Chris Maunder - Professional Profile
@chris-maunder
About Chris Maunder
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Chris is the Co-founder, Administrator, Architect, Chief Editor and Shameless Hack who wrote and runs The Code Project. He's been programming since 1988 while pretending to be, in various guises, an astrophysicist, mathematician, physicist, hydrologist, geomorphologist, defence intelligence researcher and then, when all that got a bit rough on the nerves, a web developer. He is a Microsoft Visual C++ MVP both globally and for Canada locally.
His programming experience includes C/C++, C#, SQL, MFC, ASP, ASP.NET, and far, far too much FORTRAN. He has worked on PocketPCs, AIX mainframes, Sun workstations, and a CRAY YMP C90 behemoth but finds notebooks take up less desk space.
He dodges, he weaves, and he never gets enough sleep. He is kind to small animals.
Chris was born and bred in Australia but splits his time between Toronto and Melbourne, depending on the weather. For relaxation he is into road cycling, snowboarding, rock climbing, and storm chasing.
31 Dec 2004 CodeProject MVP 2005
Founder, CodeProject
Member since Thu 6 Jul 2000
(19 years)
Articles 115 (Legend)
Tech Blogs 0
Messages 34,718 (Master)
Q&A Questions 24
Q&A Answers 87
Tips/Tricks 11
Below is the list of groups in which the member is participating
ASP.NET Community
The ASP.NET Wiki was started by Scott Hanselman in February of 2008. The idea is that folks spend a lot of time trolling the blogs, googlinglive-searching for answers to common "How To" questions. There's piles of fantastic community-created and MSFT-created content out there, but if it's not found by a search engine and the right combination of keywords, it's often lost.
The ASP.NET Wiki articles moved to CodeProject in October 2013 and will live on, loved, protected and updated by the community.
Group type: Collaborative Group
This member has Member status in this group
CodeProject Focus Group
The CodeProject focus group is an informal and changeable group of long-suffering CodeProject members willing to give their time and patience to discussing product, branding and marketing ideas with those looking to actually understand what developers think.
To apply to join this group simply hit the "Apply to join this group" button.
To seek the wisdom, guidance, and hopefully a little enlightenment, email focus@codeproject.com and we'll work out a time to discuss your thoughts.
This member has Administrator, Manager, Author, Member status in this group
You may know us for our processors. But we do so much more. Intel invents at the boundaries of technology to make amazing experiences possible for business and society, and for every person on Earth.
Harnessing the capability of the cloud, the ubiquity of the Internet of Things, the latest advances in memory and programmable solutions, and the promise of always-on 5G connectivity, Intel is disrupting industries and solving global challenges. Leading on policy, diversity, inclusion, education and sustainability, we create value for our stockholders, customers and society.
Group type: Organisation
CodeProject Authors
The CodeProject Authors are a group of talented technical writers who create articles and whitepapers for some of the biggest companies in the industry. Under our ContentLab.io unit we reach out to those who need content written but lack the time, expertise or resources to complete the work.
Looking to earn a little extra and get connected to, and be featured on, the websites of the companies whose technologies you know and love? If you can write well and are efficient with time then send us an email at info@contentlab.io.
CodeProject Advisors
Publisher CodeProject
The CodeProject Advisors group is comprised of CodeProject members specifically chosen to advise the CodeProject on new products related to helping the community answer technical questions. This group participates in beta testing and feedback of products designed to help connect members with experts.
Publisher The Code Project
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The Code Project Daily Insider keeps you up to date with what is happening around the industry. From the continue saga of the Big Boys to Scott Guthrie's blog ramblings and Steve Jobs' latest, you will find it here.
The Ultimate Toolbox
In January 2005, David Cunningham and Chris Maunder created TheUltimateToolbox.com, a new group dedicated to the continued development, support and growth of Dundas Software's award winning line of MFC, C++ and ActiveX control products.
Ultimate Grid for MFC, Ultimate Toolbox for MFC, and Ultimate TCP/IP have been stalwarts of C++/MFC development for a decade. Thousands of developers have used these products to speed their time to market, improve the quality of their finished products, and enhance the reliability and flexibility of their software.
Chinese Forum Moderators
CodeProject Beta Testers
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Going Perceptual: The Ultimate Coder Challenge - Week 2
Chris Maunder27-Feb-13 3:13
Chris Maunder 27-Feb-13 3:13
Week 2 in the Ultimate Coder challenge sees the teams settling down to the cold harsh light of reality mixed in with a wonderful dose of reckless abandon.
Sixense Studios[^] had the wind knocked out of them a little after watching Media Molecule[^] demo a PS4 app that mimics their idea. However, they have since realised that their 6 weeks of work can still beat the two years work, and who knows how many billions, invested by Media Molecule because while Media Molecule's demo is wicked cool, it's based on pre-recorded movements and not the full physics-based hand puppets they are building.
