I'm a working game developer and I totally agree with Brad (CEO of Stardock) about how to deal with piracy. I sort of cheat by dealing with MMO's, but the basic principle is the same: Who gives a shit how many users you have? Our job as game developers is to make money (and also feel fulfilled artistically, they're not incompatible), so we need to focus on paying customers. Pirates are just a force of nature, and we need to manage them correctly (that thing that Titan Quest did where it crashed for pirates is just plain idiotic) instead of fighting a self-destructive war against them. It's kind of like fighting a guerrilla war in the mideast: there's no way to win.
As someone that as considered a child prodigy myself, I'd say don't emphasize the technical stuff more than you have to, if they're a real prodigy, they'll find it on their own easily enough:P Expose him to music, literature, etc. I used to be a person obsessed with computers, now I'm obsessed with computers AND music, and am better for it. In other words, try to widen him, not narrow him towards some hot technical field that will leave him vulnerable to society.
Right now I'm working temporarily for IBM, and some of their internal policies reveal that they haven't gotten around to embracing gpled stuff fully. Specifically, I am not allowed to download any gpled code in source form if I am doing development, but of course this is because of the fact that we are working on commercial products, and IBM's source is still one of it's primary assets. On a positive note, though, IBM's alphaworks division has donated lots of useful code to the community, specifically the xml.apache.org project. Also, IBM has promised a new policy real soon now on gpled code, so IBM may in the future really embrace it, but of course, I'm not high up, so I don't know:P
Microworlds project builder (microworlds.com) is how I learned programming when I was betweent he ages of 11 and 13. My school had an excellent computer teacher, and she used this software extensively, albeit on macs. It might be slightly expensive, but it's logo, incredibly improved. I don't know if it's the best possible solution, but I loved it in middle school, and it led me into my current knowledge of Perl, c++, etc. It also has a free porject viewer if they want to share them with their friends. It is very complete and logical, but I remember it being slow. might have been our old m68k macs, though. Great at teaching algorithms.
In your article, you imply that because linux was not featured as prominently in E3 as it was in GDC, it implies that linux is losing support. However, you miss the point that GDC and E3 are vastly different events. First, games at gdc are much ealier in the development cycle than games at E3, so as the surge in linux games is relatively recent, you can't assume that linux games will have already gone through enough of their dev cycle to be featured at E3, a marketing conference. E3 is to sell games, not to make them, and they don't really care what it's written for as much as about big breasted models:P Anyway, just remember that the porudcts at gdc will likely show up at next years E3, or will be released with little fanfare and marketing dollars, but enough to justify their existence.
As a person who is currently working on a version of sourceforge adapted for a free website service (code will be released as soon as the site is operable), I know how annoying sourceforge's policy can be. For example, when I started the project, I figured that the sourceforge tarball would have all the parts of the sourceforge site. However, I was wrong. It doesn't include the very important cronjobs that handle things like user addition, account creation, cvs setup, etc, the very things I needed the most:P Argh. Anyway, I had to add a field to the database and am writing my own cronjobs. Meanwhile, I'm spending about twice as much time as I thought I would when I started this project, and getting paid the same (basically a street perforrmer's protocol system). So, sourceforge, please do a COMPLETE release next time.
Although it may not have the most professional website, I've found joker.com to be extremely profficient, AND extremely cheap. Even though it's based in Germany, they accepted my credit card fine. However, the best thing is the variable registration time AND the great prices. They offer from 1 year up to 10 year registration times, and at a price of about $16 per year. It's a great value. I've had my domain with them for 6 months, and haven't had any problems. No insecure email or stupid extras, either. They also offer name servers(at $6 a year) if you need them. They offer the same or better ability to change information than the usual, too. Overall, I found joker.com much easier to work with AND half the price of newtork solutions:P I hope Network Solutions has some alternate form of profit, they suck at domain registration. I recommend joker.com to anybody who wants a domain.
Now, this sounds like a GREAT idea in theory. But consider what would happen if something was wrong, or if somebody creates a hacked version. With graphics, all it can do is give you a minor headache, but imagine the pain a misused effect could be? I seriously hope that the manufactureres put severe limits on the strenggth of the pulse, or they'll be looking at a whole stack of lawsuits.
Maybe people don't know it even exists, but I LOVE lpe. http://cdsmith.twu.net/lpe/ It's like joe or pico, but I think it has better keyboard commands, and best of all it, has syntax highlighting for java, c, perl, c++ and html. So, lpe is all I ever use for my ediitng purposes. It combines the syntax highlighting of things like vim with an even easier to use interface than joe or pico. I suggest you all check it out(especially you debian maintainers, I want a deb of it!)
Well, I'm a member of a community that branched off from zzt, based on a zzt-like program called megazeux(which I'd link to if a good site existed). Anyway, one of my fellow members(kevin vance, who I thnk goes by kvance here)is currently working on a gl reimplementation of zzt, and it's really weird:P http://www.linuxstart.com/~kvance/evil.j pg and http://www.linuxstart.com/~kvance/evil2.jpg show some intruiging screenshots. Anyway, this looks like it may be the thing for you, and there is a port of megazeux for linux coming(eventually) in the future. Hope this whets your zzt in linux appetite. Also, zzt.org is a good source of zzt information if anybody cares.
