Computer Archeology: The Smiley, where did it come from?

SoCal Sam — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:16:47 GMT

The Smiley, where did it come from? Here is the first instance of the Smiley:

401298269,0,0 19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-) From: Scott E Fahlman <Fahlman at Cmu-20c> I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers: :-) Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use :-(

You can see the whole bboard file from CMU in 1982 at:

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/mbj/smiley/bboard_contents.html

Funny stuff… Who says research has to be unfunny? :-)

F# variables or a return to BASIC?

SoCal Sam — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 03:42:00 GMT

In the example I used in the past post utilized the "let" command and it didn't have any data type, what's up with that? Oh it gets worse, the identifier (not variable) are immutable. That is the memory location of the identifier cannot be modified. To create an mutable identifier you have to declare the identifier as mutable. This is one of the differences between functional programming (F#, OCAML) and imperative programming (C#, VB.NET, Java), the concept of identifiers is not really supported in the imperative languages, although there are constants. This is not to say that F# doesn't support imperative programming, F# is object oriented, but it's focus on the functional approach to programming.

Identifiers are interesting, and to continue the discussion about solving engineering problems, we definitely will need to deal with functions. Functions easy to work with in F#, and we will take a look at functions in the next episode of the blog, mainly because I need to work on my game blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/devschool, where you can learn how to build a game for a Christmas Present this year!

Looking at the code inside of our trial code...

SoCal Sam — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:47:13 GMT

Hopefully you gave the code from Friday a try, Popfly should be used for that type of code, since there is that banner that advises people to not input their password, etc. Now that you have run your tests, make sure to change your site or remove it.

Using Visual Studio 2008 Web Developer Express (let's call it Web Dev) I am able to connect to Popfly and use the Web Dev tool to connect with Popfly. I am also able to share code directly with you. However, for now, lets dig into the code.

If your Javascript is a little weak, and even professional software developers like Dan Waters sometimes have issues with javascript. The best source that I know, that is also free, is the ECMASCRIPT Standard! You might ask, ECMASCRIPT, what does that have to do with javascript? The ECMA Standard is based on several originating technologies, the most well known being JavaScript (Netscape) and JScript (Microsoft). Bottom line: ECMASCRIPT = javascript

Why is this important? ECMASCRIPT is the standard and programming standards are often good sources for figuring out how to make programs work. This is true for C# and some other languages. Other languages like Java (which is not the same as javascript, although the syntax is similar) and Visual Basic.NET are not programming languages that have a standard. This means you have to search for assistance with companies like Sun (stock symbol: JAVA) or Microsoft (stock symbol: MSFT). To get the ECMASCRIPT standard (which will help you with learning javascript) go to click here and then from the Adobe ribbon, click on the "save icon" , save this file to your harddrive, it is 188 pages, and worth the paper if you printed it out. The ECMAScript standard though is weak on examples, for code examples you will need to go to other sites.

If you are using the Web Dev tool, you will notice that there are a series of "functions", in javascript this is a way to organize the programs flow in memory. These functions are also correctly referred to as methods. There are other software items that are called functions as well, for now we will work with the method kind of software items.

What do we have in our example? A process to do the sign-in for the receiver and sender, both have to be in the other's contact list. Also, we have now achieved the "nudge", we haven't figured out how to use it yet, but we a code example. To work through a tutorial, which I can't get to work, let me know if you get it to work:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc298455.aspx, this example is pretty simple, and I recommend that you look at it.

This is the code that we use to create the sign-in control

This code:
signin = new Microsoft.Live.Messenger.UI.SignInControl('signinframe', privUrl, chanUrl, 'en-US');
signin.add_authenticationCompleted(authenticationCompleted);
Generates the control shown below:

To authenticate the user the following code is used:

_user = new Microsoft.Live.Messenger.User(e.get_identity());

_user.add_signInCompleted(signInCompleted);

_user.signIn(null);

Then to complete the sign-in:

if (e.get_resultCode() === Microsoft.Live.Messenger.SignInResultCode.success)
{
document.getElementById('userInfo').innerHTML = '<p>' + _user.get_address().get_address() + ' is now signed in.</p>';
}

However, as a person who is attempting to commercialize a research concept, you would what to understand how the code works, but you wouldn't do the code. You would likely note down that you need a software designer who knows javascript and C#.

Stay tuned for the next blog entry, we will take a look at the "nudge" and how we can use the Windows Live Messenger Library to call managed functions. Since XNA is part of the managed code, we are getting closer to driving our Xbox controller with a nudge from Live Messenger.

Sam Stokes on Research in your life and studies : Xbox

Computer Archeology: The Smiley, where did it come from?

F# variables or a return to BASIC?

Looking at the code inside of our trial code...