

Ideas I would like to build / see built - daleharvey
http://arandomurl.com/2010/04/10/ideadump.html

======
chime
> Canvas/WebGL/JavaScript Game

I made a bunch of small JS games/puzzles using Processing.js (which uses
Canvas/VML). The exact rules are slightly cryptic by design. I definitely
loved making them and intend to make a bunch more this year:

<http://chir.ag/projects/prc/?nored>

<http://chir.ag/projects/prc/?gold>

<http://chir.ag/projects/prc/?piggy>

<http://chir.ag/projects/prc/?vanish>

I hope you enjoy them.

~~~
daleharvey
those are brilliant, exactly what I was talking about, thanks for sharing

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srogers
On a related note, there's a new sub-reddit called SomebodyMakeThis. (a sub-
reddit being a user created subsection of the link aggregator Reddit)

<http://www.reddit.com/r/SomebodyMakeThis/>

------
SlyShy
Not to hate, but these are vague ideas overall. Those are the kind that are a
dime a dozen. ;)

~~~
daleharvey
They are pretty vague so far, I just wanted to jot down general ideas that I
keep having and forgetting over time, thought itd be handy if they were online
for others to try as well. It will be updated and refined pretty regularly.

------
mkramlich
I'd like to see also: a web browser, an OS, a "spreadsheet" (term I've coined,
I'll explain in a follow-up post), also some sort of FPS, also some sort of
markup format that's like HTML but not presentation-specific...also, I'd like
a language like C but with classes. And, a pony. Thank you.

~~~
cperciva
_I'd like a language like C but with classes_

C already has classes. They're called structs. And methods are called function
pointers.

~~~
mkramlich
Disagree C has classes. No "class" and no inheritance or polymorphism. C++ and
Objective-C have these things. But I understand what you're saying. There is
the very well-known structs+functions technique which gives a partial stand-in
for full OO.

My post was meant to be funny yet true. I read the OA and thought all of the
ideas he listed already exist, and was surprised it made the front page on
Hacker News. Then I thought to myself, "Oh, it must be because it's a joke,
the OA was trying to be funny." Perhaps I was mistaken.

~~~
cperciva
_Disagree C has classes. No "class" and no inheritance or polymorphism_

C has perfectly good inheritance:

    
    
        struct child {
            struct parent p;
            // new variables go here
        }
        struct child foo;
        struct parent * bar = &foo;  // perfectly valid C

~~~
mkramlich
Looks like composition and a struct alias, not inheritance to me.

Is my C that rusty?

For example, say that the "struct parent" type (which in your example has no
members) had a member named z. In your example, I expect to be allowed to do
something like this:

    
    
        (*bar).p.z
    

which is composition. But not:

    
    
        (*bar).z
    

which would be member inheritance. Because bar/foo/child all lack a z member.
Only "parent" has a z member. Am I wrong?

~~~
cperciva
It's valid C to cast a structure to the type of its first element. So in the
example of

    
    
      struct child {
        struct parent {
          int z;
        } p;
      } foo;
    

you can access foo.p.z but not foo.z -- but you _can_ access (struct parent
*)(&foo)->z, so you can pass foo to anything which expects a struct parent.

~~~
mkramlich
I'll assume you're right. Thanks for pointing that out. Your C sounds fresher
than mine. I used it heavily from 90-95 or so but later moved on to higher
languages like Java and Python. If what you point out about the syntax is
accurate, I find that to be a counter-intuitive design decision.

~~~
mhansen
It works because C structs are just contiguous bits of memory, interpreted as
various fields. A pointer to a struct points to the start of that contiguous
bit of memory.

    
    
      Child Struct:
      +---------------+-----------------+
      | parent struct | child fields    |
      +---------------+-----------------+
      ^
      \--- pointers to the struct point at the start
    

You can cast this child struct to a parent struct, which is like saying
'interpret memory starting here as a 'parent' struct'.

This works: The memory from location to location+sizeof(parent) IS a parent
struct. The child fields following the parent struct are simply ignored.

~~~
cperciva
_It works because C structs are just contiguous bits of memory, interpreted as
various fields_

Well... almost. C structs can have internal padding -- but the C standard
doesn't allow padding _before the first element_ , so that first element is
guaranteed to begin at the beginning of the struct.

~~~
mhansen
Thanks! You learn something every day :)

------
barmstrong
I love the idea of a game which limits the time you can spend playing it. You
might have something big with that one.

------
Dysiode
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Google Talk. For a while I suffered through
the tangled mess that was using jabber transports to connect to other
protocols because it was so minimalistic and slick. I'd love to see Pidgin or
Psi reimagine Google Talk's UI while keeping the extensibility of the backend.

Also, you might be interested in a free game by the name of Skyrates
(<http://www.skyrates.net>). It's not really an MMO, but it was made for
people with not much free-time in mind so it doesn't favor people sinking a
lot of time into it.

------
edkennedy
Re: Calender Web Service. How about Tungle? <http://www.tungle.com> Allows
other to schedule with you with no signups. It also works with many calendar
apps.

------
arachnid
My latest addiction isn't an MMO, but otherwise fits your description pretty
well: <http://np.ironhelmet.com/>

------
smokinn
For the first idea, have you checked out tinychat? <http://tinychat.com/>

~~~
daleharvey
tinychat seems to let you host your own chatroom, whereas I was looking for a
chat client that can connect to irc / xmpp (and possibly msn / facebook),
somewhat more like meebo

~~~
mike-cardwell
You could take <http://cgiirc.org/> and point it at a <http://bitlbee.org/>
server.

------
jonah
WYSIWYG HTML Editor == Dreamweaver

~~~
mkramlich
Or the old fashioned alternative: browser & editor side-by-side on your
screen.

Browser rendering the same HTML file that is loaded in your editor.

Edit.

Save.

Hit refresh in browser.

Optionally: add a simple, development-class web server (like web.py).

Bingo, done.

I guess I feel like the "editor" and "render" parts of the problem are already
solved. I'm not sure that we gain more than we lose by trying to smash them
together into one gob. For debugging/tweaking an existing web app, sure (then
use something like Firebug), but for general development from scratch there
are a lot of benefits to using a real browser and real editor.

------
henning
Most or all of these already exist in some form. E.g., Campfire, ikiwiki, etc.

------
leif
calender => calendar

Attention to detail, buddy.

~~~
daleharvey
heh cheers, I had even ran it through after the deadline but still managed to
miss it, fixed

------
adrianwaj
What about a social network especially for people who haven't owned Apple
(stock, hw and sw) and never will?

