So, as some of you may know, I'm a Catalyst Game Labs person. (See the pretty icon over there?)

We're looking to get a volunteer who knows how to do a Flash Programmed Dice Roller Simulation.

(I personally have the Incompetent: Computers negative quality, so seriously, I have no clue as to what that is...)

Anyone who knows Flash stuff, would like a shout-out on the official SR website, and my undying gratitude (hey, that comes with homebaked chocolate chip cookies at GenCon), please PM me.

Thanks!
Jennifer

Any reason it has to be flash? I can think of a dozen ways to do it in Javascript / DHTML (allowing the page to easily be saved and used offline, unlike Flash) or PHP (which would be silly, but do-able if you don't want people boosting the code) but don't know Flash- mainly because it costs a lot. I'm assuming you say flash because you want some graphics bling in additio to the typical "forms and buttons" stuff, but that's not really a problem with a conventional / scripted webpage. I'm pretty good with graphics, whether creating them or using provided artwork.

BTW, I'm an old SR3 author, and have putting together a proposal, but its probably the kind of thing that would only fit in with certain products. Any way to get an update on upcoming product development, I should I just throw yah the idea and hope its good enough to trigger a "yeah, we need a book with more stuff like that"?

I don't personally know how, but I know a couple flash junkies on another forum. I'll ask them if there interested.

My nephew is going to game design school and knows Flash, I'll point him over here.

Since I'm co-signing his student loan he'd better think about it.

Good question. I could make a java version in like... 10 minutes (I could make random numbers in like 10 seconds, but I'm guessing he wants something more than a simple random number generator) , but l'm not really familiar with flash. I could likely learn, but I figure someone who already knows it would be better for the job.

Please tell me this is for an iPhone app. I've been real good and it's all I want for Xmas (well and Seattle 2072 but whatever).

Iphone is not getting flash till next summer. Windows mobile has it now, and Android in 1st quarter.

Hmm, guess Tiger isn't checking back in on this. I'd volunteer if I could use Java, but I don't want to bother if I'll have to learn flash (Though I think it uses similar code).

Learn Flash? Heh.... you'll also have to acquire the software to develop it.

Adobe Flash CS4 costs over $600.....

I can get a month long trial for free.

I'm here, I've been checking in. But I've been told Flash is what is wanted, and so Flash it is...

Aww, too bad, guess I can't help out then.

Man,
You guys make it feel like work with all this "Why does it have to be Flash?" talk. Why do I have the strange feeling that I will be working with some of you in the future.

BlueMax

You can always download the Flash Player from Adobe and then if you know the slightest bit about web browsing, it's trivial to grab the embedded flash applet. Once you have it saved, you merely use the flash player to run it.

It's quite simple and I've done it for a flash game I like to play without having to hit the website.

Damn. I can still hope tho...

TE:

Do you have any further details about what you want? Like do you have to see dice rolling? Or do you just want it so you enter the number of dice, and have it show the outcomes sorted? Fancy or simple? Is what I am asking.

Something like?
http://chromiteblue.com/archive/coding/a-flash-dice-roller/

Hopefully you will. I've done some pretty big personal "web 2.0" projects (urbandead.info, sim.urbandead.info) using Javascript and PHP and am currently going to school for computer programming. If you have any leads on internships (which I was hoping I could use this for, but alas, I don't do Flash) I'd love to hear about them.



I know a bit more than the "slightest bit", but I wasn't aware of that, and a I bet a lot of folks are not. Its certainly not as simple as just saving the web page, or pinching the code for your own use. Truth is, I just don't much like Flash, for the same reasons I don't like ActiveX. I'm pretty much an open-source kind of guy when it comes to my programming.

I'm hoping for something like the SR4 Dice Widget that was release around the same time as SR4. But for my iPhone.

Mongoose,
PM me info to get your Resume/CV. I always enjoy working with runners and we may start a summer internship program.


BlueMax

Something fancy? I like fancy. If you are interested I can forward to on to the person who actually has a clue as to what's going on. I'm just the cute face they sent to sort out the real runners from the bar flies.

So what's listed on your job description?

So you're just the group's face? Hmmm you'd better watch out Platinum- she could be sending you to see the scary troll street sam!

If you end up out of luck, Tiger Eyes, I may be able to help out in a week or two, since flash and silverlight apps are largely what I do for a living. Unfortunately, I'm swamped with freelance + regular day job stuff at the moment, plus the upcoming christmas inevitabilty of "I can't be bothered", so I'm not a good choice until later in the year or 2010.

Hmmm...about 7 years ago, I would have jumped on this, as I was doing some Flash development from online demos and tutorials, but a lot has changed in Flash since then. The dice rolling code should all be pretty simple and may even be found open source someplace (for the person who said it would only take 10 minutes, I have to challenge that, as doing dice pools, adding Edge and exploding rules would easily take over 10 minutes just to pseudocode on a sheet of paper).

