As some of you may know, I have a 40-hour day job as a webmaster, so I get a lot of time to explore new things on the web. Slowly but surely, I have been creeping up on learning and understanding new languages, and recent programming has significantly increased my skills to the point where performing the next project on my task list was a breeze.
Let's start with BYOND-related. I've been revamping a lot of my old code. Someone I assume will take the role of my programming mentor fairly soon has given me loads of new ideas of how to program, and how to really think outside the box with game ideas. One idea contains an approach to a system I've never felt comfortable with before, but after about a week of programming with this new knowledge I've attained, I have started and actually gotten somewhere with this game I'm developing. Here's a hint. It's a sidescroller, and I never felt comfortable making them ever before. Is the game ever going to finish? Unsure. Let's save that conversation for another day, however.
Also BYOND-related, I remade a Flash Cards application recently. It's not all that impressive, but really the test here was to learn about modularity in programming. Currently, the program is in a state where I can build an entire game off of it without touching the Flash Cards program, and they could run hand-in-hand with no difficulty.
What the program includes is the ability to create and delete categories, create, edit, and delete flashcards, search cards, and practice cards. Everything a standards flashcards package should include, right?
What it also features is randomization and a counter. I came up with this idea that if you can recite a word at least 5 times from randomly seeing it's definition, you will remember it in a matching test. Likewise, if you ever get it wrong, that counter increases by 1. So, if you get it wrong, you now must get the word correct 6 times. This method has actually been so successful for me that I could probably major in a social science on the side, and never even study more than an hour before any test (because all social science classes are just vocab :P)
Lastly, I took an interesting route. In web-design, I've been wanting to develop a blog, and finally I sat down and did it. I actually started with BYOND. How would I create these tables? I pretended datums were tables, and got started. Without a framework it was more work than necessary, but it's essentially completed. I may or may not release it publicly for others to use as a side or personal blog, but I need to get it all prettied up first before that gets done. However, functionality is essentially complete (and in a stage where I can add things with ease).
There are a few more updates I can throw in here, but I'm going to go ahead and wait until at least a bit more work gets completed before I say them.
Now, my personal life:
I've wrestled with the idea that none of you particularly care (we are on the internet, and we are on BYOND), but I just need to sort of get this off my chest. Recently, some "high-school-type" drama has been prancing on me and as much as I walk away, ignore, etc. it seems to spread near me like wildfire. The fact is, I've moved on from my old high-school ways, and grew up - something some of my older friends have yet to do. With this, I began hanging around an older crowd, and focusing more on work and my future rather than sitting in a house all day watching movies. Of course I care about them, but I need something more satisfying, and they don't understand that, and get upset over it.
However, one thing they have pinned on me which is essentially true. I'm rarely calm. Sure, I can keep a complacent facade, but internally I jump from end to end of a spectrum of emotion, and rarely like to go with the flow. I'm not uptight - I just hate it when things go wrong. I need to calm down and just relax, so if any of you have ideas, please send them my way. I'm about to get a heart attack and I'm still quite young. -_-
Other than that, life is good. ;)