I thought I'd write this blog to document my travels from awful coder to slightly less awful coder. As I am quite far down my path of coding, there will be no real sense of time involved here. It will be a mish mash of whatever comes into my head, most of it probably not about coding.
Image Credit: pctools.com
Pictured: Hardly discussed
Bros Can Fuck Off
When I first started coding again after a ten year lay off, it felt kind of like that time I forgot to wank for three weeks. It was over really quickly. I went onto codeacademy and started going through their javascript tutorials. After about a week I found a C# game programming course for free on Coursera and discovered that most of the Unity videos were in C#. Obviously at this point, I forgot my codeacademy login and jumped headfirst into C#.
I learned how to print my name to the screen, I learned how to input a name and print that out. I learned a lot of text manipulation and the like. I felt stupid. I was competent when I coded in the distant past, I knew what recursion and iteration meant without having to google them. I knew when to use a for loop and when to use a while loop. I knew that infinite loops sucked.
It was then that I was reminded of that really shit Bros song.
I learned how to print my name to the screen, I learned how to input a name and print that out. I learned a lot of text manipulation and the like. I felt stupid. I was competent when I coded in the distant past, I knew what recursion and iteration meant without having to google them. I knew when to use a for loop and when to use a while loop. I knew that infinite loops sucked.
It was then that I was reminded of that really shit Bros song.
The call and response nature to this perfect example of what is wrong with the general populace. Here is a song, which sounds like it was expelled from the anus of Pete Waterman, much like the cavalcade of shit that he actually had a hand in during the 80s and 90s, extolling the virtues of living your life purely to be famous, for 15 minutes as it happened, and people ignoring this ridiculous irony buy it and give what look like the twins of Billy Idol and George Michael their 15 minutes. It is the call and response that reminded me though. “When will I, will I be famous?” they warble with all the technical precision of a newborn crow expressing it's hunger, “I can't answer that, I can't answer that” they reply. That is what reminds me of it.
Pushing On
I'm right in the middle of making a dungeon crawler RPG type thing. You're placed in a maze and you have to get out. It's text based though. I wanted to do it like that because I wanted to get the mechanic of the computer using coordinates to record where the player is. I use a Boolean multi dimensional array to store whether there is a wall on a square or a floor tile. I'm sure that is not the right way or the best way to do it, but it is a way and it is what I am using this time. Some advice I was given a little while back in relation to feeling like you're making no progress, was to remake old projects. When you see how much more efficiently you can do them, using new skills you have picked up, and how much more detailed you can make them, you will see that you are making progress. That is what I am doing with this project. It started off as just moving a man around a 10x10 grid. Now there are random battles and a maze, although you can walk through the walls currently. It's like being a ghost. A shit ghost you can't see, but gives you notes telling you that he is there and describing the surrounding area.
Image Credit: rebloggy.com
OOooOOooOOHH! Also, there's a table with an open book on it.
Call Back
"I can't answer that". That was the line that resonated with me. Because I had been saying to myself, 'when will I be good enough?' and that was what my own personal answer was. I will probably never be good enough, because I judge myself on completed projects and every time I complete one, I am much better by the end of it and think what I have just made is shit. Ergo, I am shit and need to get better. I'm cool with that though, it means I keep pushing forward.
Image Credit: virginmedia.com
What the fuck even were these ...blokes?
Check out my first program
You can probably work out what it does. Fuck all useful is the answer. But for those that can't, it asks you to input a number and then prints to the screen the relevant message. Just finding it out and looking at it makes me cringe. I wouldn't do it that way now, I would use a Switch statement. Which would probably make better coders than me cringe, but hey, that's the way it goes.
Join me next week when I discuss why I love StackOverflow, why camel casing makes me laugh and why Kylie Minogue is a soul eater.
Join me next week when I discuss why I love StackOverflow, why camel casing makes me laugh and why Kylie Minogue is a soul eater.
By The Cunt
Email The Cunt
A hidden face of the crew, The Cunt is main coder for the Foul Entertainment Gaming department. He is currently documenting the progress of our game, Foul Fantasy, in his dev blogs.
Email The Cunt
A hidden face of the crew, The Cunt is main coder for the Foul Entertainment Gaming department. He is currently documenting the progress of our game, Foul Fantasy, in his dev blogs.