But, its all the extras that are going to take some time, graphics for buttons, possibly sounds, formatting output...

I'd say this is 20-40 hours of work for someone that knows Flash well and about half of that will be gathering requirements. Only about a quarter of that will be coding and testing. For someone that has the right skillset but needs to get familiar with Flash, I'd probably double that time commitment. I'd be interested if there was a way to get a free development environment, but if not, I really can't volunteer $600 and 40-80 hours...that's pretty steep for chocolate chip cookies and a shout-out on a website.

This may seem like a flame, but its not. As I am willing to volunteer some time to gather requirements and put together a detailed specifications document, so whoever you do get to develop the app, will have a clear and concise direction and hopefully know exactly what is needed for the Flash app. Design details and the like can be captured as well. I'd estimate that would only be 10-20 hours of my time and all correspondence could be done via email, phone calls and passing some documentation back and forth.

That's what I do for a living and I'm good at my job. I'd even be willing to help test, as I'm pretty good with that as well...

Deek,
The world needs more people with your skills.

BlueMax
SCM Engineer.

Let me grab a stopwatch



So there it is, a basic code for getting a die roller for SR in java, including gremlins/cursed and possibility of exploding 6s. I clocked in at 15 minutes 35.75 seconds and I haven't written code in a few months.

It needs a bit more code to work standalone, which could be thrown in in a few minutes, but I always forget the exact things you need to write to make that work. May be a few errors and such, and certainly isn't impressive, but gets the job done. Given that I already have programs written to animate dice rolling, it wouldn't be hard to throw that in there as well so you could actually see the results as they occur.

Alot depends on how fancy they want things. I could throw in drop-downs to input the needed info, or I could have them just type it into boxes. I'm sure by the time all these extras were thrown in it might be 3-5 hours of work if there was alot that they wanted, but really, it isn't that bad.

@BlueMax
Haha! Well I appreciate that compliment:) I used to be an application developer, so I learned the ropes early on in my career about spending the necessary time to gather complete requirements, not just from the requester but from the areas that will actually be using the software. Based on a couple years of doing that, I always estimated 8-16 weeks (assuming multiple projects I'd be working on) for any new application, start to finish. I also had a motto that if I didn't "get it" within 15 minutes, I either didn't have all the information I needed or I was not adequately skilled to perform (which usually just meant I added hours in order to learn what I needed to). In fact, I rarely ended up spending more than 4-8 hours actually "coding" anything. Granted, "code" to me is just the raw engine calcs. I tend to separate the UI and Outputs as separate pieces.

@Karoline
Not to be a total asshat, but that is what I said. You've got a good pseudocode base there to work from and it took you about 15 minutes. No way that someone is just going to sit down, with no notes in front of them, and code out a dice rolling engine in just 10 minutes. Even off the top of your head in a language you are familiar with, you still will need to look up some stuff and flesh it out to make it work. But in the end, that's all just your engine code...nothing about Flash, nothing about a scintillating UI or how its going to be output to the user. I'm fairly certain that anyone here with some decent coding experience can easily knock out just the die rolling code in under 2 hours in their language of choice. It wouldn't take too much longer to translate that into Flash, which I believe may still use some form of ActionScript. But, 4 hours tops to get the code piece working and test the numbers, outputting them to a debug window of sorts.

@No one in particular
But that's just one piece of the app. I doubt this would need any sort of database or flat-file to store inputs or outputs. But, I could see potential there if for whatever reason, CGL wants to create an Invisible Castle-like ability to save your results and link them to others. Just the base dice roller though, likely doesn't need anything like that.

It will need some sort of UI. I'm not thinking an input box that asks for your dice pool and a couple checkboxes for gremlins/cursed or exploding dice and then a button to roll is sufficient. That's going to take some work to figure out what is needed.

Same thing with the outputs. Just dump numbers to the screen? Maybe show dice images (and then someone needs to make those)? Do you just want an array of results? Sorted? Maybe also a quick reference to how many are actual hits so you don't have to count all those dice?

Again, when you break down, "I want a Flash die roller" into all the steps needed to actually create it from scratch, we've got a good deal of time involved...

That's not a pseudocode, that is actual working code. I didn't test it, and there might be an error or two since I just wrote it on dumpshock, but that will roll dice for you, it will report the results, it will calculate automatically if you glitch, don't glitch, or critically glitch, and it handles use of edge to give exploding sixes. No pseudo about it.

That said, there are still things that could be improved upon, such as adding in an option to reroll all failures through use of edge, which would take me 2 minutes or so to add in. I haven't written any code in months, and the only thing I had to look up was the getNext function for the random number generator, as I'd forgotten it.