Lee[^] is continuing his work on transporting you, via the depth perception camera, into a virtual world. I really hope he's watched this movie[^] before he goes too far down that rabbit hole. Watch his video to get a little weirded out by it all.
The guys at Code-Monkeys[^] have totally nailed another issue with the PS4 demo of Media Molecule. The PS4 demo relied on using a wand, and this is akin to using a stylus on a touchscreen. While they demoed an initial cut at their "looks can kill" eye tracking shooter I get the impression these guys are along more to help add as many stepping stones as possible to allow those who come next to reach the lofty goals of the ultimate UI, rather than assume they can create it by themselves.
Simian Squared[^] raise another interesting point that follows on from Code-Monkeys' points: the advent of the touchscreen interface has heralded a new era in user experience and programming is now, more than ever, an art. The programming tools available to us today make the task of development more and more mechanised. Drag and drop, ORMs, do-everything frameworks and convention over configuration mean writing an app is easier than ever. However, writing an app that is a pleasure to use is now harder than ever because we, as users, no longer accept substandard interfaces or a poor experience. Simian Squared are producing a virtual potter's wheel. More than simply creating a system that responds to the position of a few digits, he wants to transport you to a new world. He sums up the challenge but also the potential in his application: "a great concept artist will sometimes bend the rules of perspective or light and shadow for impact". The new interfaces available to us today make programming, more than ever, an art.
Eskil[^] continues on his quest to write a hardware abstraction API that's pluggable. Another step along the path to better UIs and (potentially) better hardware. As he writes: it's hard to get someone to buy your hardware if there are no applications that run on it. Abstracting out the API for hardware should mean that writing apps for new hardware is a snap.
Infrared5[^] continue on their quest for an eye motion interface. Whereas Eskil had serious issues with his camera, these guys are waxing lyrical about how well it's performing for them. The joys of pre-production hardware. They also add to the idea that collaboration as the key to success in this challenge. I am getting a little worried at the lack of any actual attacks on anyone's jugular, but it's early days yet and the prize pool is, I'm sure, sufficient to get the red haze settling over the contestants.
Pete[^] is attacking his task methodically and systematically and with an eclectic mix of music. The Angels? Very nice. While others are focussing on the camera Pete's started with voice recognition. Sure, over 65% of human communication is non-verbal (depends on which study you refer to), but I'm not expecting Pete to include emotion detection (yet). Gesture and touch are great for items you can see or touch, but what about those things you can't see or touch? You can ask for something, and then once you have it you can manipulate it via gestures. Voice is important.
The challenge here is to showcase perceptual computing and this means to rethink how we interact with a system at a fundamental level. Sticking to familiar paradigms may make it easier for a person to approach a technology, but it doesn't help them take full advantage of a technology. It holds them back. Touchscreen interfaces never caught on until the hardware and user interface advanced sufficiently to make it intuitively natural to swipe and pinch. The hardware had to be fast and reactive enough that a gentle swipe would achieve a result, and just as importantly the UI presented to the user had to be obvious enough to encourage and respond to these gentle swipes. A stylus retards the use of a touch interface, and a wand retards the progression of a gesture based interface.
What the gesture and voice based based UI looks like, and how this can be presented to the user in an obvious and natural manner, is what this challenge is about.
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
Re: Going Perceptual: The Ultimate Coder Challenge - Week 2
Pete O'Hanlon27-Feb-13 4:10
Pete O'Hanlon 27-Feb-13 4:10
Thanks for the update Chris. I realise now that I'm the single most boring contestant here.
I was brought up to respect my elders. I don't respect many people nowadays.
CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier
Chris Maunder28-Feb-13 16:21
Chris Maunder 28-Feb-13 16:21
Actually I think you're the most sane.
Going Perceptual: The Ultimate Coder Challenge, Reprise
Last year saw the Ultimate Coder Challenge pit 6 teams against each other to create the Ultimate App for the Ultimate personal computer - the Ultrabook. The sadists at Intel are back at it with a new twist: create an application that shows off a convertible Ultrabook[^] and/or takes advantage of the Intel Perceptual Computing SDK 2013 Beta[^]
Let me say from the outset that I'm ignoring the "or" in the "and/or" above. The contestants must create an app that shows off the hardware and uses the perceptual computing SDK to have a chance. This means
The application needs to take advantage of the Ultrabook's specific features such as the sensors, the touchscreen, always on/always connected, power management and/or graphics.
The application must make sense for a laptop form-factor and a tablet form-factor
The application must make use of gesture controls, or eye tracking, or voice control, or anything else hidden in that magical SDK.
