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I went through this on my own back in a HS programming class! Glad to see it here. While the teacher was walking students through how to do loops, I got permis

by snoonan 13y ago

I went through this on my own back in a HS programming class! Glad to see it here. While the teacher was walking students through how to do loops, I got permission to hack away in the back of the room on this. I ended up building a BASIC-like interpreter with a decent graphics API. By the end of the class, my project was a multi-level breakout game I'd written in the interpreter I'd written. TLDR; two years later, I talked to a girl.

angersock 13y ago
Hah, well done on both counts!
Bradenski 13y ago
How long did it take you to get through it?
- snoonan 13y ago
  Well, it was about 20 years ago and I was a self taught programmer pre-Internet days. I actually downloaded it from a BBS and had no outside references to work with. I spent probably 30 minutes 2 or 3 times a week for a couple of months. Most of that was probably adding features to my interpreter and coding the game itself. I recall it being extremely clear to me, even without any sort of formal CS. Even things like working with the stack and recursion were clear to me at the time.
simcop2387 13y ago
You're lucky, I was doing the same things in middle school. Took me until college for that last part... :) That same game project I started then still has been going on since then, multiple compilers and VMs written to do parts of the game. It's ended up an incredibly complex monstrosity with procedurally generated worlds and randomly altered scripts (some actions just won't be available on some play-throughs).
- xerophtye 13y ago
  Is the game (or its code) online somewhere? :P
  - simcop2387 13y ago
    Not yet, there's been many incarnation, but none of them ever reached a playable state. I've been on a kick to restart it lately after starting to learn prolog. I've been playing with some pre-made engines to find out if any of them can accelerate the whole thing a bit. Checking out Unity right now.
jason_slack 13y ago
congrats. This has been on my list to read and experiment with. I was hoping my 15-year old could get into this as well.
- pekk 13y ago
  No pressure though ;)

by snoonan 13y ago

angersock 13y ago

Hah, well done on both counts!

Bradenski 13y ago

How long did it take you to get through it?

snoonan 13y ago
Well, it was about 20 years ago and I was a self taught programmer pre-Internet days. I actually downloaded it from a BBS and had no outside references to work with. I spent probably 30 minutes 2 or 3 times a week for a couple of months. Most of that was probably adding features to my interpreter and coding the game itself. I recall it being extremely clear to me, even without any sort of formal CS. Even things like working with the stack and recursion were clear to me at the time.

simcop2387 13y ago

You're lucky, I was doing the same things in middle school. Took me until college for that last part... :) That same game project I started then still has been going on since then, multiple compilers and VMs written to do parts of the game. It's ended up an incredibly complex monstrosity with procedurally generated worlds and randomly altered scripts (some actions just won't be available on some play-throughs).

xerophtye 13y ago
Is the game (or its code) online somewhere? :P
- simcop2387 13y ago
  Not yet, there's been many incarnation, but none of them ever reached a playable state. I've been on a kick to restart it lately after starting to learn prolog. I've been playing with some pre-made engines to find out if any of them can accelerate the whole thing a bit. Checking out Unity right now.

jason_slack 13y ago

congrats. This has been on my list to read and experiment with. I was hoping my 15-year old could get into this as well.

pekk 13y ago
No pressure though ;)