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The presents are running away!!!

December 13, 2011

It’s kind of ridiculous how the holidays sneak up on you. I realized today that even though I have most of my holiday shopping done, most of my holiday projects are far from done. This means that on top of getting all the work related items I need to get done finished, I also have a fair amount of textile craftery to do.

Robey and I have started to run a mile everyday. It’s fantastic. We usually use it as a midday break. After working about 4 hours in the morning we go and run, take a shower, and then get back to work for a while. I really like it. Getting out running while it’s sunny out, and as it’s Oregon at the very least we’re getting outside. Luckily we haven’t had any issues with running in the rain, only the cold.

Working slowly on my game. Today I was supposed to talk about how creating a pause function is really annoying more difficult than it should be, but that will have to wait for tomorrow. Also, to note, it is now officially 12 days till Christmas. 12 days. Time......to......freak.....out.

Mood and productivity

December 12, 2011

Sometimes I find it amazing just how much mood can affect productivity. Earlier this morning the sun was shining brightly through the window, and warming my back. The rays were so stark they enforced my backbone and encouraged a good dose of healthy productivity. Once the sun left, however, all I could think about was curling up on the couch and staying warm, crocheting and enjoying some chai.

Your mood can affect you, but the moods of others heavily affect you too. The sun may be shining brightly, and your eyes may be all aglow, but if some social interaction sets you off you may start noticing how cold it is outside sooner rather than later. Then you scrunch your eyes and huddle your shoulders together as you try to stay warm, and slowly you start to stress.

Then there is the ever present hunger issues. When someone gets hungry they get grumpy, and life gets more difficult. So, remembering to eat at the right times, staying out in the sunshine, finding a way not to let others affect you through it all, when all you do is stress about becoming stressed when do you actually have time to do the work?

I know, I know, I’m not trying to just complain here, just noting the things that I feel I fight EVERY DAY. Yes, they’re simple things, but when you’re interacting very closely with one other person, and the health of that relationship is what makes the bigger difference in your business, then it’s stuff you pay serious attention to. You want to make sure that both of you are fed, correctly and well. You make sure that you don’t affect their mood, or they yours. You also make sure to have your sleeping schedule set up just right or else each day will be just that much harder.

If these things are difficult to maintain, is there a change you can make to improve things? Or is simply hacking away at one thing after the other as much as you can until the glacier starts receding?

Up Next Time: Why does creating a pause effect in Javascipt seem so difficult?

How I learned to crochet and what it means about my programming

December 09, 2011

When you are teaching yourself to do something, without much structured help, it can make learning sometimes difficult. However, the cool thing about starting to get good at something is when you see it start to come together. Like with crocheting, or other such material endeavours, it can be fairly obvious where your abilities lay. In the beginning...well....it can look really crappy.

For example:

When you’re learning to program you can be disorganized and leave lots of holes in your code. My crochet projects were just as riddled with empty spots and incomplete rows as my first pieces of code were. Then, after time (a period of two years), I learned to crochet complete lines, with even spacing, and they looked much better.

Like with all things awesome, time must pass and hard work must be executed consistently for an increase in ability to occur. Nothing comes easy, but it is sure worth your time to keep trying.

Necessary sacrifices

December 08, 2011

I read a blog post from Seth Godin earlier today. It was about how making the dream happen involved sacrifices. It involves sacrifices even as simple as getting up in the morning when you’re still tired. It involves realizing that you might make the mistake, and owning up to it not only helps you grow but makes your chances that much better at making your dream happen.

So what happened to me last night? I stayed up late reading a good book. Not only that but I went to see the new ‘Muppet’ movie and then went to a local restaurant with some friends afterwards to chat. I’m tired this morning.

I’m more tired than normal. One of my most difficult challenges is simply waking up in the morning. If I don’t wake up before 9:30am I always feel guilty. I don’t seem to have overarching passion that makes me wake up. Then I have this small seed of guilt hiding inside me all day, preventing me from being as productive.

Having watched the ‘Muppet’ movie I was reminded of one of my heroes, Jim Henson. That man made sacrifices all the time. Sacrifices to make creation his life, and he created his dream that lives within so many of us. After being reminded of one of my heroes I couldn’t get out of my head was how much I wanted to create something that would wow people. Something that would make them stop and look and think, something that would make them realize how much I was capable of.