I'll add a fourth requirement
The application must make sense as an Ultrabook application
What I mean by this is that an application that is an existing application shoehorned into an Ultrabook with support for an Ultrabook tacked on in a way that doesn't harmonise with the original application will not get my vote.
So, on to the challengers.
Sixence Studios[^] (I keep wanting to hand them a "p") are old hands at the perceptual computing stuff. They've demo'd at Intel keynotes and are developing a virtual puppet application. I will be interested to see how this works in the tablet form factor.
Lee Bamber[^] refuses to back down from a challenge, and this is the third contest I've had the honour of judging him in. His entry will be a virtual conference that will allow you to transport yourself into a 3D world. "ambitious to the point of foolishness" is what he writes. He's mad. I love it.
Simian Squared[^] will be creating a virtual potter's wheel complete with virtual clay. Please note that points will be deducted for any "Ghost" moments that appear in any videos demonstrating the application.
Code-Monkeys[^] continue the primate theme and will be taking their existing Stargate Gunship game and making it a fully immersive. Gestures for firing, voice commands to control weaponry and gaze capture for targeting. Gaze targeting is something I feel is going to totally and utterly change the nature of video games and I'm very keen to see how this works. A shooter game that reacts as fast as you can look is going to get crazy. I can feel the headaches already.
Infrared5/Brass Monkey[^]. Again with the Monkeys. This feels weird. They will be creating a 3D FPS using head tracking, facial recognition and voice. This will be a little different in that the angle of your head will change the view on the screen to make it more immersive. Interesting idea, and their art looks killer.
Quel Solaar[^] has decided to make it simple and reinvent the entire PC interface. He will create a game, a data visualizer and a creative tool that will make use of his open source software layer in order to make it "easy for any developer to make use of the diverse hardware available to us". Any input (voice, gaze, gesture), any display (phones, tablets, laptops, workstations) and any hardware configuration. And I thought Lee was nuts.
Our very own Pete O'Hanlon[^] is taking the safe path and creating a voice and gesture enabled image editing application. This seems specifically an effort to show off the perceptual computing SDK rather than show off an application, and I like that. Further, he's using touch as an input, thus being inclusive of the traditional Ultrabook features rather than just plowing on with the sexy, younger, more nubile features of the PerC SDK.
Each week I'll post an update of how the teams are progressing. May the best team win.
Re: Going Perceptual: The Ultimate Coder Challenge, Reprise
A fair round up there Chris. Makes me wish I was a games programmer now
roscler21-Feb-13 3:53
roscler 21-Feb-13 3:53
Thank you for pointing out the reality check on the application needing to work on an Ultrabook to get your vote. I wish more competitions were forthcoming on what the real judging criteria is having wasted time on competitions that didn't. I was going to enter the Perceptual Coding contest but I don't have an Ultrabook. You just saved me a ton of time.
Robert Oschler
Android Technologies, Inc.
Robert, that is a different challenge. You don't need an Ultrabook for that one.
In other words he is only talking about the Perceptual SDK in regards to the Ultrabook challenge, but the inverse, using an Ultrabook with the Perceptual challenge, is not true?
I see the distinction now that you point it out. My worry would still be though that as a judge he'd still be significantly biased in favor of an Ultrabook compatible entry in the Perceptual challenge seeing as that he is admitting that bias. Again, I see from your comment he does not specifically state that for the Perceptual challenge, only for the Ultrabook challenge, but I'd like to hear from Chris himself that he wouldn't favor an Ultrabook entry.
I'm not being pedantic about this. I spent a great deal of time on an entry for another challenge only to find out afterwards that it never had a chance of winning, due to the judge's bias towards a particular class of app. Several judges even told me in an unsolicited manner how much they liked my entry, but from the finalists chosen it became obvious that an app like mine could not win, despite the fact it was in a vertical that was even proposed by one of the judges for the contest in a forum post for suggested entries.
This requirement for the use of the Ultrabook is purely for the Ultimate Coder competition. Intel provided us with an Ultrabook and gesture camera, so it would be churlish of us not to use it.
A big release today
Chris Maunder4-Feb-13 17:16
Chris Maunder 4-Feb-13 17:16
Unfortunately it was one of those releases where, if no one noticed anything different then it was a stunning success.
Under the hood we're working to expand our notion of what a member's account means. For most people it means nothing, but for those who write articles or post messages or who want to actively participate - and this is a lot - then your account is your spot, your area, your personality.
The question we've been asking ourselves ever since we launched RootAdmin[^] is: do we have separate accounts for separate sites or combine them. Initially the answer was a clear "separate accounts" since what someone says about themselves on one site may not be relevant for another site, or conversely: someone may choose not to say something on one site that they would say about themselves on another.
However, counter arguments were that you are who you are, and biographies don't have to always be about the site. They should be about you. Your picture is your picture, and your display name should be unique across sites, not just on one site. Otherwise your persona may be spoofed on another site without your knowledge.