Die rolling code, 20 minutes. UI is going to be what takes longer, likely an hour or two because I'd have to look most of it up. I never said I could get it in flash with any speed, because then I'd be using something I'm completely unfamiliar with. I do have to agree that a finished product, properly tested and with a good UI and possibly some other functions would take a few hours, I never said it wouldn't. I just said that die rolling program on its own only takes 10 minutes (15 in my case since I'm rusty). If all you wanted was something to display random numbers, I could likely write that in 2 minutes or less.

Anyway, point is mostly moot because I don't know anything about programing in Flash, though I guess my main point was that 20-40 hours seems like an overestimate, depending on what exactly they're asking for.

Edit: Went ahead and fixed my syntax errors on the above code, it now runs.

Edit2: Though I have messed up somewhere as I'm not getting any hits.

Edit3: Bug tested, had a problem with edge that I had to fix.

I still stand behind my 20-40 hours of "effort" to produce a finished product, in Flash, by someone that knows programming in Flash.

While I agree with you that 20 minutes for the die rolling code and likely an hour or two for the UI, seems reasonable, you're also assuming that what you decide makes a good UI is the same as the requester, which normally, is not the case.

I'd say there is about 2-4 hours of back and forth to discuss what the UI should look like, maybe make some quick mockups to make sure everyone's on the same page (and this is assuming one main contact and not a committee...the more people involved in the design, the longer it will take).

You probably have another 2-4 hours of back and forth to discuss what you want the output of the numbers to look like. I envision the requester would be more giddy about using dice images and other flashy objects instead of just plain text in a cool font and color. You could easily double that time.

Having the documentation up front to capture all this stuff before any coding begins has overhead and most programmers just want to skip that part. But even though it might be boring and you can just hurry up and whip some code together quicker, discussing this stuff up front saves time and money if you make a change up front.

Again, quick and dirty, working in a vacuum, there's 2-5 hours tops. 20-40 hours to do it right, get everyone's input, put together proper documentation and stay on top of everything being done...yeah, I still stand behind that estimate.

I have to agree with Deek. The challenge is not merely programming, it is software engineering.


BlueMax

Stupid customers and their desires...
http://www.evil-comic.com/archive/20091203.html

It can make your eyes roll, but that's what happens when you mix "business decision makers" with "technical analysts/programmers". There's not too many programmers that want to take the time to understand their stupid customers and there's not many business folks that understand what they can and can't ask for, especially how it relates to the effort required.

I'll be honest, when I was mainly programming, early on in my career, the kinds of idiotic requests and just plain lack of understanding made we wonder how some of these "higher ups" could walk and talk at the same time. Some of them were okay and came up with some good ideas, but they still had to be pulled back a little to actually make anything work. And as a programmer, I thought I was pretty hot shit and had flawless decision making...

And then I got to the other side and wondered how a programmer could have coded something off of spec like they did. It was as if they looking at a few words, went off, coded it and didn't bother to take a look at any context. Just like some of the business folks, some of the programmers were pretty good and coding what you "meant", reading between the lines, but I've also seen those same guys get burnt because they actually tried thought something out.

I like where I'm at now, because I'm in the middle. I get to work on the design, coordinate business decisions and sometimes sell them ideas that I come up with that meet their needs, but know they are easy to implement and I get to work at the back end with the actual coders, talk their language and make their jobs easier...

Anyways, I've rambled long enough about this (mainly because I enjoy my job). If Tiger Eyes is still monitoring this, I'm still willing to volunteer on the initial data gathering and get it ready for someone else to pick it up and knock it out without many questions. Hopefully, no questions.

You sound like Scotty from Star Trek.

Kirk: Scotty how long till we get those engines back online?

Scotty: Ahh Captain the transducer has been fused with the coupler. It's gonna take me at least 3 weeks to get it back.

Kirk: You have 3 hours.

Scotty: But captain, I just canna do it.

Kirk: You have to Scotty there are green aliens to bed.

Some how he always fixes things in 1/10th to 1/100th the time.

As a Business Analyst/System Analyst/Program manager, I do know that things always take 230% longer than expected but the numbers really seem to be inflated 10 fold. Yes I know the value of gathering proper business requirements etc etc etc, but most of the time wasted in organizations is done withing meetings.

What are you thoughts on the Agile framework?

Haha, yeah, I gotcha there on the Scotty thing.

As a business/system analyst/program manager, you have to at least give me that with the current request of "build a Flash die roller" that a 20-40 hour estimate at this stage is reasonable. Obviously, getting more details can easily drop that estimate. I'm used to working with initial estimates to be +/- 150%. At best they get down to +/- 50% after all the data gathering is complete.

