AS2docGenerator minor update

Finally, i have some minor updates to the AS2docGenerator:
- added suport for the @interface tag,
- you can now add as a parameter a directory containing .as class files (or other directories with .as class files) and it will generate a _docs directory with all the html outputs

example usage:
1) single .as file:
C:\> [path to]AS2docGenerator.exe [path to]AS2class.as
this generates a AS2class_doc.html file in the same directory AS2class.as is in.

2) a directory with .as files and/or other directories:
C:\> [path to]AS2docGenerator.exe [path to]AS2classDirectory
this generates a _docs directory in the same directory where the AS2docGenerator.exe was called from. All the asClass_doc.html files are in the _docs directory.

download it from here.

The project is still in beta so bugs and other naughty insects are possible

Simple Interactive Expression Parser

It’s been a long time since my last post and to put some “life” back to this blog, i thought i’d post one of those “ported from java” experiments.
Very little work on my part, actually.. thanks to syntax similarities between AS2 and java.

This one is from the book The Art of Java, Chapter 2: A Recursive-Descent Expression Parser.

Test it here.
Download source here

Movable type and Python

There are some python utilities that use Movable Type’s XML-RPC interface and thus allow you to view, post, delete and edit weblog entries, and more…
PyMT
mtsend.py

.. and of course, i just got a really cool idea (to me at least )
what if i make a flash interface for such a tool? We know how to embed flash into python, don’t we?
right, .. all i need is some free time ….

Flash MX2004 LiveDocs

This is something i didn’t know it exsisted until just recently: Flash MX2004 Livedocs at MM site.
All the documentation from the Help panel is now online, but you can also add your own comments or code samples and read others. It is something that’s got potential if flash users (we) will start “using” it

Leave the last test broken…

Been reading Test driven Development at the moment (toghether with other 10 or so books, heh) and today i came accross this sentence that really got me.
It’s one of those things you want to write on a piece of paper and stick it on your monitor so you never forget.
Kent Beck says:
“How do you leave a programming session when you’re programming alone? Leave the last test broken.”

Basically he is saying that one should never leave the code for the next session in a perfectly working state. Before leaving, one should always make one last thing and make sure that that last thing does not work. …so that when you come back to the code, you then have an obvious place to start – “an obvious, concrete bookmark to help you remember what you were thinking”. This will also keep you away from just staring at the code and marvelling at how everything works, trying to think of what to work on next but not really starting it yet cos you don’t want to break anything so soon .. or just trying to remember the mental state you were in and thus wasting a lot of time before finally getting back to typing.
(happens to me a lot of times!)

This does not work out well if you’re working with a team, though

MX 2004 Updater

I woke up today just to find out that Macromedia Flash MX 2004 updater is here!
And if your trial has already expired, no worries. The updater will extend it for another 30 days. That’s really cool of Macromedia.

Go get it here.

New Blog For Your Bookmarks

Burak KALAYCI , the guy behind Actionscript Viewer has started his own blog. Go bookmark it now!

via MediaSparkles.

Flash 2004 command line compiler

Mike Chambers released FlashCommand (a commandline compiler for Flash 2004).
read more about it here.

string permutations (from java to AS2)

In order to learn AS2 i’ve started to study java more intensely and translate various code snippets to AS2 and to great suprise, some of them can be just copy/pasted (syntactically speaking).
Here’s an example. I came across this link with some usefull java code to learn from. If you take a look at this PermuteString java class and the AS2 version below, you can see that i merely copied the code meat into an AS2 class (yeah, shame on me!).


class StringPermutator
{
private var __word:String;
private var __index:Number;
private var __substring:StringPermutator;

function StringPermutator(s:String)
{
__word = s;
__index = 0;
if(s.length > 1) __substring = new StringPermutator(s.substring(1));
}

public function hasMorePermutations():Boolean
{
return __index

and you can test it here.

Almost died…

Yesterday (31st october) was a strange day.
I could not boot my machine and it looked like one of my hds just died! This would mean all my important stuff (work files, mails and other things) would be gone for good…. of course, my last backup was from.. ehm… last year?
Anyway, i was scared like shit.. and frustrated.. and pissed off.. and… and…
There was no point in staring at the “failed to boot. please insert the system disk and press enter” message all day, so i switched the machine off and went doing other things (like hanging around with my dog and cats and other social stuff – seeing people!) ….

I woke up this morning, determined to fix the problem ( taking the corruped HD out and making a new, clean install of the OS – i already said goodbye to my files) …. i just wanted to try to boot it for the last time, although i already knew it would be in vain …… GUESS WHAT??? it booted alright! everything is like.. ok! i mean.. what happened yesterday? did one of the hard drives decide to dress up like a ghost and play invisible for the halloween?

oh, well… im doing my backups today