Well, I went to the college bookstore to pick up my Python book yesterday. It turns out that the department had ordered those books, but that’s not what the professor actually wanted. So now there are two other books on order, Intro to Computer Science, and some intro Java book.
I’m kind of sad. I started reading up on Python and it’s pretty cool stuff. I wound up ordering the other Python book off Amazon anyway. I already know the basics of Java, and it’s close enough to AS2/3, that I foresee practically doing the course in my sleep. Oh well.
Read more...As mentioned previously, I’ll be taking Intro to Computer Science starting later this month. I’ve joked a bit about it, but I was actually looking forward to it. Today I was at the college bookstore to see if I could get the book for that class. Although it wasn’t in yet, the book listed is for Python programming. Now I’m really looking forward to it. I made a quick foray into Python a while back, but had too much other stuff going to get too far with it. Of course, I’m sure I’d learn more going through the O’Reilly Learning Python book I have on my shelf. But then again, it’s been sitting on my shelf for a year. Now I’ll have the impetus to actually learn it.
Read more...Well, I finally got around to installing Subversion and setting up some source control for my personal projects. The company I work for uses SourceGear Vault, so it’s not like I’m a total newbie to source control concepts. But it took sitting down and digging in and figuring out how to install svn locally and work it into my daily routine for my own projects. Did that over the holiday break and now I’m ready to roll.
Read more...Jesse Warden had a nice retrospective of his year, and it got me thinking. Well, I was already thinking, but it got me thinking about writing about what I was thinking about.
2005 was a mixed year for me, but overall I’m pretty happy with where I’ve wound up.
The only particularly bad part was my health. The first half of the year it seemed I was sick more than not. Then I developed severe joint pain, almost daily fevers and pretty bad fatigue. I got tested for just about everything under the sun. Doctor was completely baffled. Finally, last long shot before renting me out to specialists was a test for something called Sarcoidosis. Bingo! Bad news is they don’t know what causes it and there is no cure. Good news is, it will probably go away on its own after a year or two. The symptoms have already diminished greatly. I feel lucky to have gotten such a mild case. It could have been much worse, potentially even fatal if it got into the nervous system.
Read more...Just want to remind anyone listening that the kickoff meeting for the Boston Flash Platform User Group is tomorrow, Thursday, December 29, 2005, 6-9 p.m. at the Mass Medical Society in Waltham. This will be an informal meet and greet, to gear up for the first official meeting in January, which will be at Adobe offices in Newton. So stop by tomorrow night and say hi!
[Edit: Posted wrong date earlier. To confirm, it’s Thursday, the 29th.]
Read more...I always try out any new ActionScript-targeted editor I hear about. Thus far the winners in my book have been PrimalScript and Eclipse. I mostly preferred PrimalScript because it could be a lightweight, single AS file editor or a full-blown coding IDE, depending on what you needed at the moment. Eclipse is powerful, but requires the installation of several plugins and a full blown project set up to just view and edit a single AS file, and was never quite as responsive as Primal.
Read more...As you may know, I’m a bit of a PrimalScript evangelist. Of course saying which editor is “best” is about as useful as saying which programming language, computer platform/OS, political party or religion is “best”. But personally, I’ve grown very comfortable with PrimalScript after more than a year of using 3.1. Version 4.0 just rocks the house, and I’ve seen some of the planned features for version 4.1 (an ActionScript targeted release) and they just have my mouth watering.
Read more...Well, I just finished my first semester of college, 20+ years late. I took College Writing I, and got an A, and College Algebra, which I just did the final exam for, but I’m certain I got an A in that too. Not bad.
Kind of fun going back after all these years, with a new perspective and reason for learning. I’m signed up for next semester in Pre-Calculus, College Writing II and … wait for it … Intro to Computer Science! I’m sure that will be pretty easy, but I also totally expect to learn something. I’ll take some easy stuff over the summer, and next fall I’ll get to dive into C++ and Calculus. Exciting!
Well, it’s official, I’ll be speaking at FiTC about the Flash 8/8.5 BitmapData object, my favorite new feature!
Read more...Haven’t heard much about Processing recently, but I got an email update the other day announcing release 0098. To quote the email:
EXPORT TO APPLICATION
the biggest change since our last email: export to application.
the coolest feature in the bunch, this lets you write out an exe for windows, a macosx .app, or a shell script for linux just as easily as you can export sketches for the web.
Haven’t had the chance to try it out yet, but that sounds pretty cool. Maybe I’ll get to play over the holiday break.
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