Tag Archives: programming

Long-awaited Granny Squares Design Going Live

Years, folks. Years. That weird fabric texture background is finally going away.

Ever since I’ve thrown myself full-tilt at Future Proof Games, I’ve let my older side projects run as they are with no updates from me unless something was catastrophically wrong.

A lot has changed on the web since Granny Square Colors got a major update from me, though: tablets and smartphones are even more popular among the GSC user base, Internet Explorer isn’t the worst thing to develop for anymore, and I’m a way better architect and coder than I was a handful of years ago.

Continue reading Long-awaited Granny Squares Design Going Live

Links On Uncomfortable Realities

A short one this week as I’m struggling to catch up on/skim 1400+ unread items in Feedly.

  • “She Must Have Deserved It”: An Uncomfortable Reality About Abuse, And Reporting It | Ferrett Steinmetz – "And the good news that emerges from this particular bad response is that most people would never hit their partner. When told, “He hit her,” most people run this information through a I-am-the-world filter…" and "[If] you’re a victim of abuse, you need to be very careful as to who you date. Children of abusing parents are fifteen times – fifteen times! – as likely to wind up married to an abuser as so-called “normal” people, which means that your abuser broke some vital instincts within you."
  • You can say no if you change your mind – Maybe this is more freeing than uncomfortable. It was an uncomfortable realization for me, though.
  • Legacy Code Preservation: How Do We Manage This? – I run into similar code and life-work preservation issues at work now. It can be quite frustrating. Common thing to hear: "No, no, no, I'm not attached to that code. It's just code. …But really, it doesn't matter very much that it doesn't meet all the new standards or is hard to work with: the damned thing works perfectly, without a hitch. Never needs maintenance."

Beginner Developer: Where to Start?

I just can't get enough of curious goats.
I have a friend who’s looking to become a marketable developer fairly quickly, but is essentially trying to go from zero to hero. Despite starting a project in Python to randomize wedding slideshows, he’s never really done development, nor does he understand its core concepts (classes vs. objects, for instance).

He kinda just needs a job, plus the ability to make useful tools for himself.

Folks are telling him Java and *.NET, and I (mostly) agree for the simple purposes of 1) easy desktop or web development, and 2) using keyword-heavy languages to reinforce programming concepts. Not strong reasons, no. If he just wanted a job, I’d recommend UI development.

Plus, for marketability in Charlotte, NC–home of plenty of Big Banks–diving into quasi-enterprise development can get you a cube (albeit maybe shared) and a comfortable paycheck. Good luck finding a Python gig here.

But where does he start? Continue reading Beginner Developer: Where to Start?

Weekly Linkage: Grumpy Heroines, CRUD, and Prison Work

This week’s internet cruising:

Video interlude! This video convinced me to start playing Mass Effect (the first) tonight.

So far, it’s a blast, and not too chock-full of grumpiness. Just enough to be fun.

…I did punch a rambling scientist, though.