when it came out in Flash MX 2004, and never looked back, so why so late? Well, as usual, because I'm busy. Busy on a PHP project at that, so I haven't really had the chance. Plus, if I do have to write some AS on the job it's too big a risk to start learning something new. Pressures demand that I get on with it as I know how. That's why this Facebook application has it's main Flash app (Chin Balls) written in AS2. Also, I view the upgrading of a programming language as a one-way process. I didn't upgrade to PHP5 until I was confident I would never have to write PHP4 again. And with AS3 this is an even bigger deal. Read the rest of this entry »

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The designer/developer boundary has always been a little blurry when it comes to Flash. Flash has been celebrated for this since 1999, and  has established a pretty unique position. But with each release of Flash those who sit on the fence feel an increasing pressure to choose a camp and stay in it. Some do, some don't and some just carry on doing things as they always did, but one thing's for sure; that the drive toward Flash being a more robust, more powerful, more serious platform is not showing any signs of slowing down. AS3 is another leap forward. In fact a much bigger leap than AS2 was. Read the rest of this entry »

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I can't quite believe how long I've lived without the Eclipse IDE. I've always been quite proud to walk into an agency with my copy of Homesite 5, it shows I'm old school - I don't need no fancy code hinting, it's all in the old noggin!

Anyhow, I downloaded Eclipse about a year ago and installed PHPElcipse. I was put off immediately by the shear size of the application, and decided that if it ain't broke don't fix it. So it sat silently amongst my Program Files for a good year or so until I was inspired last week by a colleague to give it another go. Read the rest of this entry »

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JSON Parser

If you haven't read Part 1, or Part 2 they are there for the reading.

I'm going to demo a JSON parser in this post. It's 100% native PHP code, and is based on the work I've done toward my ultimate goal of a full JavaScript parser.

Click here to play with the interactive JSONParser demo

I thought I'd get this example online now as my ultimate goal is taking longer than I had hoped. I shan't go into the details, suffice to say that the JSON grammar below is a very tiny subset of the full JavaScript grammar and doesn't really have any complex rules.

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At what point did the entire English speaking world start using the word ‘Meh‘? I say ‘word' - more of a noise really, and one invariably accompanied by a physical gesture. I wonder what great historical events rang out with this cry.

Perhaps we need an emoticon for this? Suggestions please! Unless of course you're too indifferent to bother.

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In part 1 I introduced and demonstrated the parsing concept using a very simple date parser. In this part I am going to talk about the important role of tokenizing. If you haven't read part 1 this may not make much sense, so read it now if you haven't already.

Syntactical vs Lexical

Looking again at the simple grammar of part 1. You may notice that the rule: <D_DIGIT> ::= "0" | "1" ... "9" is a bit different to all the others. It does not really contribute to the syntax of our language, it merely describes the legal characters that make up a single digit. It is convenient to view this aspect of the language as a subset of the grammar; one that is concerned only with what input ‘looks like' rather than where it appears. This can be called the lexical grammar. The rest of the language which is concerned with syntax can be called the syntactical grammar. Read the rest of this entry »

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I just became aware of an apparently legitimate US-based company who I shall not provide a link to;
[whois guard] [dot] [com] - operated by [name cheap] [dot] [com].

Their opening gambit "We hate spam like you do" is somewhat ironic when you consider that their services are of enormous help to cyber criminals such as phishing gangs. These ‘people' need to operate domain names, but they must remain untraceable. Protecting their whois data is an obvious step towards concealing their identity. I am not suggesting that companies offering such services are corrupt, rather that it highlights the dichotomy of the internet privacy problem. Read the rest of this entry »

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I write this as I wait for my builder to arrive at my house.
If I treated my profession like a tradesman, you wouldn't have a website. Here's why: Read the rest of this entry »

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Parsing is a fairly common word in the web developer's vocabulary. We do it all the time. One immediately thinks of XML as something we parse regularly without batting an eyelid. As a PHP developer you might also parse an ini file with parse_ini_file, or parse a date string with strtotime. Whatever language you write, these tasks are easily achieved using either built-in functions or by installing other code libraries or extensions. Sometimes you may find yourself needing to parse something more bespoke, like say a postcode - you'll either write a routine yourself, or do some googling for a neat algorithm someone out there has decided to share. - no problem.

A rod for my back

But what if you want to parse something really complex, like say - an entire JavaScript program. What if you can't find a third party library that works for you? Well I tried to find one. I found some very promising projects. But they ranged from abandoned projects, to dodgy alpha releases, to ones that just plain didn't work and with no documentation to help. The most serious looking projects were so sophisticated that I didn't even have the knowledge to start using them. I decided, as I often do, that I need empowering with the knowledge to write my own parser should I need one for - well, whatever. Read the rest of this entry »

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Over the previous three weeks I was working with my old pals at Greenroom Digital, who were producing a Facebook application for their client Paramount Pictures. The app's release coincided with Paramount's release of South Park Season 6 on DVD. You won't be surprised to see that the application is crude and puerile, and you may [as I do] reluctantly find it pretty amusing in places.

You can see the South Park Down and Dirty application in action here. This link is my public Down and Dirty profile and does not require you to add the app, although you can add it here in the usual fashion.

Pick up Campaign or some such publication and no doubt you'll be able to read all about the strategy, the creative, the design, even the metrics. Less likely you'll read about the technical execution, which is where I come in…

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