And I agree that a lot of time is wasted in meetings, but depending on how many people need to be involved, sometimes its quicker to meet for an hour, 3 or 4 times in a week, then try to rely on 1-on-1 communication with 6 people. In my current job, I have a minimum of one off-site developer and possibly his program manager, one compliance/legal rep (as our software outputs get filed with FINRA), one sales rep (as 85% of our usage comes from an off-site sales desk) and one subject matter expert. I've been in this game long enough to push out software with less to no input from these people, but ultimately, the problems they find in production end up costing us more in production fixes than time up front to get it right the first time...

I had to look up Agile framework. Looks like a form of RAD. In the eight years I've been at my company, we've had times where we've tried lean manufacturing and Six Sigma (along with all the training to get people their "black belts") but with every managment change, things change and usually end up to a basic waterfall software development cycle. I've never worked on a project that was Agile. Its sounds like an interesting concept and I could see it working (not with our current development vendor, though), but I could dig it.

I'm not guaranteeing it will take 20-40 hours, but with the information we have now, doesn't allow me to feel comfortable estimating any lower. Maybe after understanding more details and what "they" want, the estimate could go down. But, I'm a big believer of estimating high, taking into account unknown issues (as they always come up) and then delivering on time or early. I think you'd feel a lot better with a 30 hour estimate that gets done in 20 hours, then getting a 6 hour estimate and then getting it delayed by unclear requirements or unforeseen issues and it ended up at 20 hours.

You also have to account for this is all volunteer-based...its going to take longer than someone getting paid and billing hours...and I'm just trying to be a realist and factor all that in. I'm an analyst by nature, so maybe I'm just over-analyzing all this and playing it way too safe?

That was well written post Deek.



I think that I tend to forget how undervalued volunteerism is. That is a really good point. If it doesn't cost them anything, then people tend to waffle and protract the review process. Bad enough to be in government, social sectors and volunteer agencies would probably be the death of me.

I agree with Deek- 40 hours seems a reasonable outside estimate. I could (and have) bang out the numbers (using python) in minimal time, but the UI would chew up many hours. Somebody using a real development environment (which is basically required for flash) might do it faster (or more likely throw on a thick layer of fancy interfacing) but that's about what I'd expect using my methods (hand coding it in a text editor).

On the Scotty thing- there was a ST:TNG episode where they had him as a guest stat (courtesy of a type of stasis) and he admited that he always jacked up his time estimates by at least 100%, just to keep Kirk from expecting to much.

Actually it was worse than that it was mentioned in that show that Scotty had written many of the tech manual's that Starfleet had been using sine his time so he wasn't just lying to Kirk but all of Starfleet's engineer's.

He just wanted them to feel good when they completed that two week job in only 12 days (And scotty could do it in 12 minutes )

It's not lying! Kirk was expected to shave time off the estimate, just like Scotty was expected to inflate the estimate a little bit - this way they can both look good for reviews.

Has anyone taken up the request?
I can program something like that pretty easily in .swf
It won't be Flash but Flex. (Both are just compiled Actionscript, but Flex is more data driven and less flashy)

Examples of my Flex testapps our local Warhammer league uses: http://wagemage.0fees.net/TitanCampaign/TitanCampaign.html
and my campaign manager in progress: http://wagemage.0fees.net
Flashy stuff there is the map creator where you can drag & drop + rotate a tile to create a hex map.


PS: Grabbed a bundle of my old code and created a quick & dirty diceroller (not SR specific, just a test of the Dice roller classes): http://wagemage.0fees.net/diceroller/DiceRoller.html

grtz,
WM

I haven't seen anyone taking up the request. I've offered to do all the data gathering and help testing until a programmer volunteered, but I haven't been contacted on that offer yet. I think this is all just in a stage of, "Oh, here's a cool idea" and a real plan hasn't really been developed on what CGL wants...

Ooo, hehe, I'd be happy to help test for bugs. Since I know some programing I can guess at some of the things that might break a program.

Since this is Shadowrun, could a bit of old Deus code (or Captain Chaos) be worked in there?

I would like either a flashlite application or a Symbian version of a dice roller I can use for my mobile phone.

Unfortunately, the Powers want something flashy... so no Flex. Thanks though!

Tiger Eyes, would it be possible to get some specifics on what the Power want?

So far we know its a dice roller app (presumably for Shadowrun 4) in Flash (not Flex or anything non-flashy). I don't think it would hurt to get some details and this is obviously a "nice to have" as you are looking for a volunteer and haven't really pushed to find someone. Getting some more details would help some of us understand how much time commitment is needed and while maybe not finding someone on DSF to do everything happens, it could open the door for friends or friends and the like.

Hello Hello,
I don't see any recent posts on this topic, so I don't know how things are standing. But, I am volunteering my flash services to create a dice roller. if there is still an interest let me know. I also have an example one up and running that I can show if desired.