someone took ychess' name

I googled ychess and turns out someone took the name already, oh noes! I changed it to ylchess for now, probably won't stay that way though. Anyone have any suggestions for a better name?

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ychess pre-alpha preview release

Last time I blogged I said I was gonna bone up on Cocoa. I did, then I started writing a chess program. After less than a month of development it's already a full fledged pgn reader plus a little more. It knows all the rules to chess (actually not the 50 move rule, or the 3 position rule, but meh), and you can play a game with yourself on it if you are really bored. I'm about to rip out the guts of the data structures behind it and replace it with a database. Before doing so I thought maybe it would be a good idea to put up a working preview release for public consumption. Enjoy linkies.

Enjoy screenies:

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ycurses beta finished

I finished the first beta of ycurses. It works with tango and phobos and gdc and dmd, and has examples and documentation, and has bindings for all the features of ncurses. hooray!

gonna take a break from it for a while now i think and bone up on cocoa.

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best. video. ever

check it out, it's awesome!

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wasted day...or not...

Well it took me all day, but i managed to get a print server up and running with archlinux, so now the three of us should have uninterrupted printing goodness as i won't be constantly messing with my computer and taking down the printer with it.

also i got gdc working with apple-gcc-5484. with ppc support. it's seriously way past time to release a package allowing leopard users easy access to a d compiler. oh well, i have instructions as to how i did it up on my website.

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flock and gdc

I've been using Flock as my primary web browser for the last several days, and I'm really digging it. Actually I'm using it now to post this blog. I tried it before and didn't care for it, don't remember why, but this time around I'm liking it. I would advise anyone with any kind of facebook, blog, webmail, etc to give it a whirl. It could still use some work on facebook and myspace integration, but it's better than the nothing you get from firefox, safari, camino, etc.

Also, yesterday I successfully compiled gdc support for Apples Xcode 3.0 compiler. Didn't test it out or anything, but I've never even gotten it to compile on my iBook, and it compiled in a matter of minutes on my MacBook instead of hours like on my iBook.  Build 5484 (Xcode 3.1) failed, but I have a reasonable hope that I will be able to tweak the makefiles and get it going. Even if i can't, i'm setting up an old computer with archlinux as a print server, since i can't plug my old ass printer into my macbook, so progress on ycurses should begin soon. If i get gdc working for the Xcode 3.1 build of gcc, then i'll whip up a package sans phobos/tango, and a phobos and tango package. since gdcmac hasn't been updated in over a year and still doesn't have support for leopard, i'll put it up until the main project gets updated, so people won't have to go through the compile mess i'm having to deal with.

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laptop news

Well, my iBook died, again. Video keeps cutting out. I spent a large chunk of money on a new MacBook.

So far my impression is that my iBook was really impressive. It's not that the macbook isn't fast, it is. It's just that the only thing i've noticed a speed difference in so far is installing xcode. about 5-10 minutes instead of 30-45. other than that, that little ibook was a champ.

also got the free ipod touch with my macbook. that thing is ridiculous. calling it an ipod is disingenuous. it's more like full fledged pda that is really good at playing music.

btw, the last.fm and myspace apps for the ipod blow, if you read this in the next couple months, don't use them, they are unstable as hell. hopefully that will get fixed soon.

i'm getting rid of my desktop so development of ycurses is on hold until i a) get gdc working in leopard or b) get linux installed on my macbook. hopefully that will happen sometime before the end of the month.

leopard

just a quick note about leopard. srsly, buggy much?

i went to checkout my curses project from googlecode....bus error.

that plus the dodgy linker that comes with the development tools.

it's lucky that leopard is so much shinier than tiger....

Busy busy.

Well, it's been a while since I last blogged, and a lot has happened. Here is the rundown:

I am registered for school, and somehow managed to get financial aid, despite my abysmal performance last year. YAY. Just taking two credits, trying to get my school work ethic back, so i'm going to slowly build up to the asskicking classes that i really need, by slowly building up with the last few generals i need.

I've nearly completed milestone 2 with my ycurses thingie. just need to finish up the form library then it's done. i'll be releasing an alpha beta rc cycle with this milestone, as there are a lot of templates involved and potential for lots of bugs, so we'll wait until a) i line by line verify it. b) lots of time has passed and no bugs show up. Also, i've been rethinking the roadmap a little, thinking about adding a d-centric layer, and maybe support for curses.

fixed my laptop....again....typing from it now actually. it turns out that when i tried to fix the power adapter last time i accidentally cut a tiny hole in the insulated wire that was shorting out on the wire sheath, which is why it worked with bare wires, but as soon as i tried to put it together it stopped working. my battery is still shot though i think, i'm trying to recondition it now, if that doesn't work, i'll have to reset the pmu and calibrating again, if that still doesn't work, then i'll be thinking seriously about getting a macbook with my financial aid instead of sinking $100 into an ancient ibook running through the grace of several miles of electrical tape, and coins attached to logic boards.

that's the gist of it, my birthday is next friday, if you know me and read this, come. bars, followed by jungle juice, yummy

Life...meh

Finished with about 1/3 of the curses module. Nothing really new on that front, just plugging away still.

Got new brakes in my car yesterday, but had to borrow money from my roommates sister to do it, so I'm gonna try to pick up a close tonight. That plus my day shift tomorrow and my camping trip this weekend means not much time for code for a while :-(

Might not update the blog for a bit too, since I'll be pretty busy for a few days.

Curses and girlfriend.

Over the weekend I've made a strong start on going through the ncurses man pages and verifying that everything in my curses module is up to spec. I've finished with about 16% of them.

Two things interesting about my progress:

1. There are way more macros than I expected, which means more likelyhood of bugs :-( so i may have to write or find a stress tester for the thing.
   
2. The excessive amounts of macros means I might be able to implement a set of "safe" d-style templates to replace the c-style ones i've got now, without adding excessive code size, or a library to link in.

So that's my progress on curses.

My girlfriend has been in B-town all weekend, and she just got back, so I'm probably going to spend the rest of the day with her, and won't be working on curses until at least tomorrow.

accomplishment

Well, i just committed the last part of my first milestone for my ycurses package, so now i need to finish giving it a web page with a roadmap and some documentation, before i get started on my next step.

I also put up a link to the other curses binding for D out there, in case it's more suitable for the three people that will need a curses binding in D.

I'm working at We Fest this weekend, so I'm gonna be in and out of town and tired, so I don't know as I'll get much done, but hopefully I'll give the curses package a reasonable web site sometime before Monday.

work on form has began

i just started my work on the binding for the form library as part of my yCurses bindings for D.

Barely started and now i have to go to work. i is sad, maybe i'll get a chance to work on it some tonight before bed, but i doubt it.

First

Well, now i've got a proper blog instead of an icky myspace blog. weee.