[gameprogrammer] Re: Welcome new members!
- From: "Harrington, Timothy" <tharrington@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2010 18:11:18 +0000
Vince, there is a great story of lessons learned in this "novel" of yours -
would you mind if I shared it with students. I'd of course change your name to
protect your innocence! I'm often asked to talk to high school and early level
college students about pursuing programming, and programming for game and
simulation especially. Your story really tells the reality of the pursuit best.
Thanks in advance,
Tim Harrington, Ed.Dc.
National Assistant Dean
College of Engineering and Information Science
DeVry University
-----Original Message-----
From: gameprogrammer-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:gameprogrammer-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Vince
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2010 9:32 AM
To: gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gameprogrammer] Re: Welcome new members!
Hello everyone.
I keep seeing these welcome posts and thinking I'll comment and then I put it
off. Lately I've been in a sort of programming doldrums so I figure now is a
good time to stop lurking and attempt to participate.
I joined the list many years ago when I was first tinkering with C and SDL.
I've always been a self-taught sort of hobbyist, but through myriad low-wage
tech slave jobs in my youth, I've managed to build up enough knowledge and
experience that I'm now comfortably employed as an IT manager and programmer
for a manufacturing company that takes good care of me.
Over the years I've pumped out production tracking and reporting software,
inventory systems (if you're a 92Y in the U.S. Army you might have even used
one!), more web related crap than I care to think about, and various other
mundane business applications that have minor interesting parts, but are
generally mind-numbing. It pays the bills and I'm happy with it overall.
I play a lot of games and I've tried to write quite a few of my own over the
years. What usually happens there is that I build some very pleasing proofs of
concept and quit. Every failed attempt is educational and I'm often surprised
at how many concepts I learn in game development are directly applicable to my
day job.
I've managed to complete some games, but they're pretty simple really, just a
tower defense thing and a fairly challenging lander game.
I favor 3D games and I've tested out height map terrain generation,
ray-triangle collision, some bullet physics demos, and a number of other common
3D related concepts. They're all just proofs of concept though, lacking any
kind of form or organization.
Lately I'm not doing much of anything though. Life keeps us all busy and it's
difficult to immerse yourself in one sort of code all day and then get home and
have the motivation to do it all over again for one of your own projects, but
for more than a decade I've managed to do just that. The sloppy and poorly
documented transition from fixed function opengl to the programmable pipeline
has been discouraging (writing anything that doesn't run on the big 3 OS' is
pretty much out of the question for me, so no directx). I've gotten better at
keeping my ideas realistic for a single developer, but ultimately I find myself
having issues with design.
I grew up with a Commodore Vic20 and my first _real_ language was pascal. I am
uncomfortable in strict object oriented environments and I have a hard time
finding the sort of documentation I need, which is essentially theory and best
practices.
My instinct is to just knuckle down and work it all out, but as I get older and
more involved with life in general, I find myself wishing I had a teacher I
could talk to about concerning these rudimentary concepts that I've failed to
pick up over time.
This is a project I took on last year for a contest.
http://midian.homelinux.net:8080/aoh.zip
Over the course of development I learned a lot about C++, which can make parts
of the source a little confusing as I might apply a concept in one place but
not another. I reached a point where I felt like I could complete it, but I
wouldn't be happy with the code or organization when I was done. I was also
getting burned out so I just filed it away and figured I'd come back to it at
some point and try a rewrite.
I know this list encapsulates a lot of talent, so I guess I'm asking if anyone
has the time to critique that monstrosity of mine and give me some advice.
That is a large and ambiguous request and I'm not quite sure how to narrow it
down. I guess I'd like to try a rewrite, but in collaboration with someone who
knows what they're doing and can answer questions about design and technique.
Sorry for the novel, and thanks for reading.
Vince~
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