haXe is a new powerful programming language that can generate Javascript code and also compiles to Flash SWF (including latest Flash Player 9). It handles all the browsers differences and has crossplatform APIs such as Xml, Http, Date…

The sweet thing about it, is instead of using 3 languages to write webapps, now you only need one. Instead of Actionscript+Javascript+PHP, you can use haXe+haXe+haXe.

As a replacement for ActionScript: contains several powerful language features, including ‘type inference’, and can compile the same code to flash 6,7,8 or 9. No need to switch syntax when going between versions.

As a replacement for JavaScript: Provides a typed language, to help you make fewer errors, versus javascript’s complete dynamic typing.

As a replacement for PHP(Perl/Python/Ruby/etc): Use the same language on the client and the server. Libraries for file/database/image/etc manipulation. Compiled to bytecode, thus can run much faster than the interpreted languages (some benchmarks show it 20 times faster than PHP).

haXe website | digg story

I know you’ve all been waiting for this, it’s not completely functional yet, but here’s a preview:

(gfx shamelessly stolen from )

If you can’t wait, and need to get some drawings done ASAP, you can download a previous version.

UPDATE: It also seems I’ve defeated the long-standing issue of the ‘jumping lines’ once and for all!!! I need to do some more testing to confirm it, but it looks good so far!!

A quick update to the mandelbrot explorer, this improves speed when you are not zoomed in very far. When you are zoomed below 175x, I will use 32 bit (1.17.14) fixed point numbers, which greatly improves speed. However, if you zoom beyond that, then it switches back to 64 bit (1.35.28), which provides greater precision. I’ve measured, and you can zoom to approx 200,000x before you start getting pixelated due to lack of precision, at which point I switch to floating point (which slows it down a bit), but you can zoom a bit farther then.

Next, I will start looking into optimizations of the algorithm itself. Two things I have heard of, but not really researched, are ‘boundary tracing’ and ‘periodicity checking’

R05 Download: .nds and .ds.gba
Changes since R04: Minor optimizations and quality improvements.

Here’s some more PNGs saved out from my app:

I was inspired to make a fractal explorer for the DS, and what better fractal than the classic Mandelbrot Set! If you don’t know what a Mandelbrot is, or why it’s in a set, check trusty Wikipedia.

This is an initial version, I’m still working on how to best balance speed and quality. This isn’t the fastest it can be, but it’s not the best quality either. You can zoom a ways in, but not as far as I would like. You’ll know when you’ve hit the limit of precision, because edges start getting very rough and strange patterns (stranger than normal mandelbrot, that is).

Features in R04:

• Zoom by dragging a rectangle
• Save screenshot to PNG
• Panning, Zooming, Adjust Iterations by buttons
• 14 different color palettes

Download .nds & .ds.gba

This is a followup to my previous post

Since I made that post, several people (who have some audio programming experience, unlike me) have taken my technique and greatly improved it.

Here are the links:

• PJ @ E-Phonic’s abstract Realtime Audio Syntesizer
• Andre Michelle’s tb-303 synthesizer
• flashcodersbrighton’s nice reusable class which makes it so anybody can generate their own audio

They are all very exciting, and exactly the sorts of things I was hoping would happen when I published that sound example 3-ish months ago.

Minor update here, no new features. Only change from last version is I’m testing with the new alpha version of libfat. Currently loading is DISABLED as libfat does not support directory listing yet. If you want a fully functional version, please see this previous post.

I have tested saving on GBAMP and Supercard CF. Please, test it on your devices and let me know if saving works correctly. As I recieve reports, I will update the info below. Thanks.

Tested, working: GBAMP, Supercard CF
Tested, seems to create 0kb files? M3 SD
Untested, but should work on: M3 CF, Supercard SD, Neoflash MK2/3
Untested, may or may not work: Max Media Player/Dock, EFA2

NDS version
.DS.GBA version

And here are the two test images I made:
   

I’ve had some reports that the upper screen does not display correctly when launched directly. Apparently, a workaround is to launch it through moonshell. So if you find that you cannot read the information on the top screen, then try running my app from moonshell, instead of directly from your flash cart menu.

You can find fake anything in Asia these days it seems.

I didn’t know Sony made ipod knockoffs as well:

So I’ve been ignoring the whole ajax/js/dhtml thing, only doing flash programming. It turns out that the implementation of XmlHttpRequest has a few major shortfalls. Short summary of linked article:

1. There are no persistant connections. This rules out any type of ‘server-push’ programming model, forcing clients to poll the server, which either puts more strain on bandwidth and server resources, and/or increases lag time between updates.
2. You can’t turn off HTTP request headers

So in essence, AJAX coders are still stuck with LoadVars. They don’t have anything that offers the functionality of XMLSocket (persistant connections, ability to send whatever data you want).

The one shortfall of XMLSocket (text only data, must be null-terminated), is removed in Flash 9 (formerly known as 8.5), and already I’ve seen a flash-based pop3 example as well as a flash-based vnc viewer/client.

The solution is to modify the implementation of XmlHttpRequest. The above article talks about some possible fixes. This would really be a boon to all the “Web 2.0″ coders who for whatever reason are unable to use Flash.