JAVAWUG PRO JAM #2: Aftermath : MoonLander JavaFX Game
05 February 2010 Comments off
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JAVAWUG PRO JAM #2: Aftermath : MoonLander JavaFX Game
PRO JAM #2 Tuesday, 26th January 2010 Skills Matter, London, UK |
Dear All
This simultaneous blog post!
On Tuesday, 26th January 2010, your truly hosted a professional code jamming event for the Java Web User Group. It was called JavaFXtm Development with NetBeanstm 6.8. There were about fifteen developers in attendance who hundled together in the relatively new Skills Matter Exchange in Clerkenwell, London. The audience had already installed NetBeans with JavaFX on their laptops and netbooks we were ready to go.
I had already decided to demonstrate the power of FX with a game. However, I questioned this before the event. The audience were just beginners and had precious little experience of programming JavaFX. There is little that can be formally learnt hard inside two hours, so I thought that the best idea would be inspire those learners with a classic arcade game. The first hours I spent covering FX language and syntax, including the scenegraph and how to create a project in NetBeans. Yes, some developers had never even used NetBeans in proper software development. Although, the material was a higher than beginner material, the participant have the software, developed in captured stage to look at after the event. I sought to explain the concepts of JavaFX programming, how it is completely different to Java and how it appeals to user interface developer. Moreover, I believe, I succeeded in illustrating the breakthrough that JavaFX has achieved as domain specific language for successfully manipulating a scenegraph and Rich Internet Application platform.
Here is a JNLP hyperlink of the MoonLander and a screenshot below
The software is, first, available to the students, who actually made the effort to come down to the professional code jam in January. As I developed the Moonlander JavaFX game, I captured several stage, snapshots of the source into ZIP files. These files can be analyse and investigated by students in their leisure. There were seven stages. There was also a basic presentations, slide deck and some exercise. (Again I made these available first to the students who attended). A USB stick with the Moonlander FX games was passed around before the “jam”.
The version of the game, here is a unreleased snapshot 8, I have made some improvements and re-checked the stages of software development. At a later date, I will release the whole source code to the general public.
The keys are:
LEFT ARROW rotate anti-clockwise,
RIGHT ARROW rotate clockwise and
UP ARROW for Thrust