Simulating the card game: War

[kkeith29]

I recently applied for a PHP programming job and they required me to do a coding challenge. One of the challenges involved simulating the card game war which I found intriguing. I "over-engineered" it as they requested, but I still don't think it was good enough for them. Is there anything I could have done better?

A live example is here: http://dev.lifeboatcreative.com/war/index.php

The rules this game is based off are found here: http://www.pagat.com/war/war.html

Source files are attached.

[diafol]

the lifeboat link goes to a blank page

[kkeith29]

I tested the link before posting and it worked. Still does for me....

[diafol]

Works now! May have been my system.

Ok, has a cursory look at the code. Seems OK - all OOPed.
However - I would have challeneged them with regard to PHP and told them it was a JS solution that would have been more appropriate. :(
For PHP post, I doubt whether they'd worry too much about the front end - but that's the only thing that I'd have maybe tweaked. How long did this take you to write? Were you under 'Hugh Jackman in Swordfish'-like conditions? :) Did they give you any feedback at all?

//EDIT
Like I said, the frontend - CSS: maybe use a single image sprite as opposed to individual images for all cards. Maybe some JS animations as the wars are a little abrupt.

[kkeith29]

Javascript would have been better suited for this, I agree, but it was a php challenge.

The front-end was thrown together pretty fast. I wanted to have an elaborate javascript based card animation, but that would have taken too long. A sprite for the cards was in the works, but it would have taken forever to finish creating the image and then coding all the positions into a css file, so I gave up.

They said it should take 2-4 hours, which I found was not possible for me. Maybe I just work slow, but it took 8-10 hours to complete.

They didn't give me any feedback. I was hoping for some either way, but they never responded.

[diafol]

I really sympathise KK - I couldn't have produced anything that worked that well in 8-10 hours. 2-4 hours suggest that they were looking for soemthing REALLY simple. perhaps, as you mentioned, you over-engineered it - I noticed the template system. Seems you threw the kitchen sink at it - maybe this was the reason? Dunno. Either way - thanks for sharing the code - should be really useful for the rest of us plebs!

[masterdeveloper]

Hello, I'm looking at your code and noticed it's not really up to PHP 5 standards and that's probably why they didn't choose you?

[pritaeas]

it's not really up to PHP 5 standards

Care to elaborate?

[masterdeveloper]

Nevermind. Started really looking into it and saw he did all that. Why wouldn't they hire you? Maybe it was overtkill.