Mozilla Webdev “Beer and Tell”, April 26, 2013

So what’s a Beer and Tell?

A Beer and Tell is an event web developers at Mozilla hold every third Friday of the month. We share emotional and uplifting stories about projects we’re hacking on to the group. Usually open source projects. Likely with a reasonable license. Today your Beer and Tell post is written by Edna Piranha of Noodle Industries fame.

Last Friday, we experienced the following dramatic and exciting worlds:

  • Michael Kelly’s text-based adventures in JavaScript!
  • Absent Erik Rose’s clickable traceback stack frames in Python!
  • James Long’s scalable cloth simulation in LLJS/asm.js!
  • Chris Van’s “because my original project name was taken on Github” project GltHub!
  • Edna Piranha’s (that’s me!) interactive fiction game engine thing!
  • Matt Basta’s graphicsBC!

Text-based adventures in JavaScript

Reporting from hills surrounding a Martian colony, Michael Kelly shares his latest project – an ode to the time when we were young children (or possibly still unborn) – text-based adventure games in JavaScript. You can play a demo, as long as you promise to avoid viewing the source and cheating.

Text adventures in JavaScript

Text adventures in JavaScript

Clickable traceback stack frames in Python

While we weren’t looking, Erik Rose’s body was replaced by Mike Cooper and he presented in Erik’s voice about nose-progressive. You can click your stack frames to open your editor – view a demo or call your local representative!

Scalable cloth simulation in LLJS/asm.js

Like a hawk from the night sky, James Long swooshes into the Mountain View office through a wormhole and opens his high-performance laptop. He presses the space bar and an open source browser opens with a cloth simulation. He plays Gary Wright’s “Dreamweaver” while we are slowly possessed by the silky smooth cloth simulation. You too, can be possessed by the dance of the cloth.

cloth simulation

cloth simulation

GltHub (a.k.a. because my original project name was taken)

Chris Van takes us on a spaceship to Jupiter and tells us about GltHub, a site that reminds you of the guilt you should feel for not closing bugs fast enough. If you want to contribute more guilt, check out the rocket engine that made this.

GltHub

GltHub

General Store

Edna Piranha (wait, I’m talking about myself in the third person – weird) presents an interactive fiction game engine called General Store that causes post-post-post modern, post-deconstructed encounters with the fourth kind – absurdist fiction. Also known as Lovecraft meets Kafka. Do not attempt to adjust your television, just click around and breathe slowly.

General Store

General Store

graphicsBC

We finally land back on planet Earth and sit comfortably in a circle around a campfire. With a flashlight under his chin pointing upwards and him staring straight at us, Matt Basta talks about graphicsBC, a microscript for code golfers and hobbyists to create graphics. Suddenly, Tofumatt shows up in a flying motorcycle and throws his helmet into the fire.

And that’s it for now! See you again next month.