Alien Armageddon

This was a fun task to try out.

Version 1

Version 1 is an implementation that is expecting a full map ie.

  Foo north=Bar west=Baz south=Qu-ux
  Bar south=Foo west=Bee
  Bee east=Bar
  Qu-ux north=Foo

It is using the approach that the alien moves himself from city to city. When a city is destroyed it destroys all the other aliens inhabiting the city.

Running the Game

  npm install
  npm run version1

• 1st Prompt: You will be prompted to enter the file path of the data you would like to create a map out of.
• 2nd Prompt: You will be asked how many aliens you would like to unleash on the map.
• The program will run and you will see output based on the destruction and movement.
• Once finished you will see the out put of the cities still standing.

To run the tests:

npm run test-version1

Don't forget to npm install if you have not already.

Version 2

Version 2 is a partial map implementation ie.

  Foo north=Bar west=Baz south=Qu-ux
  Bar south=Foo west=Bee

It is using the approach that the alien is not aware of its location but the cities move them to other cities. All aliens make a move then the city checks if it has greater than two aliens it destroys itself and all the inhabitants.

This version is more minimal as I am not using an NPM module to facilitate any beautification of the terminal.

The approach of running the game for version2 is different:

cd version2
cat <test_data_file_path> | node index.js alien=<alien_amount>

OR

cat <test_data_file_path> | npm run version2 alien=<alien_amount>

Replace the data inside <___> to your preferred data

To run the tests:

npm run test-version2

Don't forget to npm install if you have not already.

Map Generator

The map generator generates test_data to be used for the games.

• Version 1: You need to comment out line 175 and uncomment 138.
• Version 2: You need to comment out line 138 and uncomment 175.
  • To generate a Map:

  node mapGenerator.js <square_root amount_of_cities> 
  

  • please be aware that amount_of_cities will be amount_of_cities squared ie. why <square_root amount_of_cities>

Assumptions Made

• Cities and the directions are always strings.
• Alien count will be an int.
• If an alien is stuck, it dies and does not keep trying to move.

Upgrades

• nodejs 11.7 shipped with worker_threads, without --experimental,
  • setup using worker_threads
  • test and benchmark against non worker_thread versions
• Write version3 in go to benchmark the differences.
• Create a benchmark table.

eslint turn offs:

• Turned off [no-console] because this program is written for the terminal.