The dialect of programming languages

I think I bore my friends a lot when I talk about my computer science classes.

 

I don’t blame them, I listen to myself talk about it and my inner monologue goes something like:  “Oh my god, shut up, nobody cares about this, why are you still talking about it DEAR LORD PLEASE BE QUIET.”

I think this has something to do with the fact that I am literally speaking another language and nobody has any clue what I’m talking about.

Let’s behold a conversation I had with my roommate Michelle earlier in the semester:

Michelle: Hey, do you want to get dinner tonight?

Me: No, I can’t, unfortunately.  I have a night class this semester. *frown*

Michelle: Oh, what are you taking?

Me: *without missing a beat* Computational Linguistics for Digital Humanities.

Michelle:  Oh, that sounds hard.  *engage disinterest*

 

Even the titles of the courses are confusing for people.

 

But the course material, and the programming languages themselves, I believe can be readily likened to any other foreign language based on several elements.   Programming languages have the following in common with other languages:

 

1. Syntax.  Syntax is just as important in programming as it is in everyday speech.  Just as you can’t say

“Skyrim game a fun is” in place of “Skyrim is a fun game.” in English, in programming languages (in this example, C++), you can’t pull this craziness either.

WRONG

}{for(i int=0; >string skyrim.length i ;+i+)
;<<cout<<skyrim]i]<<endl
string skyrim = “Skryim game a fun is”;

RIGHT
string skyrim = “Skyrim is a fun game”;
for(int i=0; i <= skyrim.length; i++){
cout<<skyrim[i]<<endl;
}

(By the way, it was physically painful for me to type that messed up version)

You can still sort of kind of understand what the speaker/typer was trying to do, but it simply doesn’t work.

You need periods in english, you need semicolons in programming.  You need certain things to keep the flow of conversation going, just as a program needs commands in order to keep running.

 

2. A vast dictionary that is not terribly similar to any other language.

Okay, to be fair, programming can be very similar to English at times.  It can read logically in that way.
But sometimes there are phrases you just have to know in order to communicate effectively in programming.

 

I can play devils advocate to myself though; I can perceive how some might not see Java or Python as it’s own dialect.

For one, it can’t be spoken.  You can dismiss this argument in favor of recognized languages such as ASL, where people use their hands to communicate.  Programming is simply the communication of computers.  But I understand the conjunction some have between speech and  language.

 

I think if I had to absolutely categorize language (which I don’t like to do in the first place, to be honest) I would describe programming as not necessarily it’s very own thing, but rather a highly developed slang for the age of technology.

 

And this is the end!  It’s been a great class, and I hope you all have wonderful holidays.  😀

 

 

 

 

ASCII and Unicode, I hate you – Adventures in Formatting

Like the rest of ENGL457 students, I spent the majority of last week (and the entire semester, of course) working on my final project for the class.

Basically what I’m doing is an interactive fiction story about a zombie invasion that involves the corruption of human-implanted brain chips, all set up by the government in order to help control the problems of overpopulation in the future.
I know, I’ve already called Spielberg.

Anyways, I’m working with Javascript to do this.  I’ve never worked with it before, but I have worked with Java, and it’s fairly similar.  Sort of.
You’d think my difficulties would be setting up plot devices, character descriptions, and creating the many, many different scenarios found in my game.

But no.  The hardest part was uploading the damn .html and .js files to my server.
(On a side note, this falling snow thing on WordPress is highly annoying.)

Thus my two day long adventures in debugging began.  What could it be?  I had a lot of ideas:
1. Bluehost is terrible server and it was being dumb about javascript. (I know, it’s a browser thing, but I was in quite a state and was willing to believe anything)

2. Somewhere, somehow, my syntax was wrong.  Even if I reused the stock files given to me by Undum over and over again, without changing anything, it was clear that I must have typed something wrong or deleted an important semi-colon.

3. I wasn’t uploading the files to the correct part of the server.  This actually was a problem in the beginning, but my good friend Alan Liddell fixed that right up for me.

4. I thought there was a deep dark secret about web hosting that only privileged people of the internet got to know about.  Like when you’re young and you think that adults know everything and that some day you’ll go through that adult initiation ceremony yourself – (protip: there is no such thing.  Like Santa.  I’m sorry.)

These were the facts I was sticking to.  Nothing could distract me from reading every little line of code, googling every kind of javascript problem, and just being generally distressed about the whole thing.

Then I had a flashback.  Like a bolt of lightning it all came back to me.  Last summer…

I had taken Jim Groom‘s course ds106 “Summer of Oblivion” and we had a great project where we edited the source code of a webpage to convey a message.  I had edited a page on ebay and was very excited to upload it.

However, when I went to upload it, it just showed me the code.  No pretty page, just lines of source code.

