Hello, Steemians. It's me, the programming newb and aspiring nerd, KafkA.
This week I began codeacademy.com's Introduction to Java and continued studying and messing around on MIT's Scratch programming platform. I also made a new game today, somewhat AnCap (Anarcho-Capitalist) inspired, for my course at coursera.org. Well...truth be told, I made it mostly for kicks, and to learn more quickly. I am not even sure it meets the requirements for my homework assignment which is due at the end of the week. I learned a lot, though. Sitting through too many instructional videos has a tendency to make my eyes glaze over. Cannonball diving into today's work was just what the doctor ordered.
Some thoughts on Java
At the suggestion of a couple friends, I chose to start studying Java, before diving into any other coding language. I was going to finish up the free Harvard and University of Edinburgh courses based on Scratch first, but I found myself getting restless. Time is a precious commodity, and I wanted to get into the "real stuff" as quick as possible. I can't just sit around on Scratch for three months in a row. That said, I am going to continue these online courses, but now I am supplementing them with the CodeAcademy course.
When I first looked at Java I think I almost felt physical pain. What. the. hell. is. this???
But, after a few exercises, I began to parse it a bit and gain a very basic understanding of how it flows, what the symbols mean, and how it is supposed to look. In the past three days I've completed two short sections of the intro class, and it is my goal to keep myself to this kind of schedule. Either one set of exercises a day, or one every other day.
"27 Hustle Street"
Today I made a game in Scratch called 27 Hustle Street. Yes, it is amazing as it sounds. In the game you are a bum who has lost everything because his company went belly up--likely due to worthless fiat lending bubbles and the Federal reserve--and now you have to hustle your way back to the top by collecting Bitcoin, side jobs (hustles), and "chances to not fuck up." If you end up catching the wrong things, like the flu, depression, and too many binge drinking episodes, it's game over!
I think for me, designing the sprites and then watching them come to life is the most fun part of this whole process. The main character, Rick, is my original handiwork, as is the booze jug and the Bitcoin.
Here's the game: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/123451141/
Welp. That's about it for today, I suppose. As always, if you have any words of wisdom for me as I pursue this course of study in computer programming...sock 'em to me! Until then, enjoy the hustle, brothers and sisters!
If you would like more background on my recent dive into the world of coding, you can find it here, here, and here.
Peace!
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist residing in Niigata, Japan
good heavens, that's impressive.
Thank you!
It sounds like you've set a pretty good pace for yourself and things are off to a good start. Your 27 Hustle Street project actually sounds like a fairly fun concept for a game. It could be something to keep building on and coming back to as you get more advanced and learn new concepts. Eventually, you might want to consider re-implementing it in Java... but that's quite a ways off I think.
Just to be clear, Java and Javascript are two completely different languages. Beginners often confuse the two; Javascript (which is very poorly named) is mainly used in client-side web code that executes in a browser, whereas Java is more for server side or standalone desktop application development.
Ah, okay. Thank you. I wasn't sure about that. Java is what I meant, then.
Thank you!