NetsBlox Services

Services

• Services represent different capabilities that the user can "opt in for."
• These include:
  • RPC's (maybe called "Helpers")
  • Message Types
  • Project Count
  • Purposes (formerly called "Game Types")
• Services are used like multiple inheritance (or like mixins in Javascript) allowing a single project to have a multiple services

Service Types

RPCs

• RPCs (remote procedure calls) provide
  • Assistance for students by performing trickier tasks
  • Access to external functionality not otherwise available
    • Google Maps API
    • Earthquakes API
• Imported like Snap! libraries

Message Types

• Provide structure to the communication between NetsBlox projects
• Example:

Message Type Rules

• Message types can have associated rules about their use
• For example, a TicTacToe message type may have rules about when it can be sent. That is, it may need to wait until all other players have sent a TicTacToe message

Project Count

• Project count specifies the number of projects that can received messages from one another
  • Similar to chat rooms
• Every project has an associated project count
  • Initial project count is infinite (a single global room)

Purposes

• Purposes provide information about the intention or goal of the project (eg, TicTacToe, Weather, etc)
• A purpose may also include the following to achieve their task
  • Project Count (required)
  • Message types
  • RPC's
• Every project has exactly one purpose
  • Added to a "General" purpose on creation
  • New purposes can be created by the user
• Projects can only communicate with others with the same purpose

Conflicts

Conflicts

• The only things that conflict are purposes and project counts
  • Except for the "General" purpose
• However, services (eg, message types) specified by the purpose cannot be removed unless the purpose is changed