The earliest memory I have of ‘programming’ is in the early/mid 90s when my father brought home a computer from work. We could play games on it … so of course I took the spreadsheet program he used (LOTUS 123, did I date myself with that?) and tried to modify it to print out a helpful message for him. It … halfway worked? At least I could undo it so he could get back to work…

After that, I picked up programming for real in QBASIC (I still have a few of those programs lying around), got my own (junky) Linux desktop from my cousin, tried to learn VBasic (without a Windows machine), and eventually made it to high school… In college, I studied computer science and mathematics, mostly programming in Java/.NET, although with a bit of everything in the mix. A few of my oldest programming posts on this blog are from that time.

After that, on to grad school! Originally, I was going to study computational linguistics, but that fell through. Then programming languages (the school’s specialty). And finally I ended up studying censorship and computer security. That’s about where I am today!

But really, I still have a habit of doing a little bit of everything. Whatever seems interesting at the time!

AIGS 2009 Update

2009-09-22

The new version of the server has been updated.

Changes:

Added a rudimentary AI player to play against for the next assignment.
Added scenarios for assignment 3.
Fixed typos in previous assignments.
Added an argument to the protocol for YourTurn messages to tell you who you are (update your CTFProtocol file).

AIGS 2009 Update

2009-09-17

Ok, so the new server is up. I can almost guarantee that there are some problems (so goes the life of a CS), so go ahead and hammer away at it and see what you can do.

One major thing, the game string format has changed:** **

Players are represented by lower case letters from ‘a’ to ‘j’
Players carrying flags are represented by upper case letters from ‘A’ to ‘J’
Bases are represented by numbers ‘0’ to ‘9’
Players will immediately score if no bases are present but must return a flag to a base if one is present
Players must step on flags to pick them up, but only must be adjacent to a base to drop it off
Players can only carry one flag

AIGS 2009 Update

2009-09-09

Initial upload of the server. There was a pre-release version emailed to the class (that I no longer have), thus the ‘updates.’

All versions of the server should run correctly with .NET installed in Windows or with Mono on Linux or OSX. I’ve tested the Windows and Linux versions and both seem to work perfectly.

Updates

Sequential games are possible. You can not join two games at the same time, but once one game is complete you can join another.
You can send “Unsolvable” as a move string (see CTFProtocol). If you are correct, you win. If you are incorrect, you lose. I suggest that you are completely sure before you send this message. ;D

AIGS 2009 Overview

2009-09-01

Despite what I said last year, I started the AIGS over this year. To shake things up a bit, I’m implementing this year’s version with .NET in C# (the previous two years used Python and Java respectively). This year, the game will be Capture the Flag. Hopefully, we can have a more complex game without overdoing it and avoid the problems with low branching factor that we had last year with Hex.

AIGS 2008 Update

2008-10-31

This version of the AI Game Server includes several minor updates to documentation (mostly to reflect the changes outlined below in the server) and a few changes (including one major change) to the server.

First, the server has been changed to send the final move along with GameOver moves, primarily for bookkeeping on the part of the clients.

AIGS 2008 Update

2008-10-15

The documentation has not changed for this version; however, a few relatively major updates have been made to the server code.

First, the second player swap rule has been implemented to prevent either player from having an easily implemented perfect strategy. Now, after the first player has played, the second player can choose to either continue the game as normal or to switch places with the first player.

Next, a 4th argument has been added to the JoinSuccess and GameState messages to tell the client if they are player 1 or player 2.

AIGS 2008 Update

2008-10-10

This is the first version of both the AI Game Server documentation and code. To write a client for the AIGS, I would suggest reading the documentation, it should contain all you need to connect to and interact with the server.

If you run the included jar file, it will run a working copy of the server. This version of the server does not contain a complete GUI, I hope to have that in a few days; however, a working version of Hex is included. If you would like to see the source cope, just open the jar file, all of the source code is included.

AIGS 2008 Overview

2008-10-01

The AI Game Server started last winter when I was taking CSSE 413 (Artificial Intelligence). As part of the class, we were told to design an AI program capable of playing checkers. Rather than the entire class having to decide on and build in network communication routines, I decided to volunteer to build a server for the class. The first version of this server (which eventually became AIGS) was called PyCheck.

PyMint - A Python Multi-Interpreter

2007-10-20

During the computer architecture class I took at Rose-Hulman, we were working with a simple assembly language that we had to compile by hand down to MIPS bytecode and that’s no fun (also there’s nothing not worth over doing 😄). So I decided to write a program that would allow for modular XML definitions of a language or translation and run it on pretty much any given code.

PyBallWorlds

2007-09-26

Back in the first quarter of my Freshman year at Rose-Hulman, we wrote a small Java program called BallWorlds. The idea was to teach us about objects and inheritance by asking us to make a 2d simulation of balls of various types bouncing around in an enclosed environment. There could be balls that bounced off each other, sticky balls that clumped together, balls that grew when they hit something, and really any combination there of. The sky was the limit. The idea so intrigued me that when I was playing with OpenGL (and specifically PyOpenGL), I decided to rewrite the same thing in Python.