Further, we've now added CodeProject.TV (currently in Beta) and we very much want what someone does on CodeProject.TV to appear on CodeProject, and for their reputation and expertise on CodeProject to be reflected on CodeProject.TV.
So we're steadily moving towards having your Account live in the network of sites, not within a site itself. Each site will continue to have a site specific profile that talks about the number of posts or articles you've posted, but you will be you across all sites.
In working towards this we've embarked on a plan to throw away large chunks of code. Recklessly, joyously, we cut the code loose and bind the ends up with electrical tape, like any good Engineer. What we'll end up with is a CodeProject made of services, not of modules and DLLs. A CodeProject whose parts can be mixed and matched and used in many places for many different things by many different systems. We started this process back in October (yes, the time that we temporarily disabled voting in the forums) and today's code drop represents the next major step in that migration.
It's just a pity it looks so...the same.
Such is the life of a developer.
Ratings are back
Chris Maunder20-Jan-13 8:30
Chris Maunder 20-Jan-13 8:30
...but not as you knew them.
We turned off voting a few weeks ago because of a load issue. Things have been a little hectic so fixing the issue has taken some time, but it also allowed us to see how the community fared without voting.
Quite nicely, as it turns out.
There are, however, two exceptions to this.
1. It drove me crazy that I could not upvote someone in The Lounge[^].
2. It drove me crazy that there was no way to warn people away from poor discussions in the discussion forums other than via the hammer called the reporting flag.
The perf issue we faced is a simple database issue. Ratings are no longer in the same database as forum messages so doing a join to get ratings was now slow enough that it affected performance. The solution I chose was to retrieve the ratings for the messages on a given page using Ajax and apply the ratings after the page had rendered. Voting buttons are also rendered using Javascript so we have, in effect, completed a de-coupling of two systems that were too tightly coupled.
In doing this I had the opportunity to reqork things a little so I added a few options to the voting, 2 of which are to only allow up/down voting (we had this, but in a different form) and also to only allow up-voting.
We'll see how it goes and continue to season to taste.
Re: Ratings are back
Akinmade Bond20-Jan-13 8:38
Akinmade Bond 20-Jan-13 8:38
Glad they're back. I missed them for the same two exceptions you have.
The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is SILENCE, the second is LISTENING, the third MEMORY, the forth, PRACTICE and the fifth is TEACHING others!
H.Brydon20-Jan-13 8:54
H.Brydon 20-Jan-13 8:54
Let me be the first to +5 you for that.
DaveAuld20-Jan-13 8:59
DaveAuld 20-Jan-13 8:59
How about,
No votes, both grey.
majority up voted, dark green up, grey down.
majority down voted, dark red down. grey up.
Hover up vote to click, brighter green
Hover down vote to click, brighter red.
Find Me On: Web|Facebook|Twitter|LinkedIn
Folding Stats: Team CodeProject
Chris Maunder20-Jan-13 15:17
Chris Maunder 20-Jan-13 15:17
That would create a self-fulfilling prophesy. It would also be confusing since dimmed elements typically mean they are not in use.
But I like the concept.
SoMad20-Jan-13 10:29
SoMad 20-Jan-13 10:29
Since downvoting is not available in The Lounge and The Soapbox (and I support the decision to keep it out of both), how are you going to achieve that?
Those two forums are typically the ones that have poor discussions.
Soren Madsen
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly" - Jase #DuckDynasty
Post New Year. Another new feature!
OK, not really a feature, more of a refinement:
Our nav menu at the top of each page is now compatible with touch enabled tablets.
It's the small things, really...
New Year, New Feature
Chris Maunder2-Jan-13 2:45
Chris Maunder 2-Jan-13 2:45
I've added the ability to turn off email notifications for articles and forums. You already have the ability to set your defaults to not allow private email replies to your messages, but this extends this so that at any time you can turn email notifications on or off globally.
Re: New Year, New Feature
_Maxxx_16-Jan-13 18:06
_Maxxx_ 16-Jan-13 18:06
I can't find this option - and seem to have stopped receiving emails when comments are posted n my articles - can you point me in the right direction?
MVVM# - See how I did MVVM my way
Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011
.\\axxx
(That's an 'M')
Thomas Daniels20-Jan-13 5:10
Thomas Daniels 20-Jan-13 5:10
_Maxxx_ wrote:
I can't find this option
Go to "My Settings" -> "Newsletters & Emails".
In some cases, my signature will be longer than my message...
<em style="color:red"> <b>ProgramFOX</b></em>
ProgramFOX
The Ultimate Coder Challenge - Judging Week
Chris Maunder2-Oct-12 10:30
Chris Maunder 2-Oct-12 10:30
The final submissions are in for the Ultimate Coder Challenge.
