GEMdays / and my foray into C++
Posted on January 29, 2009 by Shay
I’m going to try and go to GEMdays this week.
I was having a conversation with Ant (BEFLIX) last weekend, and this may be ridiculously obvious, but … I need to learn C. It’s the next thing for me.
So I downloaded Microsoft Visual C++ Express Edition, last weekend, and stared at a totally blank project. It was only tonight that I managed to get an OpenGL environment finally working and a little test compiled. tutorial used.
Although I don’t find the syntax too alien or in a position where I dont know how to start assimilating a new language. I find the setting up a bit of a drag and no doubt the structures will baffle and amuse me. I think on the whole though, considering I really want to be called Dr Moradi soon, it will be a worthwhile investment of my time and a significant challenge (which again is something which Ant advised me to find).
You see I’ve been brought up on staple diet of scripting languages. When programming really clicked for me, and I felt confident to code, it was using languages which I quickly discovered the limitations of. and by limitations I mean, how far they interact with the system and what kind of performance / affordance they give you with the sloppiest of code. I feel this is important in relation to the Glitch.
This is my software specific programming history. I’m sure there were others.
1991 +
Basic
QBasic
GWBasic
Turbo Pascal (quite a bit)
C (briefly) / Assembly (typed in from magazine listings, didnt understand much)
Lingo (very briefly)
1999+
Actionscript 1.0
Java (university, computing dept.)
ASP
2002+
PHP
Actionscript 2.0 (long time)
Processing
Javascript
But there is a distinct lack of C in there. which I’m addressing now. when I was a kid my parents bought me this title its one of the most well preserved books on my shelf. Its always been read with caution, but now I’m throwing caution to the wind.
Things I’m looking at just now:
incidentally, I’ve only just remembered this but last night I had a rare but educational programming dream involving L-Systems.