Hammer of Code

Today was a rather eventful day, and I have a lot to talk about. Among the things I did today I almost got tpserver-cpp compiling on my mac, created and almost launched a shell ruleset, almost completely overhauled my wiki entry, and received my acceptance gift from Google. Out of all of the things I did though I would have to say almost getting a shell ruleset working was the most exciting. I’ll talk about all of this and more after the jump (actually probably not any more than what I already said what I would talk about)

compiling:
Well to start it off I’ll just say I am sooo darn close to getting tpserver-cpp to compile on OSX it hurts. As a refresher: I’ve gotten through the problems with libtoolize on OSX, the problem with Boost signals library not showing, the problem with autogen.sh missing some AC_CONDITIONALS, through the problem with the syntax errors, and on and on it goes. As it stands it appears that ./autogen.sh and ./configure are working properly. I am left now with an error during make where the compiler seems to be having trouble finding a boost header. It looks as if ./configure isn’t so much having trouble SEEING that boost is installed, but may not be setting flags properly so make can find the headers. I’m still waiting to hear back from the gents on the tp-devel mailing list to get things worked out. It really sucks being out of sync with their time zones
Now for all the other news, you know, the non-depressing stuff:

shell ruleset:
I started following the instructions in the ruleset book and I have almost got my shell ruleset up and running. I’m sure things would have been easier if I didn’t have to commit/push every time I fixed a syntax error; Since I can’t compile on my Macbook I have to send everything over to my ubuntu virtual machine on my server to compile and run. Anyone taking a peek at my logs will see it was a mess. I promise less ugly commits once I get my OSX compile sorted out :P. There were a lot of little syntax errors that probably could have been resolved fairly quickly if I was compiling locally.

That aside, I did get the shell ruleset to work for almost every step of the process: I can ./autogen.sh, ./configure, and successfully make, but I run into a problem on make install. Probably won’t be too serious to fix, it is failing when it tries to copy some librisk* files into a librisk folder of some sort. It may be as simple as making the folder for it to get things running, but I’ll have to check with xdotx. It is pretty damn exciting to have something so close to running, even if it isn’t going to do anything fancy even when it does start.

wiki fixed:
I’ve gone and overhauled my wiki entry to more accurately reflect the state of things as progress gets made. Not a monumental change, but at least this blog and the wiki are a little closer to being in sync. As things solidify I will have to worry less and less about if I’ve made some monumental change to the ruleset that the wiki needs to reflect. The changes I have made between my project proposal and now are actually quite large. For anyone REALLY behind, things have gone from a game with 1 move/turn and different types of turns to a game where every one plays as many reinforcements and attacks/moves as they want in any given turn. Things are shaping up for Risk to be a pretty fast-paced exciting game.

the surprise:
As most GSoC students know a surprise gift is on the way for many, if not all of the students who had their proposals accepted. I just so happened to receive my surprise quite early. I’m not giving anything away when I say it is a book (Leslie Hawthorn told us this I believe.) I won’t really say anything else about it though, as from the looks of the GSoC mailing list I am one of the first to receive my gift. I might give a little hint about what the book is….nah, I’m a jerk and I ain’t going to say anything. I will be trying ~550 pages read soon though. Ok, I think I will actually give a really mean hint. There is a bird on the cover…lol. Have fun scouring all the pictures of programming books up on amazon or something.