Others copied my code and had no problem.  It worked for them just fine.  They were able to see the page as it was meant to be, not just as a text file in a browser.

From this experience I concluded that something was very wrong with my computer.  I thought everything was terrible and evil.  I couldn’t understand why this was happening only to me.

Then I saved my code in a different program, not TextEdit, or Open Office, but a little thing called Netbeans that I used in my CPSC 220 course last spring.

Everything was suddenly clear to me.  I could see the page.  I knew not how, nor why I couldn’t save code in a text editor.  But it didn’t matter.  The world was all right.

Apparently between summer and now I had repressed this memory.

But I think I sort of understand why this happened.  Maybe.

I was saving the files in something called UTF-8, or Unicode.  My server requires that you upload files in ASCII format.

The main difference between these two formats is that UTF-8 can handle a LOT more characters and is ideal for languages with a lot of symbols (Japanese, Chinese, you get it).  ASCII is a bit more simple and works very well for the English alphabet.

The moral of my story is never save anything in Unicode unless you’re writing a paper in Mandarin (power to you, buddy) and, for gods sake, remember every little coding mistake from your past for when they crop up (and trust me, they will) in the future.

Outsourcing code – Public puzzle solvers

Originally I wanted to write a post about the types of cryptography surrounding high profile murder cases such as the Zodiac Killer.

But as I was traversing the internet for information, I came upon the McCormick Notes.

What’s most interesting to me about this is how recently it’s been released to the public.  I don’t know about you, but I tend to lose interest in puzzles that have been around for a period longer than 2 years; primarily because, if the best minds couldn’t solve it in two years, how could I venture to in what little spare time I already have?

Regardless, the McCormick Notes were released earlier this year, but the murder itself happened in 1999.  Ricky McCormick was found murdered in a cornfield with these notes in his pocket.  While McCormick had a history of creating coded messages in his everyday life, the FBI is hoping that these notes might give insight into his otherwise mysterious death.

However, it is not the case itself, rather the approach the FBI is taking to solving it that is so intriguing.  They are calling on the public for help.

It’s not that the FBI hasn’t used citizens in the past (we all know “Americas Most Wanted” and the tip line phone number at the end) but rather are entrusting them with possibly sensitive case material in order to help solve an important case.

Here are the letters typed out:

P1(MHD MKNE A RSE-S-M-KNARE) (ACSM)
OTFRNE NPtNSE NPBSE RCBBNSE NPRSE INC
PRSE NMRSE OPRE HLDWLDNCBE (TFXLF TCXL NCBE)
AL-PRPPIT XLYPPIY NCBE MGKSE INCDRCBRNSE PRSE
WLDRCBRNSE NTSBNEN TXSE-CRSLE-CITRSE WLD NCBE
ALWLP NCBE TSME LRSE RLSE URGLSNEASN WLD NCBE
(NO PFSE NLSRE NCBE) NTEGDDMNSENCURERCBRNE
(TENE TFRNE NCBRTSE NCBE INC)
(FLRSE PRSE ONDE 71 NCBE)
(CDNSE PRSE ONSDE 74 NCBE)
(PRTSE PRSE ONREDE 75 NCBE)
(TFNR CMSP SOLE MRDE LUSE TOTE WLD NWLD NCBE)
(194 WLD’s NCBE)(TRFXL)

—————————————…
NOTES

ALPNTE GLSE – SE ERTE
VLSE MTSE-CTSE-WSE-FRTSE
PNRTRSE ON DRSE WLD NCBE
N WLD XLR CMSPNE WLDSTS ‘ME XL
DULMT 6 TUNSE NCBE XL
——————————–
(MUNSARSTEN M4 N A RSE)
KLSE-LRSTE-TRSE-TRSE-MRSEN-MRSE
(SAE6NSE SE N MBSE)
——————————–
NMNRCBRNSEPTE2PTEWSREBRNSE
36 MLSE 74 SPRKSE 29 KENOS OLE + 73 RTRSE
35 SLE CLGSE OUNUTRE DKRSE PSESHLE
651 MTCSE HTLSE N CU TC TRS NMRE
99.84.8 2 UNE PLSE VCRSE AOLTSE NSKSE NBSE
NSRE ONSE PUT SE WLD NCBE (3 X ORL)
——————————–
?NMSE NRSE I N 2 N TRLERCB ANSE NTSRCR O NE
LSPNSE N G-SPSE MSKE R 8 SE NEBE AU XL R
HM CRENMRE NCBE 1/2 MUNDDLSE
——————————–
D-W-M-4 HPL XDRLX

 

So far, there hasn’t been any big leads to solve the case.  A lot of people are assuming he created the cipher as he went along, thereby making the message impossible to crack.