You see, that last part, that is the problem. I think that’s part of why I can’t get up in the morning. I’m doing this sheerly for a self-worth boost. I want to create something amazing not only to make money, but to prove to my peers that I’m impressive. Right now I’m going it for myself and myself alone. If I fail I’m only letting myself down.

For Jim Henson he was doing it for the children. He was doing it for the adults. He was hoping to spread a message and he did so. He had a passion. I have a passion to satisfy my own self worth.

Without a passion that surpasses myself, what am I to do? Can passion develop? Can I find a part of myself that finds satisfaction from my work so much so that I wake up early each morning? Is simply creating games to become a better programmer and web developer enough?

Having my own game to work on has definitely increased my excitement towards my work. I have a product that I feel seriously involved in. A product that I can either make, or break, by my passion. But I still have issues getting up in the morning. I always preferred sleeping in later, but feeling like I am constantly being judged by others because I wake up at 10am each morning always nags me. No, our business isn’t incredibly successful. Yes, we’re still working on making it work. Yes, I got up at 10am this morning. I guess I’m just never serious enough.

But the funny thing is...sometimes I work until midnight. Sometimes I start to get passionate, but am interrupted because the rest of the world is on a different schedule than I am. Then to stay focused I start cutting things out, which then makes me a bit grumpy because I need to be social. So what is the compromise? So many programmers and successful web developers/programmers are known to be somewhat socially disinclined. They hole up to keep their passion fueled and to keep working. Do I change to be more like these programmers? Do I stay in and become a ghost in the night? Is that how I make this work?

Up Next Time: How I learned to crochet and what it means about my programming.

Additional jQuery learning

December 06, 2011

Working on my math game this evening. Had already done a fair amount of translation, but it’s becoming a low key enough activity that I can go back to programming with a semi-energetic brain. Which...is always a good thing.

My current project is adding a menu bar to the game. On top of figuring out what it looks like and how I want to organize it, I also have to learn how to use more jQuery functions and make sure that it goes away if necessary. Then there is the whole, making sure that it re-sizes as necessary on the screen, so it stays in place correctly.

Tomorrow I get started on allowing a person to pick and choose problem types. This upcoming weekend we have a weekend project where we’ll be porting a bunch of games. In all actuality it will mostly be Robey this time, and I’ll be working on my game some more.

Til tomorrow!

Interesting notes about programming humor

December 05, 2011

One thing I’ve learned about programming is that those who are in it tell jokes in sarcastic ways that most other people can’t understand. Much of it comes from the knowledge behind it, like many jokes of that nature. The really humorous thing is that I’m starting to get the jokes.

There was a joke that I found on stackoverflow (a site for programmers asking questions of other programmers) via reddit. The gist of the ‘joke’ was that someone was asking how to do something fairly simple with basic programming/javascript understanding, and the first suggestion was to use jQuery, which had over 3000 something up-votes. The humorous thing about this is that the problem was so simple that by suggesting for the person to go use a library like jQuery just to solve his problem was seriously overboard. He could have done the same by simply understanding even basic if and while statements, and javascript for that matter.

Had I not already learned basic stuff with javascript from writing my game, I don’t think I would have realized just how really ridiculous it all was.

A new problem I've discovered....dreaming about programming

December 02, 2011

When I first started learning German I was in high school. I only took about two years, and honestly I wasn’t an amazingly devoted student. Then my junior year I traveled to Germany and lived there for a year as an exchange student. My inability to speak was frighteningly apparent, and I quickly started to cram as much vocabulary into my brain as possible. This, accompanied with tutoring from my math teacher at the Gymnasium (because she couldn’t speak any English (only Russian), and I couldn’t understand her mathematics class well enough for her taste), meant I learnt and I learnt fast. At 4 months I could carry on a decent conversation, albeit a limited one. I remember going to an event hosted by my exchange program where I held a presentation about American Christmas traditions as I knew them. At that point I was the only exchange student in our local group who could converse well enough for a large group to really understand.

That is about the same time I started dreaming in German. Mostly it was unintelligible, but I knew it was German and NOT English. It seems that I’m slowly getting there with programming. By that I mean, I start to fall asleep and I can think about is how to make additions to my game, how to make what I want to have happen. I’m starting to ‘daydream’ about programming, and the passion’s hit me hard.

