Sunetos, Inc.

I spent less time on my app tonight, but have more information from this session — feels like I’m finally seeing some traction from my work the last week or two.

Unit tests are great — takes away my worries about breaking something while I play. I could use some more tests for existing behavior, but I have enough to be reasonably comfortable at this stage. I now have enough infrastructure in place that as I add more behavior, I can add tests as I go.

I have a very simple black and white OpenGL view running that is giving me some feedback, but I think I need to implement one more piece of my design to get a better idea. So far, so good. I am reasonably satisfied with where the game play is heading, but there is tons left to do.

Day T-62 Accomplishments (Monday, February 8, 2010)

• Found and fixed errors discovered from unit tests added yesterday
• Added more detailed tests, found some edge cases that needed to be fixed and fixed them as well
• Tweaked some configuration parameters to try different variants of input styles

I spent (wasted?) an hour or so this afternoon trying to figure out what I did to mess up my Xcode project, but gave up and punted.

I started today with a working configuration with a separate target for the GHUnit test suite app. I added some more tests for an error I had caught last night, made what I thought were a few minor changes, but evidently changed something in the target configuration. The end result was that no matter what I did, I could not get the GHUnit test suite app to run. Unfortunately, I had made enough changes to my code and test cases without doing ‘git commit’ that I decided making a new project might be faster than rolling back to the last commited version. (It was)

I decided I didn’t understand enough about the interdependencies of Xcode configuration parameters, and started with a clean project, added the GHUnit pieces to it and had a working, simple project with two targets that behaved properly. I then copied my existing code into the new project, built, and things ran as I expected. I wish I knew what I did wrong earlier, because I am likely to do it again.

On the bright side, I have a simple version of my OpenGL view running using data from my game engine — which clearly showed an error I had not caught earlier. Those were the test cases I was building when I messed up my project.

Day T-63 Accomplishments (Sunday, February 7, 2010)

• Reinforced something I should have remembered: It is very wise to make frequent, small commits
• Learned that I know less about Xcode configuration and build steps than I thought I did
• Finally saw results from game engine and movements in a rudimentary OpenGL view

I finished merging various bits of code back into my main project. I use GHUnit for testing in that project so I updated some tests and added one or two more tests — but still have some key methods which need a few more tests.

I finally got back to OpenGL, and have spent a fair amount of time in the browser, rechecking the pages I bookmarked a few weeks ago. I think I have a decent, temporary plan for rendering that will give good feedback for trying some more things — but I haven’t quite finished, and it’s getting too late to continue.

Day T-64 Accomplishments (Saturday, February 6, 2010)

• Added more unit tests for game engine components
• Spent some reasonably useful time working with OpenGL view

I spent several hours today cleaning up my code, simplifying classes by deleting as much code as I added. I also spent a fair amount of time testing and fixing code and was about to start adding more unit tests, but decided to call it a night.

Day T-65 Accomplishments (Friday, February 5, 2010)

• Tested existing code, found and fixed several problems with behavior
• Game model now gets updated as game events are triggered
• Began work on displaying current state of game model in simple OpenGL view

I had a great idea this morning for a new non-game app, and was very tempted to dive straight in. Fortunately, the thinking part of my brain kicked in and recognized it as one my character flaws: starting something new and cool instead of making progress on existing work. I think lots of people suffer from the same problem. Since I still saw value in the idea, I budgeted an hour to make some notes, do some googling, and think through what might be useful — then successfully put it aside and went back to work. This evening when I was ready to start back on my game, I was only slightly tempted to divert attention to the idea — I think if I hadn’t take a little time this morning to capture my thoughts, it would have consumed all my development time tonight.

I thought I would be ready to start on display code tonight, but I had forgotten I had not yet implemented an important part of the game engine in my current project. I have most of what I need already implemented in little pieces spread across several smaller projects, so tonight I merged in classes and methods from them into my current project. I have it all reconciled, but still need to finish the code that ties the game events to the underlying model properly. I am caught up enough on my consulting work that I may take at least part of my normal work day on Friday to push forward.

After I have something finished enough for my wife and daughter to try out, I will post some screenshots and a few more details of what my game idea actually is, and will probably ask for some feedback.

Day T-66 Accomplishments (Thursday, February 4, 2010)

• Captured idea for an iPhone app with some notes and bookmarks *instead* of diverting my limited development time to it
• Merged code from several different prototypes into my current project

I finally got caught up enough on my promises to clients to get back to some iPhone work tonight — it feels good to have enough paying work on the horizon, but be reasonably caught up with expectations as well, but mostly it feels good to work on “my” stuff.

This afternoon, I joined the 360iDev speaker chat with Mike Berg. The questions and discussion were good, and it felt good to interact with other iPhone developers — I am really looking forward to 360iDev in San Jose this April.

I was able to add enough to my project today that I am confident I can finally move back to the UI when I pick it up tomorrow. In the process of working and googling, my understanding of Objective-C protocols, class extensions, and other issues is getting stronger.

Day T-67 Accomplishments (Wednesday, February 3, 2010)

• Participated in Mike Berg’s 360iDev speaker chat (Game Design)
• Added an input handler and event processor that converts UI events into game events so my engine can work at a slightly higher level of abstraction.

A 16+ hour day between my consulting projects and personal commitments. I can’t let this go on.

Day T-68 Accomplishments (Tuesday, February 2, 2010)

• Still nothing

Bummer again

12+ hours of consulting projects left me completely useless mentally.

Day T-69 Accomplishments (Monday, February 1, 2010)

• Not a thing

Bummer

Day T-70 Accomplishments (Sunday, January 31, 2010)

• Brain rested
• Mental state recharged

Skiing was great, now for a five hour bus ride home. I spent some time doing some code cleanup and minor refactoring — not sure mentally I am up for anything too complex. In the course of some refactorings, I realized I needed a better understanding of how game events will be generated and consumed, so I did some more design work on it.

Day T-71 Accomplishments (Saturday, January 30, 2010)

• Began design for game event generation and testing
• Minor code refactoring

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