 

What motivates people to participate in these decodings though?  Morbid curiosity?  The need to feel involved in a police investigation?  Or is it simply the love of a puzzle?

Hey, I know stuff you didn’t know about cyberpunk

So we all know that cyberpunk is derived from science fiction and the like.

I’m sure you’re all up to date on how the whole revolution started and all the trendy things that have come from it.

 

BUT that’s not what I’m here to talk about.  I’m here to tell you all the little quirks and cyberpunk facts that you probably (hopefully, or else the title of this post would be obsolete) did not know before!

At the risk of this turning into a Cracked article, I’m going to cut it with the exclamation points now.

FUN FACT #1 – There are a bunch of crazy subgenres of cyberpunk.

From postcyberpunk to splatterpunk, people are narrowing down the genre in really bizarre and interesting ways.  I propose a new genre called zombiepunk.  Anyone?

Eh.. maybe not.

 

2. FUN FACT #2 – There are cities in the world that are considered Cyberpunk

I have a confession.  Television tropes helped me out a lot with this article, but I thought this portion was exceptionally cool.

“Japan’s economic structure of State-linked crony corporations is very Cyberpunk. The Mega Corp was consciously modeled on these Japanese “Zaibatsu” (favored merchants) even moreso than the large, bureaucratic managed corporations of 1950’s America. William Gibson, the father of the genre himself, even said “Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk.””

England has surveillance cameras everywhere, Hong Kong’s economy is very similar to Japan’s as well (not to mention it’s futuristic skyline), but overall, technology is beginning to take ultimate control over many cities on Earth.

Hong Kong. Definitely more futuristic looking than Fredericksburg

 

 

 

Outline – Zombie invasion Interactive Fiction

So without giving away spoilers, instead of a traditional outline, I’m going to try and outline my process so far.

 

STEP 1: Create the Storyboard and Narrative

Progress: 30% complete

I’ve mapped out all the possible courses of action the player could take in a tree style map. (which I wont post here, it’ll give it away!)
There are MANY different outcomes, connections, and side-quest type attractions that the player could partake in.

After this, I plan on creating actual coded puzzles for the player to solve.  I have lots of ideas, but plan on doing more research in order to make this story playable but challenging.

My next step is writing the descriptions themselves, I have already done the research on exactly what I want to include: essentially, without going into too much detail, the moral of my game will be along the lines of “code or be coded”.

 

STEP 2: Download and utilize an interactive game engine

Progress: 10% complete

I have researched several different possible game engines and have pretty much settled on the Undum engine.  This is subject to change depending on the difficulty of hosting and the interactive capabilities.

 

STEP 3:  Host the game

Progress: 0%

I anticipate this to be the hardest step, but who knows, I could be wrong.  I am not terribly experienced with any sort of hosting besides basic ftp clients, and I don’t know what the requirements will be of my game.  However, I want the game to look a certain way, and I know it will be difficult to accomplish.

 

 

Some other side things I’d like to include but may not:

1. character sketches
2. world map
3. a forum for tactics discussion
4. ??? (suggestions?)

Smart Horror

It’s Halloween! 

In the spirit of Halloween, I’ve compiled a list of movies that not only pertain to our course, but also will scare the bejeebus out of you (hopefully).

But before my list, I should probably include an element of academia in this post huh?

Okay, well, I’ve touched on the subject briefly on our hol forum, but I think that hol would translate very very well to the big screen. 

I’m a fan of movies that make you jump, cheap scares are great for Halloween, but I don’t think hol is like that.  The reason I think it would be a great movie is that it takes you outside of the typical blood and gore horror and into your own head.

I was googling interviews D’s given, and I found a quote that I think will sum up my list quite nicely:

“Smart Horror–at least the way I’d define it–doesn’t resort to your stock serial killer or other such clich�s. Smart Horror goes after the deeper origins of fear. It usually relies on specters, religion, unanticipated violence, and all of it handled with enough uncertainty it doesn’t just provoke an adrenaline rush but thought”

So, let’s move on to the list!

1. The Amityville Horror – I don’t think I need to explain this one too much, the connections are pretty obvious, but in the spirit of creepy houses I’m adding this one to my list.  The story behind the movie is also intensely interesting and goes back to this idea that the scariest moments occur in your own mind.

2. The Shining – I’m noticing a trend as I’m brainstorming the movies that scared me the most – creepy houses.  The Shining is a prime example of how the mind can play tricks on you.

Musicians fascination with the House

I knew about House of Leaves before I actually read it.

The reason?  Music.