I hear it’s a common malady for many programmers. It’s the constant feedback you get from making a change and being able to immediately see it on the screen. It’s painfully addictive. I remember the first few times I was able to program something on my own and make it work. It made me giddy in a very silly way (and I’m already quite silly, so it soon digressed in to beaker-like squeals). Yet I still have other demands on my time, things that must be done. How am I to find time to satisfy my urges? What happens if my urges don’t pay the bills (this the most horrifying of questions)?

Another day draws to a close and I want to go find a late night coffee shop and order a white mocha and get started on additions to my game. But I have to keep a schedule, and besides I’m already tired. Plus the cats just won’t shut up. Time for bed.

Up Next Time: Interesting notes about programming humor

Now that I’m busy producing HTML games, when will I have time for python?

December 01, 2011

That’s a very good question, because it almost feels like all the other things on my Todo list keeps getting longer. I think by February I might have things together a bit more so I can actually focus on just learning python and creating games/writing for the blog. Much of what is on my todo list hasn’t been done, as half the time I’m realizing more of what I need to do while I’m doing it. Like creating a pallette directory for our webpages/games. If I were more experienced I might have done them before publishing, once they games/sites were created. Not so for newbie me. Here is my lovely Todo list.

Fix website bugs I just found (oh joys)
Start working on Blog revamp to be more in-line with our main image
Create images for the Kickstarter Betwixt logo/icon
Collecting needed information from Kickstarter Backers to mail items
Start ordering items for backers
Mail items to backers
Create a pallette directory for all our sites
All the additions I want to do for my new game (not going to list here, it’s too long)

This list is obviously not including all the normal daily things like business bank account interactions, site-traffic monitoring, updating of facebook/twitter regarding business type activities, responding to emails, and so forth. I’ve got the feeling that until I get the Kickstarter stuffs out of the way, and my blog revamp I won’t really have time to work on python programming. This makes me a very sad person. I’m going to try, but my apologies if I don’t post things about MIT python learning for a while. Instead I guess you’ll hear me yammering on about FlamingLunchbox this, and pythonliving that, and shamelessly plugging ‘oh my just check out this cool thing, no seriously click here’

Up Next Time: A new problem I’ve discovered....dreaming about programming

I'm done? But there's more work to do!

November 30, 2011

So my game is out. It’s exciting, and I’m a little drained. I still have a lot I want to do, but I figure from here it will be a bit slower going. I have to work some more on translation type things, and also work on other important work aspects.

Fairly awesome though, I had my nephew try it out tonight, and he seemed to like it. He gave me some suggestions for it, but they will take a while to implement. I will let you know when some of them are in the works/ready to publish.

I have this massive list on my board of all the things I want to do for my game. There are so many things and they are mostly certainly more complicated than what I’ve already learned. I guess the only thing I can do after I ‘finish’ (probably will never feel truly finished), is to start up my Tower Defense game I’ve been dreaming of. A game that I will play for hours and hours, one which convinces me to stay up til 4am playing (ah the days of my youth with Warcraft 3 TD). Anyways, back to work I go.

Up Next Time: Now that I’m busy producing HTML games, when will I have time for python?

Science Fiction Tower Power

November 29, 2011

My game is now complete, in it’s initial phase! Woo programming excitement! I’m super excited to share my recent creation (with much help from Robey), called Science Fiction Tower Power (for now). I hope people enjoy it, and make sure to let me know of any bugs/problems they find as they check it out.

As I’ve mentioned before the game was originally meant to provide my nieces and nephews a more entertaining way to practice basic math skills. Game creation was especially prompted when I learned how memorization of simple addition/subtraction/multiplication is no longer required in the local schools. My nephew is always provided a calculator and a multiplication table for all of his math tests. He’s in 6th grade. Doesn’t this seem wrong? At least it does to me. I remember memorizing the combinations during elementary school and I feel it’s made my life much easier in the long run. Heck I’m even excited to try this game out so that I can work on them again, because I’m not as quick as I used to be.

We originally meant this to be a weekend project when it was going to be mostly programmed by Robey, but we quickly decided to shove some javascript into my brain by making this little exercise mine. Thus a weekend project turned into a week project (let’s be honest, week and a half), mainly produced by pythonliving. I’m excited to continue to develop my project, and if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them. I’ve mentioned some updates I want to make in a previous entry, but here are a couple just to wet your Holiday taste-buds with:

A Basic Tutorial, so it’s easier to get the hang of
Multiple ships per row, to make it more thrilling, and
Statistics, so you know how well you’re doing.

Thanks for all the support, and I hope everyone enjoys the game!

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