Re: I need serious help!

Ruby
101

In message [email protected], Joe
Wiltrout writes:

Yes. Us crazy kids. The problem is, we really don’t care about destined
for great things. Because all the nerds turn out like my uncle, who is
the CFO for some company in Boston, yet all of us turn out as the CEO of
the company that the CFO works for. Besides, what harm is few egged
houses going to do to a career?

If you get caught, potentially, quite a bit.

These posts will be searchable for the rest of your life. When you’re
40, a casual effort to find out who you are will turn up this thread.

And even twenty years later, I’d look at a thread like this as pretty
much a guarantee that someone isn’t worth hiring. For anything.
Ignorance
is curable, but your kind of attitude is toxic at any level of
experience,
and it rarely improves.

-s

102

On 7/15/07, Joe W. [email protected] wrote:

Clarify: I have a combat system planned out. I don’t have a combat
engine. I planned on using about the same system that WoW does, only
slightly modifed to better fit the game.

Be careful not to be sued for copying their system.

Clarify: I don’t care about
spelling when I’m on forums or an online game, etc. I do use proper
spelling in other things. Like resumes, E-Mails, important documents,
etc. I usually use spellcheck on those kinds of things. Problem with
Ruby Forums is, they have such a low-grade forum that it has no
spellcheck, no bold, italic, or underline text, no changing fonts, no
changing color or size, no sigs, no avatars, no sections for specific
things.

Bold/italics (rich text) is probably not available because the forum
is also being copied to the ruby mailing list. And I’ve only met
one programmer who likes rich text / HTML emails. It’s banned from
any serious mailing list.

The spell-checking should be a part of your browser, not the forum.
Firefox has it built in.

Maybe, probably awhile from now, I will
have either someone to do it for me, or a better Programming Language to
write it in.

I’d recommend you write down everything you’ve learned.
Then hire a programmer/consultant to help you complete the structure.
Then hire programmers/etc to do the actual work.

103

In message [email protected], Joe
Wiltrout writes:

/This/ is the last post. Lol. Nobody is going to do what I want. What if
I split the profits? Then loads of people are going to do what I want.

Not really.

First off, you’re an asshole, and most people will work with you until
the
first time you throw a tantrum and call them names, then leave.

Secondly, you’re not gonna have profits to share until you can make a
working
system, and since you reject the very concept of doing the work to make
a
system workable, or even learning how a workable system looks, it’s
never
gonna happen.

I normally try not to discourage people, because I think just about
anyone
can succeed at just about anything if they try, but I think you may
actually
have a genuine inability to ever pull this off. I would be absolutely
flabbergasted if you actually accomplished anything significant without
a
major shift in your attitude.

It’s called money. It comes in many forms, the most reconizable for me
are large bills. The most reconible for you are probably paychecks with
ammounts between $30,000 and $50,000.

You know, I’ve been doing technical writing and programming for a long
time now, and I’ve only once EVER gotten a paycheck for a number in that
range. Since most companies pay in 24 pay periods these days, a $30,000
paycheck represents a salary of AT LEAST $720,000 per year – and more
likely
quite a bit more, since paychecks are generally after taxes.

That said, even those are way larger than the twenties you’re used to.
:slight_smile:

-s
p.s.: If you think I’m being gratuitously picky, you have no hope of
ever
getting anywhere with computers. They’re pickier than I am.

104

In message
[email protected], “Sy Ali”
writes:

Be careful not to be sued for copying their system.

Blizzard’s not famous for lawsuits that dumb. Generally, copyright law
has
been pretty consistently on the “you cannot copyright rules” side of
things.

I’d recommend you write down everything you’ve learned.
Then hire a programmer/consultant to help you complete the structure.
Then hire programmers/etc to do the actual work.

That would make sense.

That said, I don’t think I know anyone desperate enough to work for
someone
that annoying.

-s

105

On Jul 15, 2007, at 11:21 PM, Peter S. wrote:

That said, I don’t think I know anyone desperate enough to work for
someone
that annoying.

… How much would that person pay?..

aRi
--------------------------------------------|
If you’re not living on the edge,
then you’re just wasting space.

106

On 7/15/07, Peter S. [email protected] wrote:

In message [email protected], “Sy Ali” writes:

Be careful not to be sued for copying their system.

Blizzard’s not famous for lawsuits that dumb. Generally, copyright law has
been pretty consistently on the “you cannot copyright rules” side of things.

That’s good to hear. There are a lot of games out there which have
great rules but just didn’t implement them very well… so it would be
nice to see loose remakes without the dread of getting sued.

107

On 7/15/07, Stefan R. [email protected] wrote:

Travis D Warlick Jr wrote:

Travis W.