Lee, John, George & Suresh, Sagar, Shailesh and Andreas have submitted their works, their creations, their results of endless sleepless nights and possibly a fair bit of cursing and we, the judges, have the task of picking the apps to pieces with a small pair of tweezers. Metaphorically.
The original task for the contestants is to "create apps that take full advantage of the performance advances, graphic excellence, touch and sensor technologies of the latest Ultrabook™ computers". That's fairly broad, and I would add that a critical component of the challenge is to showcase the Ultrabook.
The Ultrabook is a new device, the love-child of an ultra-light laptop and a tablet. The operating system of choice, and in fact the only one to currently take full advantage of the hardware is Windows 8, and Windows 8 fully reflects the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde nature of the unit. It's a laptop. Though if you ignore the keyboard and hold it awkwardly it's a tablet. Yet it's a PC. A fast, light, energy efficient, peripherally rich and accommodating computer that does everything you expect from a laptop, and oh so more.
To showcase an Ultrabook, then, one needs to showcase the operating system to allow the operating system to showcase the Ultrabook, and when I think of something being showcased I expect to see something unexpected, maybe contrived, but above all, something entertaining and possibly educational.
So I want to be entertained and educated by these applications. I want to run the applications and, from them, understand what an Ultrabook is.
LoveHearts is a social message game with a couple of games within the game. Lee went to extraordinary lengths to port his OpenGL based framework to DirectX, and succeeded, give or take having to downgrade a video driver. His application takes advantage of the touchscreen, light sensor, NFC, the compass and features such as notifications.
It's a technical marvel. It's a triumph of sheer bloody mindedness over common sense. It's a monument to perseverance. It is not, however, an application that makes any sense to me. You swipe the wrapper, you get a token, and a small piece of candy appears. You touch that (for wont of anything else to do) and it floats to the top of the screen. Touch an item at the top of the screen various actions can be taken such as sending a message, reading (and sending) jokes and poems, or playing a game. There is a bug in the app and sometimes, no matter what item up top I press, the train game appears which, after trying a dozen times and watching Lee's video, I still have no idea how to play. No matter what I do the train careens forward with a mind of its own.
The idea behind Shufflr is an interesting one. You are presented with a series of videos potentially of interest to you. The Ultrabook twist is that it would be touchscreen enabled and would use the tilt sensors to shuffle backwards and forwards between videos. Add to it the potential for transferring information via NFC, using the ambient light sensor to make it easier on the eyes, and maybe WiDi to throw the video onto your TV and you have a neat app.
In judging this application I came across several serious glitches: launching it would show the launch screen, then I'd be thrown back onto the Start screen. Launch again and it would tell me it was logging me in, and then I'm thrown out again. Rinse, repeat, and eventually after a few restarts I'm in. The first screen provides an overlay with the various gestures. This is incredibly important, and the #1 issue I have is that once you dismiss this screen you are unable to find it again. I was, frankly, lost trying to control the app. Shuffling the videos works fine, though pinch to zoom doesn't. Shaking works to reshuffle, but care must be taken when holding the Ultrabook on your lap because leaning even slightly will trigger a video swap. Too bad if you were enjoying the show. The two modes - DailyFix and Flipside - could be highlighted far more than they currently are. This, to me, is a failing of minimalist design: it took me a good half dozen uses of the app to realise that the " DailyFix FlipSide " words at the top left were actually links that, when clicked, changed the app mode.
One final niggle: when viewing the start screen, Shufflr displays video caps on the live tile. However, it doesn't brand the live tile with the Shufflr name so, among the dozens of tiles I have on my start screen, it's extremely difficult to spot the Shufflr tile.
BioIQ is a simple teaching game where you label the parts of, well, parts. A plant cell, the heart, eye and other internal gooey bits. It keeps its live tile updated but its primary nod to the Ultrabook is its touchscreen capability. For this app, that's really all that makes sense (unless they wanted to make it really hard and force you to slide the labels to the organs using tilt). It's an app that, when you use it, you don't even realise you're using a touchscreen laptop. That's not a bad thing.
Wind up football is an extremely simple, graphics heavy game with the rules "grab the ball, keep away from the mobs". Instructions are minimal, but as you play around you realise you can touch one of your team members on the screen, draw a line to that unit's destination and in a manner of speaking direct the play. However, the goal seems to be to avoid the other team while, at the same time, beating the daylights out of the other team by tapping on an icon when one of your units gets close enough. It uses touch, it uses the GPU, and uses the communications APIs to enable multiplayer action. It's extremely polished and solid, but the jury is still out for me as to whether this is the application that I would fire up first when showing off a new Ultrabook to a friend.