A lot of bands have taken it upon themselves to write song tributes to the novel:

1. Circa Survive – “House of Leaves”

A hidden track at the end of “Meet me in Montauk”.  What’s interesting about this is that the album, Juturna, is actually about the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but they added a track at the end of it about D’s novel.  The song comes in after about 8 minutes into the song, after a period of silence.  The song’s lyrics are also a reflection of D’s style, with some nifty backwards lyrics thrown into the chorus (“Something I could never say, speak so softly and low//Something I could never say//(Yltfos os kaeps) [speak so softly backwards]”).  When played backwards, it plays a whole new song as well.

 

2. Fall of Troy – “You Got a Death Wish, Johnny Truant?”  and “The Ho[]ly Tape”

I’m not posting the youtube videos here because the lyrics themselves have nothing to do with the novel.  Although the band members do claim a fondness for House of Leaves, the songs are really just straight quotes from the book.  Doppleganger is a good album though if you like sweet guitar riffs.

 

 

Under strict guidance not to Google anything, I’ve kept my knowledge of HoL references to merely the songs that I knew beforehand.

 

My question becomes what do musicians and writers have in common?  Why is House of Leaves so easily adapted for songs?

I think D’s straightforward ambiguity (his “beat around the bush” method of satirizing academic criticism) meshes well with what lyricists do.  A song hardly ever tells a story straight to you (unless it’s country music).  We get the underlying message and we can piece together a story for ourselves, but there’s never a cut and dry narrative.  House of Leaves is the same way, sort of.  There is a narrative there but it’s pieced together from other narratives and different retellings and editors getting in the way… there’s a lot to mesh together.

I think Only Revolutions would make better lyrics, personally, but House of Leaves has something else going for it.
I first learned of House of Leaves from a hipster I knew, who insisted on reading it.  He had never shown interest in reading before this which made me wonder what was so great about this book.
Then I found out about the cult following and saw that House of Leaves, at one point, was definitely trendy.

 

So maybe me looking into the amount of lyricism and hidden poetry in House of Leaves and how it correlates well to song lyrics isn’t 100% on the mark.  I think it’s partly because the band members themselves knew of the cult following and marketed to it.

Paper Proposal

Thesis: Codes and secrets hidden in both the visual and technical(programming) aspects of video games have greatly changed how people, including gamers, interact and understand gaming.

The paper will be organized as follows:

1. Several statements on how the actual dialect of the game code itself has effected the industry and the people who both advocate and critique video games.

2. How hidden achievements have created a generation of gamers who rely on a reward system of gaming.  This will include a parallel glimpse between “old” and “new” gamers

3.  The difference between a casual gamer and a hardcore gamer, and how the same game “speaks” to them each differently.

Sources:

1. http://www.eeggs.com

2. Playing games myself, analyzing others playing games

3. .. other.. places..

character

The writer making the movie script.

Rikki Mathis never really cared for Only Revolutions, but she’s been told by others how it’ll really soar at the box office, so she’s been commissioned by a famous production company to write the script. Rikki’s challenge is to make a script that’ll please both the original author and the money-hungry movie producers.  Those in the movie business have told her they want Kirsten Stewart to play Hailey, telling Rikki to write the script around her acting style.

The Easter Egg Effect

I know most of you remember the days of cheat codes: “Alright, hit a-b-up-down-right-y-x-rt-lt-z-z-z-a for infinite lives, I swear it works!”

While these were fun to come by, I was far more intrigued with finding Easter eggs.
By this I don’t mean literal Easter eggs (although some game creators have taken this term literally) but rather secrets hidden in the game that are usually very difficult to come by.

My question is how exactly has this phenomena shaped the world of gaming?

I think there is a great divide between the gamers of the 80’s – 90’s and the ones born in the 21st century (Yes, they’re getting old enough to play video games now.  Yes, it scares me too).  Looking back on what I used to play, I found there was much more excitement in finding these secrets.

For example, I remember fondly the days I’d spend trying to get the missingno glitch.  It was cool to try and “break” the game.  I don’t think that this glitch was intentional, but I think it still counts.

However, there is a difference today.  I can’t remember the last time I put a cheat code into a game.  The last Easter Egg-esque thing I discovered was the writing on the wall in Portal.  There are a few homages paid to this tradition in some new games, but it’s just not as fun as it used to be.

 

I think a big part of this is the fact that, as gaming as grown, so has its expectations.    As the years have gone by, so has the desire for more rewards in a game.  A simple coin or extra life will not satiate most gamer’s reward-driven appetite, hence the creation of achievements.  But even I have noticed achievements becoming obsolete amongst the younger generation.  I play video games with my boyfriend’s nephews, aged 9 and 10, and I find all they’re concerned with is getting a good kill ratio in Call of Duty.

I guess the effect of Easter eggs on gaming can be described as both a good and bad phenomena.  Pros: Has created an upward spiral of interest in in-game secrets.  Cons: Has possibly made newer gamers complacent?

 

I’m still fleshing out these ideas.  Let me know what you think!