Ah, click-bait. Where would the web be without you?

But, actually, there is some truth to this one.

I’m putting the current version of CypherPoker to bed. The ActionScript one, that is.

You see, I think I lost some traction by choosing ActionScript. There’s another language that runs in most modern browsers with no plugins and appears to be far more popular: JavaScript (or ECMAScript for the picky).

I hope I’ve never denigrated JavaScript but to say that until now I’ve held it out as a second option would be fair.

For a while there it would be like stepping back in time from ActionScript 3.0 to JavaScript whatever. The languages are not that far apart but ActionScript still had those desirable features that old JS didn’t.

But that was then and now and modern JavaScript has some really useful features over ActionScript. I also don’t see good things on the horizon for plugins in browsers and bulky runtimes on the desktop / mobile, and that’s primarily where ActionScript is stuck.

Adobe’s last few updates have been mostly depressing security fixes and not much new pizzazz. Although the Flash/AIR API at one time had an exciting growth, the language has seen no changes in over 5 years.

I have to read the coffee grounds here.

So I’m putting an indefinite halt on the ActionScript version of CypherPoker and reworking it in modern JavaScript: CypherPoker.JS

If the JavaScript is too modern then there are other options.

CypherPoker.JS runs in the browser (including most newer mobile devices) with no additional plugins and on the desktop as a Node.js or native Electron app.

I’m keeping the design much simpler and the architectural philosophy more focused this time around. From the ground up, the game only has a handful of internal struts and these are interchangeable.

The middle is where all the good stuff happens.

Inside, it works nearly identically to the original CypherPoker (CypherPoker.AS?), but because browsers and Node.js work a little differently than Flash and AIR there are some necessary differences.

I’ll be going briefly over each of these sections in the next parts of the series.

At some point I’d also like to relate some of what I’ve learned over the past months building a Bitcoin-based project not unlike one I’d done earlier — regarding cryptocurrency support and such; and tinkering with Neural Networks — regarding poker bots and such.

The CypherPoker.JS GitHub repository is as ready as it’ll ever be and the new design will work its way in eventually. I’ll keep the subreddit going but I haven’t decided if I’m going to keep using Slack or not.

Next time: The Communication Interface and WebSocket Sessions