The Eternal Noob and the Noob Ladder
(note to management, this is just a draft as I collect my thoughts for this article, it shouldn’t be published anytime soon)
I suppose that I’m getting a well-earned reputation for writing for and about noobs. This begs the question, am I, hartnell, a noob myself? Could I possibly suffer to wear this title? You betcha! I, before everyone in the FreeBASIC community, fully confess am a bona-fide, know-nothing, noob from the pits of noobiedom. And the thing is, I’ve been programming for over 20 years.
I’ve written numerous web games in Php. I’ve reinvented arcade classics from the ground up. I’ve documented programming languages. I fondly recall my VIC-20 and Tandy 1000 through tear stained eyes. And yet, I am a noob. Confused? Good. Let’s continue.
I am an eternal noob. I’ve just given you some of my accomplisments and I’ll tell you what - 3D mystifies me. Artificial intelligence rattles my brain. Microprocessor architecture makes it stop completely. For everything I know, theres tons more that I can’t yet comprehend.
Doing It Yourself (A Series on Self Sufficiency). Part One
INTRODUCTION:
In today’s computer world, a programmer (new comer or experienced) often finds himself or herself needing a specific tool. Sometimes, finding that tool is rather easy especially if one is willing to sacrifice feature to save himself the trouble of creating his own set of tools. On the other hand, when you really get down and do what you know you’ll need and can’t find anything that matches every feature you are looking for, creating them yourself can be one of the most rewarding projects you can get yourself into. Some of the main reasons why are:
1. You can give your application the look and feel you want, you’re in control.
2. You can make it work the way you want, if you like a certain way of working, nothing’s stopping you from making your project work exactly that way.
3. You can set your own standards for code, code quality, naming conventions making the work even more enjoyable based on how you like to work.
4. Best reason, there’s nothing quite as fun as programming on a project that you want to program on.
There are more reasons of course, the sheer reward of making your own tools in itself is quite rewarding. Depending on the tool or application you want to make yourself, some research might be in order if you’re not too familiar with the domain. That too can be very rewarding. Not to mention it can broaden your field of personal knowledge quite a bit.
The Noob’s Robot Slave and How To Re-activate it
The FreeBASIC community is an interesting one. It came into being like a phoenix, rising from the ashes of the QBASIC community (even though we still call it the Qmunity). QBASIC programmers have brought with them the long experience of decades. After all, if you know QBASIC, you’re right at home with FreeBASIC. Unfortunately, with all these experienced programmers around, it seems that we have forgotten something vital : The Noob’s Robot Slave. I’ve written this article to remind you what that is and give you proper instructions for re-activating it.
Most of us started programming BASIC a decade or more ago, and yes, that’s a long time. Some of us started with the Vic-20, some of us started with QBASIC. No matter what each of us started with, we all started the same way : with an amazing computer. Our very own electronic brain.
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