Programming
GoLive is no more be alive
Adobe Software has dropped their developing WYSIWYG web authoring tool GoLive. As they mainly develop this tool to compete with Macromedia Dreamweaver. However, with the Adobe’s recent purchase of Macromedia and also the actuality that Dreamweaver is more suitable to develop web pages with most of the advance technologies, the Adobe’s project GoLive has been call off.
Pay for Programmers and reviewers in the video game industry
A survey has been conducted by Game Developer magazine about the pay structure in the field of video game for programmers and the reviewers. The survey result concludes that programmers were making large amount money. According to the sixth annual survey taken by Game Developer magazine, programmers were earning the largest part money with a regular income of more than $80,000 per year for a second year in a row.
Producers were bagged the Second position , who earned an average of $77,000 and Game designers came in after that with an average salary of better than $61,500 although those with three or less years of experience came in much lower at a salary of less than $45,000. Artists came in next with an average salary of about $43,000.
Quality assurance or game testers be paid an average of just under $38,000 per year but again with only three or fewer years of experience, that salary drops to only just over $26,000 per year. Certainly game reviewers are still paid the least and most would not even reveal what little they earn.
The results are in and programmers are still the highest paid in the video game industry and reviewers still are paid the least
Smarty for Programmers
The advantage for programmers is that they write the code in a PHP file without having to combine the instructions with HTML. Also, if the designer changes the layout of a page the programmer doesn’t have to change the code to suit the new layout since the functionalities won’t change. You perform your work in your files, assign to the templates all the values needed to print on the site and go out for a beer.
The PHP file you need to include the Smarty class require 'Smarty.class.php'. After that you instantiate the smarty with $smarty = new Smarty.
To assign a variable to the template you need to $smarty->assign('UserName', 'Jeff Adams'). After everything is finished you call the method and to display the template $smarty->display('index.tpl').
A sample code like this (index.php) :
[php]
<code><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;"><php </span>
<span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">require </span><span style="color: #dd0000; font-size: 10;">’Smarty.class.php'</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">; </span></code><span>
</span><code><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">$smarty </span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">= new </span><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">Smarty</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">; </span></code><span>
</span><code><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">$smarty</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">-></span><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">assign</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">(</span><span style="color: #dd0000; font-size: 10;">’Username'</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">, </span><span style="color: #ff8000; font-size: 10;">’Jeff Adams’); </span></code><span>
</span><code><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">$smarty</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">-></span><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">display</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">(</span><span style="color: #dd0000; font-size: 10;">’index.tpl'</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">); </span></code><span>
</span><code><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">?> </span></code>
[/php]
The template (index.tpl) like this:
[php]
<code><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;"><</span><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">html</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">> </span></code><span>
</span><code><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;"><</span></code><code><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">body</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">> </span></code><span>
<code> </code></span><code><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">Welcome </span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">{</span><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">$Username</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">} </span></code><span>
<code><!–</code–></code></span><code><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;"><</span></code><code><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">body</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">> </span></code><span>
<code><!–</code–></code></span><code><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;"><!–</span–></span></code><code><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;"></</span></code><code><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">html</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">></span></code>
[/php]
Also create an array in PHP an pass it to the template:
[php]
<code><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">$tmplate </span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">= array ( </span><span style="color: #ff8000; font-size: 10;">’UID’=> ’10’, &’Name’ => ‘Jeff Adams’, ‘Address’=>’Home address’); </span></code><span>
</span><code><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">$smarty</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">-></span><span style="color: #0000bb; font-size: 10;">assign</span><span style="color: #007700; font-size: 10;">(</span><span style="color: #ff8000; font-size: 10;">’info’, $tmplate);</span></code>
[/php]
Smarty in PHP
Smarty is a template engine in PHP mostly used by all the web developers. It provides a manageable way to separate application logic and content from its presentation. This is mostly used if the application programmer and the template designer are different persons.
The design goal of Smarty was the separation of business logic and presentation logic.
Smarty has the unique feature of template compiling i.e., (Smarty reads the template files and creates PHP scripts from them). All the template can take full advantage of PHP compiler and cache solutions such as eAccelerator, ionCube etc,
Some of the Smarty’s features:
- Not have template parsing overhead, only compiles one time.
- It is smart about recompiling only the template files that have altered.
- You can easily create your own functions and variable modifiers, so the template language is very extensible.
- The {if}..{elseif}..{else}..{/if} constructs are passed to the PHP parser, so the {if…} expression syntax can be as easy or as complex an estimation as you like.
- It is potential to embed PHP code in our template files.
It support built-in cache.
- It provides custom cache handling functions.
Microsoft begin advanced robotics platform
Microsoft released the initial extensively available sample version of its Robotics Developer Studio 2008 this week. The preview software is offered now as a free download from Microsoft’s robotics website
Microsoft Robotics Studio 2006 was downloaded over 200,000, according to the software company. Additionally, more than 50 third-party companies connected to build a joint venture with Microsoft in its robotics division.
The new application sports several enhancements, including the ability for users to record simulation tests for later playback and review. There is also a new floorplan editor and a handful of other tools which is not in the 2006 version. In addition to that Microsoft said there is enhanced functionality with LINQ support.
The robotics industry is one of Microsoft’s more recent targets, but it has promptly turn out to be a key player.
“We launched Microsoft Robotics Studio in 2006 in response to the robotics community’s request for a mature platform and toolset that would provide for stability and portability, allowing more people to participate and contribute,” said Microsoft Robotics Group general manager Tandy Trower in a statement.
At today’s Robobusiness conference in Pennsylvania, Microsoft also declares the robotics competition Robochamps, which will use Robotics Developer Studio 2008. The contest will open up on April 21.
Lotus Notes Mobile Application
My first and the most interesting project of all time, that I have ever worked on in my career is an SMS application using Lotus Notes.
The fun is not making the SMS application, but developing it in Lotus notes was really fun as we met a lot of challenges. It is now a product in UK, Switz as our clients are from there. Especially when we had to support multiple languages and error/debug log features.
Name a feature and we used it in this application. Registry Keys, Environment Variables, C++ API, SMS Rules, SMS Reminders. To top up the challenges I was a beginner.
We supported in 3 Lotus notes versions across 5 diffent operating systems. Hmmm, now I know from where I get my coding skills.
🙂 tara