MoneyBags is an expense tracking application that focuses on being seriously productive rather than seriously fun. My initial experience with it was great - it's the only entry that's self packaged with an installer - but on activating the application with the supplied product key the application is stalled on the activation screen. Restarting got me past this, and then I was presented with a basic tour - always a nice touch.
The application takes advantage of the touchscreen, power states, GPU and the horsepower under the hood. Again, however, it's not an app that I would showcase as a prime example of what makes an ultrabook exciting. It does, however, have a trick up its sleeve: NFC communication so you can transfer transactions from your smartphone to the application. I am, however, one of the faceless mass of iPhone users who must put up with an NFC free device so I'm unable to test this capability.
A second issue that struck me was that, even though the application was touch screen enabled, it was most definitely not touch screen optimised. On the left hand side is a scrollable list of categories. There is a scrollbar, but one would expect that simply swiping on the list would scroll it. Unfortunately you need to touch and move the scrollbar which, on my screen, is about 2mm wide - significantly smaller than my big fat thumb. Scrolling often resulted in nothing happening, or worse, one of the categories being accidentally opened. Further touch issues were evident in the lower nav bar: the home and settings icons were way too small to be easily touched, and the other option labels, while bigger, were still on the uncomfortably small side. This is, unfortunately, an app better suited to a mouse than a touchscreen.
The language trainer, which I thought was a web-based HTML5 application, is in fact a Metro app written in HTML5. A standard PowerShell based install and a Start screen tile, and in you go. I chose the French lesson, since in Canada we're meant to be fluent in French and English, but evidently my French is not up to par with "rue" not being the correct translation of "street" and none of "siège, banc, or selle" being enough to satisfy "seat". You only get one try, and there are no hints, so it's a little frustrating to work out what it thinks the answer should be. The app uses touch screen input, but, as far as I can tell, no other Ultrabook features.
Judging finished this week and the points will be tallied and a winner announced. Good luck to all, and I take my hat of to all participants for dedicating their time and energy to entertaining us judges.
The Ultimate Coder Challenge - Week 6
Chris Maunder26-Sep-12 7:15
Chris Maunder 26-Sep-12 7:15
The final round of updates has come so it's time to see what the developers have produced. Actual judging starts this week and until I sit down with the score card I'll keep my comments light and breezy.
Lee is done and his app takes advantage of an extraordinary array of Ultrabook functionality. Messaging, movement sensors, location, light sensors, the webcam, multi touch, graphics (to an insane degree), parallel coding, communications as well as a nice foray into InApp purchases. This is a man possessed. This is a man who needs sleep.
George and Suresh have summed up their 6 week journey with a few demo's of their app. 6 weeks, day in, day out, and they are done, with the added benefit that they get to demo via recorded video, rather than the traditional live demo that worked 100 times during rehearsal and failed in front of a studio audience. They have also covered a great issue regarding packaging and distribution. The standard dev way of distributing a Metro, sorry, Windows Store, app is via an installer power by PowerShell. It's very, very clunky so improvements in this area get them brownie points. They too have hit the gamut of Ultrabook features, so testing will be fun.
Shailesh at Clef Software is likewise done and their app is currently going through the store verification process. Ah, gotta love red tape. Although, you gotta love apps that are certified to be virus and malware free, too.
John has wrapped up with a plea to us hard, unforgiving and downright cynical judges that it's all about the experience, and not about the technical excellence of the code. As a coder I'm immediately offended. Technical Excellence or Die! As a user, and as a coder who has 9 million other coders constantly, unrelentingly, passionately picking apart my application, I totally and utterly agree. The pursuit of technical excellence can lead to a truly awful solution, because devs often forget that users are an integral part of the requirements.
Sagar provides a brief discussion of their use of always-on / always-connected. Again we're hearing of driver issues, and again the guys, like others, have spelunked into territory angels fear to tread and done a little driver hacking. I live for the day that drivers are a thing of the past.
Andreas has posted his final post on his efforts to convert a HTML5 app to the new Windows 8 UI design. No code or sample apps for now, so full judging will have to wait until next week.
So no more contestant blogs, and one final round of judging to go.
Chris Maunder18-Sep-12 21:33
Chris Maunder 18-Sep-12 21:33
The ultimate coder challenge is winding down and the contestants have made their penultimate post. Were it me doing the coding I'd still be at the planning stage, but well and truly ready to pull 7 all-nighters to get the thing done by next week's deadline. The six contestants are, however, made of sterner, or at least more organised stuff than myself.
Last week was the Intel Developer Forum so no blogs to review. Contestants and judges were too busy running around exhibit halls and consuming whatever freebies were available to do anything serious, though from the sounds of it secret elves back at home base kept the cauldrons bubbling. Nothing like a bit of tag team development.
