Below is a blog I posted back in January of this year, before I started using WordPress for my blog. I think I’ve improved a lot since then…
So, what I didn’t mention in my last blog is that I’m recently laid off. Hopefully it’s only temporarily. It’s what I’m told by the higher ups at work anyway. Even when an employer says a lay off is not permanent, it’s never for sure, so what do you do?
You can’t just hang out for weeks putting craters in the couch ’till your ass turns flat! Or at least I can’t. So the last few days I’ve pretty much looked like the guy in the above picture – courtesy of goolge – overwhelmed by the idea of having to make decisions that could drastically change your life.
The idea of a new job is always scary. It could mean moving to a new city, it always means meeting new people and you never know if you’ll like the new company untill you’re already stuck workig for them.
To make my life even more stressful, I’ve decided to apply to collage at 25 years old. Well, 25 this March. Either way I believe that the only way I’m ever going to attain the skills and knowledge needed in the software industry is through a formal education, even if it’s a financial struggle for the next few years. Self teaching just has too many set backs. Programming needs to be a bigger part of my day if I’m ever to truly succeed. So my lay-off is just a catalyst.
Now is the time for some seriously big decisions, but also huge oppertunities. If I get approved for the loans I need to go to collage, I’ll be learning far more far faster then could ever be possible while trying to juggle a non-related job, family, friends and my personal studies!
I’ll be sharing everything I learn from my schooling, as well as any side projects I tackle.
So enough of all this personal crap for now. I said in the last blog that the focus would be on programming and sharing what I’ve learned. I don’t know where the best place is to start, but since these blogs are not really tutorials (I might decide to do some in the future) I guess I’ll just start with my current projects.
Recently while I’ve been applying to collages I’ve also started learning how to build websites. I know it seems odd that somone who’s been programming for 3+ years has never attempted to build a website… but better late then never!
So I’ve been learning html, css, and javascript. As well as playing with the processing.js library for making games. My first project is to make a pong clone that runs in a web browser using processing.js. You can play the current version here. Yes it’s very sketchy right now, but it’s not a bad start. We have 2 paddles – 1 controlled by the player, and 1 controlled by a very simple AI fucntion. There is actually a score too, so it’s almost a real game. Although some versions of pong actually had no score and no true end condition, It’s hard to call this a game if you can’t actually lose.
So that’s my next goal is to set score limit to the game with a win/lose condition, instead of just playing till your eyes bleed. Which thinking of goals, I ment to post a link to the source code on the website. I’ll do that now. Done.
There’s a lot I have to do in a day. Funny how being off work, doesn’t really give you any extra time. It’s really just a time when all the work that got put off and put on the “tommorow list” catches up to you. With all the running around I’ve been doing trying to chip down the list, I actually havn’t had a ton of time to sit and code. But as soon as I make progress with our pong clone I’ll post the update! Cheers for now.
~Dan