My professional focus is on client-side development. For a recent project, I re-learned some substantial Java concepts and completed server-side coding.

During the project, I was surprised to find there is no native java event messaging (event dispatching and event listening). While some UI frameworks have a solution, the solution appears to be coupled to those frameworks.

So I created a custom Java solution to handle it. The system uses common Observer pattern and modeled it after the spirit of what is present in ActionScript 3.0. I used abstraction and interfaces so its fairly decoupled and flexible. Take a look.

Usage

public EventsDemo()
{

	// CREATE
	SampleEventDispatcher s = new SampleEventDispatcher();

	// LISTEN
	s.addEventListener(Event.EVENT_NAME, 		this, "_onEvent1");

	//TEST 'HAS'
	/*
	if (s.hasEventListener(Event.EVENT_NAME, this, "_onEvent1") ){

		//TEST 'REMOVE'
		s.removeEventListener(Event.EVENT_NAME, this, "_onEvent1");
	}
	*/

	// TEST A DISPATCH OF EVENT (IN A FAKE, TEMPORARY WAY)
	s.doDispatchTestEvent(new Event	(Event.EVENT_NAME, this));

}

public void _onEvent1 (Event aEvent)
{
	System.out.println ("	_onEvent1(): " + aEvent + " , " + aEvent.getType() + ", " + aEvent.getTarget()  );
}

It rocks!

Next Steps

• Download the code and check it out! (See Member Resources)
• Comment below with your thoughts.

Member Resources

Las Viditas (The Little Lifes) is an exploration project which compares ActionScript 3.0 programming concepts and structure to the 7 criteria for biological life.

You can see the Live Online Demo. I originally presented this project on a fantastic 360|Flex sponsored 7-Day cruise in the Caribbean several years back. What a great event! Finally, its all available now online..

I always find it fascinating to compare the technical world and the biological world. There is even an area of technological innovation where engineers study animals to influence new robotics designs. Here is a great Ted.com video of Robert Full Learning From Gecko Lizards. In my simple demo I learned a lot too, and am inspired with many game ideas too.

See Screenshot

The ecosystem on the right is the “petri dish” where the green viditas grow and move. There intelligence guides them to eat the blue ‘food’ and bounce off the walls. As they eat, they grow. As they starve, they shrink. Too much time without food, and they will permanently die.

Experiment with the settings and see how the population’s survival rate changes.

The sliders on the left allow for several changes such as;

• Simulation Speed
• Viditas Population Size
• Food regeneration frequency
• Food amount that is created each distribution

Watch Slideshow

Next Steps

• Run the Live Online Demo.
• Download the full source code (See ‘Member Resources’ below).

Member Resources