So on to the challengers:
Lee looks like his app is fully baked. Actually Lee himself looked pretty baked in some of his IDF trip photos.
George & Suresh also seem to be at a good point with their app and they have added what I'd consider a killer Ultrabook feature to their app: NFC exchange of transactions from mobile devices to their MoneyBags Ultrabook application. This is the essence of what the Ultrabook enables: a completely new way of interacting with the device. It's not a computer that sits on your desk to do spreadsheets. It's a seamless part of your day and you interact with it in ways not possible with other devices. Well done, guys.
Shailesh discuss their experience in submitting their (desktop) app to the Intel AppUp store. One of the great features here is the in-App Unlocking API which enables unlocking additional game levels within an app. It's great to know these things are baked into the core.
John has waxed lyrical about what Ultrabooks mean. It seems like the week at IDF has enabled the contestants to understand completely the vision of Greg Welch, the father of the Ultrabook. Again, it's about providing an application that understands the context of the user. Where are they? How bright is it? Are they moving? What devices are near them? How is the user touching the device, and is he, as my hope has always been, about to try and kick the Ultrabook between a set of uprights on the footy field?
Sagar discuss their addition of GPS sensor info and multi touch. It's icing on the cake time for them.
Andreas discusses some touch additions to his app. He's using click events, but I can't help but wonder if touch and drag events would be more appropriate in this case. A click is an up/down event pair, whereas when you interact with a screen using touch it's often a down/hold/drag sequence. There are endless possibilities here but I guess I'll have to wait until next week.
They are close. They all seem pretty wrecked and/or extremely excited and wound up after IDF. Who can blame them.
One point I should make is that the units the developers, and us judges, are using are prototypes. They will never appear on a store shelf and are not what you would consider fully polished. Driver issues have been the biggest hurdle, as well as small issues between the versions of Windows 8 installed. Our units came with a version slightly earlier than the version available now, so the slight OS differences have also added to the excitement. This is truly living on the bleeding edge, but it's a very comfortable, well crafted, with a really nice rubbery cover on the top bleeding edge. We really don't do bleeding edges like we used to.
Chris Maunder4-Sep-12 17:25
Chris Maunder 4-Sep-12 17:25
We're past hump week, if such a thing were actually possible in this challenge[^], and we're starting to see the applications come to life. Overall the contestants' apps are coming together and they guys are focusing more on showcasing the Ultrabook and Windows 8 API than merely grinding out the framework code for their application. The contest has gone from "how am I going to get this done" to "how can I make it rock their socks?", and has expanded to more philosophical and design discussions on the nature of the Ultrabook and what it means for user interaction.
Lee is powering ahead. As a reminder he is working on an application that combines social messaging with random pot-luck. His OpenGL-to-DirectX 11 translation engine is working. He has NFC happening (after a little device foreplay - really, too much information) as well as a bunch of other Ultrabook specific support that is truly keeping with the spirit of showing off the Ultrabook hardware and Windows 8 API. Check out his videos if you like a little time-lapse craziness.
George and Suresh at Blue innovations look like they're close to being done with their MoneyBags 2.0. They are, methodically, working through their list of Ultrabook features they wish to support (I think it''s all of them, at last check) and have gone as far as to provide an eBook detailing their progress and their earned wisdom. Grab yourself a copy of A Simple Guide to Ultrabook Development. An important UI issue these lads have discussed is ease of use of the touchscreen. Grab a tablet or iPad and think about how easy it is to reach various parts of the screen. On a 3.5" screen it's all accessible. On a 7" the centre bits take a little wiggling. On a 13" touchscreen laptop there are definitely parts of a screen that are easier to hit than others and an application's design should take this into account. Their use of hidden menus, though, would draw a serious, horizontal-brow'd frown from Jakob Nielson. Don't make your application an adventure game. It should all be obvious.
Shailesh has discussed something none of the others have: Windows 8 app certification requirements. Sure, a little boring, but kinda critical. They made huge progress on this front, raising their app's overall assessment from "Critical issues found" to "undefined". No news is good news.
John and Gavin are also in a great personal space. They are feature complete. Complete with bugs and with optimisations to be done, but complete. They mirror comments made by others that hover is dead. Anyone who's written an app or a website optimised for touch knows that you don't have a mouse or cursor. Unless you insist on stylus based devices, you crazy cat, you. Touchscreens may, in future, have the ability to detect your finger from a centimetre away and provide hover events, but for the moment it's binary: you're touching or you're not.
Sagar loves a little drama and did what any red blooded developer would do when given a pre-release piece of hardware running a pre-release OS with pre-release drivers: he tried upgrading to RTM bits. You can picture how that went. Regardless, their Shufflr video sampler application is fully bean-bag enabled using the inclination and accelerometers. Quick tilt-and-back to flip to the next video. Tilt-and-hold to scan through a video. Very nice.