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I'm a working game developer and I totally agree with Brad (CEO of Stardock) about how to deal with piracy. I sort of cheat by dealing with MMO's, but the basic principle is the same: Who gives a shit how many users you have? Our job as game developers is to make money (and also feel fulfilled artistically, they're not incompatible), so we need to focus on paying customers. Pirates are just a force of nature, and we need to manage them correctly (that thing that Titan Quest did where it crashed for pirates is just plain idiotic) instead of fighting a self-destructive war against them. It's kind of like fighting a guerrilla war in the mideast: there's no way to win.
Further ramblings are available on my blog at http://doublebuffered.com/2008/03/20/piracy-customers-and-making-money/.
As someone that as considered a child prodigy myself, I'd say don't emphasize the technical stuff more than you have to, if they're a real prodigy, they'll find it on their own easily enough :P Expose him to music, literature, etc. I used to be a person obsessed with computers, now I'm obsessed with computers AND music, and am better for it. In other words, try to widen him, not narrow him towards some hot technical field that will leave him vulnerable to society.
Right now I'm working temporarily for IBM, and some of their internal policies reveal that they haven't gotten around to embracing gpled stuff fully. Specifically, I am not allowed to download any gpled code in source form if I am doing development, but of course this is because of the fact that we are working on commercial products, and IBM's source is still one of it's primary assets. On a positive note, though, IBM's alphaworks division has donated lots of useful code to the community, specifically the xml.apache.org project. Also, IBM has promised a new policy real soon now on gpled code, so IBM may in the future really embrace it, but of course, I'm not high up, so I don't know :P
Microworlds project builder (microworlds.com) is how I learned programming when I was betweent he ages of 11 and 13. My school had an excellent computer teacher, and she used this software extensively, albeit on macs. It might be slightly expensive, but it's logo, incredibly improved. I don't know if it's the best possible solution, but I loved it in middle school, and it led me into my current knowledge of Perl, c++, etc. It also has a free porject viewer if they want to share them with their friends. It is very complete and logical, but I remember it being slow. might have been our old m68k macs, though. Great at teaching algorithms.
In your article, you imply that because linux was not featured as prominently in E3 as it was in GDC, it implies that linux is losing support. However, you miss the point that GDC and E3 are vastly different events. First, games at gdc are much ealier in the development cycle than games at E3, so as the surge in linux games is relatively recent, you can't assume that linux games will have already gone through enough of their dev cycle to be featured at E3, a marketing conference. E3 is to sell games, not to make them, and they don't really care what it's written for as much as about big breasted models :P Anyway, just remember that the porudcts at gdc will likely show up at next years E3, or will be released with little fanfare and marketing dollars, but enough to justify their existence.
I don't really have a problem with not including the cronjobs, I just wish you guys had a list of what was IN the tarball :P Oh well, not a big deal.
As a person who is currently working on a version of sourceforge adapted for a free website service (code will be released as soon as the site is operable), I know how annoying sourceforge's policy can be. For example, when I started the project, I figured that the sourceforge tarball would have all the parts of the sourceforge site. However, I was wrong. It doesn't include the very important cronjobs that handle things like user addition, account creation, cvs setup, etc, the very things I needed the most :P Argh. Anyway, I had to add a field to the database and am writing my own cronjobs. Meanwhile, I'm spending about twice as much time as I thought I would when I started this project, and getting paid the same (basically a street perforrmer's protocol system). So, sourceforge, please do a COMPLETE release next time.
Although it may not have the most professional website, I've found joker.com to be extremely profficient, AND extremely cheap. Even though it's based in Germany, they accepted my credit card fine. However, the best thing is the variable registration time AND the great prices. They offer from 1 year up to 10 year registration times, and at a price of about $16 per year. It's a great value. I've had my domain with them for 6 months, and haven't had any problems. No insecure email or stupid extras, either. They also offer name servers(at $6 a year) if you need them. They offer the same or better ability to change information than the usual, too. Overall, I found joker.com much easier to work with AND half the price of newtork solutions :P I hope Network Solutions has some alternate form of profit, they suck at domain registration. I recommend joker.com to anybody who wants a domain.
Now, this sounds like a GREAT idea in theory. But consider what would happen if something was wrong, or if somebody creates a hacked version. With graphics, all it can do is give you a minor headache, but imagine the pain a misused effect could be? I seriously hope that the manufactureres put severe limits on the strenggth of the pulse, or they'll be looking at a whole stack of lawsuits.
Maybe people don't know it even exists, but I LOVE lpe. http://cdsmith.twu.net/lpe/ It's like joe or pico, but I think it has better keyboard commands, and best of all it, has syntax highlighting for java, c, perl, c++ and html. So, lpe is all I ever use for my ediitng purposes. It combines the syntax highlighting of things like vim with an even easier to use interface than joe or pico. I suggest you all check it out(especially you debian maintainers, I want a deb of it!)
Well, I'm a member of a community that branched off from zzt, based on a zzt-like program called megazeux(which I'd link to if a good site existed). Anyway, one of my fellow members(kevin vance, who I thnk goes by kvance here)is currently working on a gl reimplementation of zzt, and it's really weird :P http://www.linuxstart.com/~kvance/evil.j pg and http://www.linuxstart.com/~kvance/evil2 .jpg show some intruiging screenshots. Anyway, this looks like it may be the thing for you, and there is a port of megazeux for linux coming(eventually) in the future. Hope this whets your zzt in linux appetite. Also, zzt.org is a good source of zzt information if anybody cares.