Plans?

I've been doing some more thinking and there are some things I would like to do.

What I realize is that the goal cannot be to complete the project, the project has to be part of some goal. I don't have that goal, and I need it/them. 

When I figure that out, I'll be able to move forward.

I am thinking I have things I still want to do, mud wise; and I'd like to join the spring rts project. I've also been considering a web based rts. something small, but that would be fun and quick. It would show off my abilities, and look great on my resume. i It would  also be very personally rewarding.

I have to do further thinking about this.

Lost Opportunities

This is a personal post.

I started Animud back in 1995, it's 2009. Over that time I worked on many games and projects (I've made a list), most of which never saw 50% completion. I look back and know that I was always trying to get approval and positive feed back from others.

The mud gave me an audience, a group of friends, and I spent considerable time trying to create things to impress them. I took them for granted, the same way I was taking my real life relationships for granted.

With them gone, I haven't had much direction. The mud being empty has left me pretty empty. With nobody to impress, I don't have the drive to create anything. I'm lost, looking for something to be passionate about. I haven't been coding outside of work, and I haven't brought myself to complete any other projects.

I feel a need inside for short term gratification, because I spent prototyping games, showing off the prototype, and moving on. In addition, I know that I don't enjoy working on things alone - without Scott working with me, I lack drive and commitment. 

Video games have been out of the picture - I find no desire to play them, create them or be involved in them. My attempts to play WoW, Warhammer and Starcraft result in little to no success. Although it is good not to become addicted to these things, I am unable to commit to them to the point of getting to enjoy them. I can't keep myself on any one thing for any length of time.

I feel empty because of all of this, and I spent whole days sitting around doing nothing or watching videos/browsing the web.

What do I do with myself? How do I fill this hole? Is there something out there for me?

My Computer Has Died.

I bought a Asus EEE Pc 900a, and finally got Ubuntu running on it. Just before I did, my normal computer died (cpu/mobo).

I don't know when I'll be able to afford a replacement. Until then I'm kind of in a decision and planning phase (well, still am). During which I'm trying to build a set of equipment (eee pc, prs-505, T-Mobile G1, iPod and sling bag). I still need to aquire the bg and the iPod ($ problem).

I have finished jsBreakout.

I have finished jsBreakout, a simple breakout clone written in javascript/jquery. You can play it here, and I didn't obfuscate the source at all. I also posted it to reddit.

It doesn't work in IE 6, but that doesn't really bother me.

I'm happy to have finished a project, and a game - as small as it is.

I did not write this, I took it from a comment on Reddit.

Make yourself do it every day (with occasional days off; sometimes you have to let your brain chemistry balance itself out), have several projects to switch between when you get burned out, and don't program when you should be sleeping.

That's the easy stuff. Here's the real secret:

You know that feeling when your brain hurts because something is "too hard to implement" and/or there's "too much drudgery" to get through? Overcoming that is probably the most important part of becoming a strong programmer.

Many martial arts involve a kind of conditioning which basically involves getting the crap kicked out of you, generally known as "iron body". This is partially for pain tolerance, but the name "iron body" is apt, because it also causes small chips and fractures in the bones, which heal to make the bones stronger and denser.

It is a simple fact with programming that at one point or another, most problems worth solving will hurt your head to think about. It may be the expanse of implementation details you can imagine stretching to the horizon, the abstractness of the problem, the difficulty of wrapping your mind around a particular equation, etc.

You have a choice: reject this idea, and waste a lot of time trying to find the perfect project which will be all fun all the time. You will become frustrated as you give up on every project you start. Or you can accept this simple fact and train yourself to have "iron mind":

1. Tolerate a little mind pain and work through it. It will be unpleasant, but you should get over it pretty quickly. You can do fun/easy parts too, but try to get an hour or two of unpleasantness in every day.
   


2. 
   GOTO 1.
   

Two main things will happen. The first is that you will learn to deal with mental strain so that it doesn't bother you so much. The second is that you will learn how to divide up and fit problems into your mind so that they don't hurt to think about. The latter part is, I think, really key, because it is not merely a coping mechanism, but a problem solving skill. As time goes on, the definition of "unpleasant" will change; so long as you keep making yourself work through whatever "unpleasant" means, you will keep growing.

At least, this is how it has been for me.

Also: caffeine. Oh, and water. Caffeine without enough water will just make you feel shitty. If you drink tea, you're guaranteed to get enough water. Stay away from caffeine pills.

SDL on Windows.

So I got SDL setup with codeblocks on Windows. It only took a few minutes, and I begin reworking through the sdl tutorials I was working through under Ubuntu. For a small project I can try to get something that can be checked out of SVN and built under Windows and Ubuntu.

With all my work on automating builds, I wonder how you go about automating a dual O/S build. How are tests handled? I would think you would have a main-line build machine (or virtual) for each O/S you plan to distribute for. I may investigate this further at a later time.

Ogre 3D and Code::Blocks

I installed code::blocks on Windows allong with Mingw. I then installed Ogre 3d sdk and tried to get the examples to compile. I'm getting a strange include error that I haven't been able to find any information on. I'm stopping with Ogre for now. I am interested in updating my ubuntu install of code::blocks to the latest release now.

I'm going to try and get some SDL examples compiling on windows & ubuntu. I've been reading "Physics for Game Programmers" and working through things. I haven't been making much time for this though. Neither have I been able to play games much. 

I will report back my luck with SDL and the Physics progress.