Andrea is continuing to work on his language trainer. It's coming along, but as I've said in previous posts: I'd like to see something that more fully showcases the Ultrabook. At the very least a discussion on the ins-and-outs of developing touch screen UIs for web applications would be valuable.
Overall, we're close. The Intel Developer Forum is next week so contestants will have a week off to booze, I mean, discuss strategy with peers in informal round-tables, so there will be a break in the regular scheduling.
Initially I thought my vote for the top app was sewn up early. However, as we see how the contestant think, and how they approach the application development process, I'm now torn in 3 different directions. Pushing the boundary hard and far always gets point from me, but sitting down and methodically working through the issues to produce an app that makes sense, rather than on;y being a showcase, shows a deeper commitment to me.
We only have two more weeks for each to finalise their offerings. This will be interesting.
The Ultimate Code Challenge - Week 3.
Chris Maunder28-Aug-12 14:42
Chris Maunder 28-Aug-12 14:42
The Ultimate Coder challenge continues and it looks like the contestants are getting down and dirty. To add to the spice I now have in my hot little hands a prototype next-gen Ultrabook loaded with Windows 8 with which to test actual applications. The unit is a pre-production test unit, so it will never actually be on the market, nor is it meant to be a perfectly polished example of the genre. The fact that they provided the sort of power cable you'd find on power tools, and the lid is rubberised so that (a) you can get a good grip on the thing, and (b) it probably bounces when dropped, speaks volumes about the kind of torture to which they are expecting it to be subject. It makes me want to look at them with big, wide, innocent eyes and reassure them that I won't break it. I promise.
I am deliberately not investigating the new Ultrabook features on the demo unit. In fact I'm deliberately not even trying to find out which features it has because I want the contestants, through their apps, to teach me. I want to discover the features, and I want to be amazed. I am, however, re-familiarising myself with windows 8 and The Design Formerly Known As Metro (DFNAM) UI. I'll say outright I'm not a fan of the schizophrenic Desktop/The DFNAM UI split personality.
As a reminder: central to this quest is requirement that contestants "create apps that take full advantage of the performance advances, graphic excellence, touch and sensor technologies of the latest Ultrabook™ computers". This is a competition and while an awesome application that blows me away gets points, only an application that takes full advantage of the unique abilities of an Ultrabook running Windows 8 will win. Showcase the platform, not your application, and prepare to get out of your comfort zone.
As has been a theme, Lee is tromping through with steel shod boots where angels fear to tread. The man is crazy, and I dig that about him. If you are looking to develop Windows 8 applications, follow Lee's blog. He's starting from basics - commenting out windows.h, building (and failing to have success with) static libraries, multi-core development, sensors, DirectX 11 and everything that comes with that.
George and Suresh are continuing with their MoneyBag rewrite. They have progressed to the point where a preview is available, but the download requires registration and no registration email made its way to my inbox. So, as much as I'd love to comment on what they've done hands on, I can't. However, they have continued to provide extensive details on how they are progressing and the challenges they are facing, and have provided a checklist of Ultrabook features they are targeting. Not all Ultrabook features centre around sensors and jet-packs. These guys are focusing on the subtler things such as instant on, touchscreens and Smart Connect.
Shailesh has hit a roadblock. They want to use SQLite, they have read it works with Windows 8, they have the JavaScript library...but it's busted. They have retreated, licked their wounds, and have gone with the recommended approach of using Local Storage. Time will tell.
John at Soma games are discussing what they are using more than how they are supporting Ultrabooks. In particular they posted that they will be using the Unity 3D 4.0 engine - which is an interesting gamble since it hasn't been released yet. While it's great that the Unity 3D 4.0 engine will support the DFNAM UI, I would like to have heard more on how this ties in with their application really showcasing the Ultrabook experience. They demoed touchscreen, DFNAM support means it plays nice with Windows 8, and Unity 3D should push the GPU hard, but I'm hoping there will be some other sensor or power management or notification based component of the game that makes you think "this is a great game on a PC, but it's killer on a Ultrabook".
Sagar have hit another seemingly unnecessary roadblock: ambient light sensor support need the DFNAM. They are also having NFC sensor issues on their Ultrabook, which just continues their run of bad luck. Part of the challenge in this competition is that it's being run on pre-production hardware and so driver support may be immature. I know I ran into a wall trying to get a new touchpad driver, so I'm hoping their contacts at Microsoft and Intel will come through with the goods. At least the accelerometer is working for them.
Andreas is plugging away at his language training app. Since he's chosen to use HTML, issues with building libraries, using native code, and all the fun with sensors is a non-issue. Although, that's a double-edged sword since it limits his ability to really show off what an ultrabook can do.
We'll see what everyone has up there sleeve next week.