I don't want to sound like a broken record, so thankfully this post avoids that. I've been working on cleaning up the back-end PHP code for OttoJotts so I can create a basic web interface that will exercise the two-player game. One of the concerns at this stage is that I'm going to spend too much time on the iOS front end and less on the actual game play. By working on the back-end I'm focusing my attention on the actual play. This also has the benefit of being the basis for a web interface for other things.
I've almost completed moving all of the actual working code into functions that can be called from either the iOS-supporting PHP code or from an HTML page directly. Given my (relatively) intermediate skills in web development, I'm hoping I can get something written up without killing myself to provide access. Some things, like creating an account and such, I'll pass on as that will require some effort. Rather, I'll just do that manually for now and then later work on getting something coded up that's pretty and usable.
Overall I'm pretty happy with how things have been going. I know that there's an added security benefit to what I'm doing, which is definitely a good thing. PHP has had a reputation for being somewhat "security lax" but there are things that you can do to harden it. Part of this work is doing that hardening.
So, things are progressing even if not visibly. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get this hammered out in the next few days and then I can work on the web interface. Then I'll be able to test the two player game code and, if everything's working well, be good to go. This does make me wonder, though, whether I should just do a web interface iOS app for the two player game and get the single player game out there. So do an OttoJotts solitaire version now-ish, get the web version working and then write a web UI wrapper app for the two-player game since I'm finding the two versions are radically different. Need to think this one over a little bit...
Until next time...
