Slashdot Mirror

Here's one you're missing: the OHRRPGCE, an open-source RPG engine good for creating SNES-style 2D games.

      --- Mr. DOS

My Dad was/is a programmer, and I always wanted to make games. I started trying when I was 11, trying to use engines and toolkits like rpgtoolkit , 'Custom' and a few others. There's a big list here: http://www.ambrosine.com/resource.html

The problem was, they couldn't do exactly what I wanted, so I was always trying to use their little scripting languages for things they were never intended for. I always thought programming would be too hard though, and maybe it would have been at that time. I don't know. But when I was 13 or 14, I did learn C++, my first language. Basically, I just learned it from a big book my dad has. First I went part of the way through 'Instant C++ Programming' by Ian Wilks, and then I sopped learning for a while, and came back using 'The Waite Group's C++ Primer Plus' by Paul Snaith. C++ Primer Plus is a much better book, because it's newer, and teaches OOP better and stuff, but Instant C++ Programming might have been better for starting. For example, the C++ Primer Plus didn't even teach about if statements until the 5th chapter! So I was using 'while' loops, not to loop through stuff, but in place of if statements, because I wanted to use conditional stuff. But anyway, that's how I learned - just using the book, and trying to make games. I wanted (want) to make a big RPG. So, I started off with a VERY simple text based game, where if you pressed 'm' then 'Enter', it attacked in melee, 'M' and 'Enter' attacked with magic, and 'b' and 'Enter' attacked with a bow. You got experience for using each of those, and different stats went up or down depending on which you used most. I was /very/ ready for graphics by this time, even though I didn't even know about C++ classes yet, so I started using allegro. I began by simply using it to output text in a full screen environment, and enjoying being able to do stuff with single key presses. I then drew my own font to use for tiles, and then dropped that and began work on a space shooter game with my older brother. He still does most of the graphics and planning for our games, while I do all of the programming. We actually almost completed the engine for that game, but before we did, we moved back to what we /really/ wanted to make - a role playing game. I was able to start it knowing much more about both C++ and allegro because of the previous things. And that's where I am now. So far I've written about 13,000 lines of code on it. Unfortunately, now all my time is spent doing web development with my other older brother. All the C++ definitely helps me to learn anything new. I think it's definitely still my favorite though. ...and I'm only eighteen...

I guess in short, I was inspired to program because I wanted to make games, and I didn't want to be limited by using toolkits.

I have long thought of programming as art. Not just game programming, which I do as a hobby, but also to a certain extent the business/database programming that I do in my day job.

Of course, I have had a hard time rationalizing this out loud or explaining it to anyone. When I sit down and write a object-oriented wrapper to procedural database commands, or write my own login/session-key code, I *feel* the same way I do when I am doin art-- Art is a big part of my life. I write and draw and sculpt all the time. Everything I truly enjoy doing is art... except programming. Why then does it feel like art when I am doing it?

Most people define art in terms of art-appreciation. Nobody ever looks at or admires the scripts I write on the company mail server. So for the longest time I rejected the idea of actually calling programming art.

But lately I have been getting a better appreciation of minimalism. I used to hate abstract art, and minimalist art, until I actually started to do a little bit of it. To the non-artist, art is in the appreciation, but to the artist, art is in the creation. Recently, a teacher of mine, Jay Mccafferty was telling me about his favoured field of art, "Process Art". If you follow the link, you will see a couple of examples of his work-- he freely admits that they don't look like much, and that if you didn't frame them and put them up in a gallery, nobody but him would know they were art, but that isn't the point. The point is the process of creation. He spends a lot of time on his art, and puts a lot of thought and emotion into them. Most of this is invisible to the causal observer. "Artistic Entropy" if you will; lost data. But the end result is still kinda pretty, isn't it? I think so anyway.

So I applied that concept to the idea of programming-as-art, and it really fit well. Nobody at work who uses my inventory control web-app is going to see any of the parts of code that I am really proud of. Things that took me days of hard work are going to flicker into their browser in a few seconds-- But that isn't the important part to me. The part that matters to me, as the programmer/artist was the process of writing it. The experience.

Or something like that ;)

I have long thought of programming as art. Not just game programming, which I do as a hobby, but also to a certain extent the business/database programming that I do in my day job.

Of course, I have had a hard time rationalizing this out loud or explaining it to anyone. When I sit down and write a object-oriented wrapper to procedural database commands, or write my own login/session-key code, I *feel* the same way I do when I am doin art-- Art is a big part of my life. I write and draw and sculpt all the time. Everything I truly enjoy doing is art... except programming. Why then does it feel like art when I am doing it?

Most people define art in terms of art-appreciation. Nobody ever looks at or admires the scripts I write on the company mail server. So for the longest time I rejected the idea of actually calling programming art.

But lately I have been getting a better appreciation of minimalism. I used to hate abstract art, and minimalist art, until I actually started to do a little bit of it. To the non-artist, art is in the appreciation, but to the artist, art is in the creation. Recently, a teacher of mine, Jay Mccafferty was telling me about his favoured field of art, "Process Art". If you follow the link, you will see a couple of examples of his work-- he freely admits that they don't look like much, and that if you didn't frame them and put them up in a gallery, nobody but him would know they were art, but that isn't the point. The point is the process of creation. He spends a lot of time on his art, and puts a lot of thought and emotion into them. Most of this is invisible to the causal observer. "Artistic Entropy" if you will; lost data. But the end result is still kinda pretty, isn't it? I think so anyway.

So I applied that concept to the idea of programming-as-art, and it really fit well. Nobody at work who uses my inventory control web-app is going to see any of the parts of code that I am really proud of. Things that took me days of hard work are going to flicker into their browser in a few seconds-- But that isn't the important part to me. The part that matters to me, as the programmer/artist was the process of writing it. The experience.

Or something like that ;)

I've heard that Crusoe processors tend to do well on relatively compact computing tasks, like CPU-heavy numerical analysis in which a relatively small bit of code is run repeatedly-- a bit that's small enough to fit into the instruction translation cache. One interesting thing that I've noticed is that, compared to most applications, OpenOffice seems to run quite nicely on my P1120. Perhaps that's because the JVM (or its most frequently used subset) is small enough to stay in the translation cache? I'm just guessing, here... more informed insight is welcome.

The extended battery really does last almost 9 hours if you're not using WiFi-- e.g., on a flight. I still had 48% battery remaining after constant use on a 5-hour Orlando-to-LA flight last summer. My WiFi use is mostly at home, and it's still decent-- though I haven't tried to measure it. (Interestingly enough, the biggest battery hog seems to be the tiny DLink USB Bluetooth adapter that I use to sync my cell phone!)

On the other hand, I effectively lose some of my performance on airplanes, due to everyone around me saying, "What the heck is that thing? Aww, how cute..." Then they realize that their Dell laptop's extended battery is almost as big as my whole rig. :-)

FWIW, my P1120 doesn't appear to have a fan or a vent. And I can actually place it on my lap for a while; it gets warm, but not too hot.

Obligatory Linux content: I haven't tried loading Linux on it yet, because as far as I can tell, there is no available touch screen calibration utility. (The screen itself reportedly shows up as a generic USB pointing device.) Anyone know of a solution for this?

While not actually a tablet PC, I think the Fujitsu lifebook would be just the thing for you. I have been delighted with mine. It is very small, has excellent battery life, uses a Transmeta Crusoe processor, and runs linux like a charm

Yes, it can run Linux