“Programming in Java is like dealing with your mom –
it’s kind, forgiving, and gently chastising.
Programming in C++ is like dealing with a disgruntled
girlfriend – it’s cold, unforgiving, and doesn’t tell
you what you’ve done wrong.”

I wonder what ruby is in there :slight_smile:

Ruby is like the ex you broke up with on good terms. If you keep
treating her right, she’ll give you good advice.

i.e. if you have good programming habits, it’ll pay off. =)

108

On 7/15/07, Ari B. [email protected] wrote:

On Jul 15, 2007, at 11:21 PM, Peter S. wrote:

That said, I don’t think I know anyone desperate enough to work for
someone
that annoying.

… How much would that person pay?..

I’ve worked for and worked with crazy people. While it’s amusing and
interesting for a while… it does become tiresome to the point of deep
deep regret.

109

On 7/16/07, John J. [email protected] wrote:

Stop feeding the rude, racist Troll kid.
Spend your time and electrons helping people who are really looking
for assistance.
In the meantime, sign the Troll up to some spam list to bomb him out
of his e-mail acct.

Hey, hey, MINASWAN!

No feeding, sure, but no taking revenge either - I believe trolls can
even be restored to good citizens (!), so there’s no need to punish
them for life.

Aur

110

Stop feeding the rude, racist Troll kid.
Spend your time and electrons helping people who are really looking
for assistance.
In the meantime, sign the Troll up to some spam list to bomb him out
of his e-mail acct.

111

On Mon, Jul 16, 2007 at 12:05:58PM +0900, Sy Ali wrote:

On 7/15/07, Peter S. [email protected] wrote:

Are you familiar with the old thing “give a man a fish, feed him for a day,
teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime?”

I prefer “Give a man a match, keep him warm for a night. Light him on
fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.”

That’s something like a quadruple-entendre (at least) in this
discussion.

112

On Mon, Jul 16, 2007 at 11:04:08AM +0900, Joe W. wrote:

-s

Who said I want to start a company? Who said I was even going to release
the game at all? And why would I need infrastructure, hardware,
marketing, insurance, lawyers, and support staff if I’m not gunna
release the game? Maybe I’ll only release it to my friends? Have you
ever thought of that? I’v never seen someones attempt to make me feel or
look stupid backfire so badly.

Wait . . . I thought Joe said something about “massively multiplayer”.

I need to think about how you can have that without, y’know, massively
multi players.

113

On Mon, Jul 16, 2007 at 09:45:22AM +0900, Travis D Warlick Jr wrote:

Most of this nonsense with Mr. Wiltrout is well outside the range of
what
I’m willing to address directly, at this point. There’s a limit to how
much even I am willing to feed a troll. Your signature, however, begs
to be amended:

“Programming in Java is like dealing with your mom –
it’s kind, forgiving, and gently chastising.
Programming in C++ is like dealing with a disgruntled
girlfriend – it’s cold, unforgiving, and doesn’t tell
you what you’ve done wrong.”

On the other hand, there are some things you just don’t ever want to do
with your mother – and they make up some of the most fun you can have
with a woman.

114

On Mon, Jul 16, 2007 at 10:42:33AM +0900, Peter S. wrote:

Michael doesn’t seem to be interested in Veronica’s dead body.

Don’t be silly. Joe can’t learn anything from text adventures!

Actually, that struck me as possibly being from the Leisure Suit Larry
series, or something along those lines.

115

On Mon, Jul 16, 2007 at 12:19:33PM +0900, Peter S. wrote:

In message [email protected], Joe W. writes:

/This/ is the last post. Lol. Nobody is going to do what I want. What if
I split the profits? Then loads of people are going to do what I want.

Not really.

First off, you’re an asshole, and most people will work with you until the
first time you throw a tantrum and call them names, then leave.

You’re leaving out the part where people who have the skills to create a
game are more likely to create one without him – and share the profits
of that with whoever they decide makes a good partner.

. . . or maybe work for Blizzard, or something along those lines.

116

On Mon, Jul 16, 2007 at 10:42:00AM +0900, Peter S. wrote:

In message [email protected], “John W. Kennedy” writes:

You know, I just realized something else. Where’s he going to get the
millions of dollars for hardware, infrastructure, marketing, insurance,
lawyers, and support staff (not to mention, depending on his wants,
actors, musicians, manufacturing, and inventory)?

He has plenty of money, remember?

I’ve never seen the desire to impress people backfire so badly.

I have – but that was in the Army. Airborne infantry are not exactly
known for their tendency to think things through. Luckily, I recovered.

117

On Mon, Jul 16, 2007 at 08:04:54AM +0900, Joe W. wrote:

http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/rpgmaker-l

For one thing, I’m not using RPG maker 1. Im using XP. So your link is
useless. For another, I don’t need a forum about RPG maker. Im perfectly
content with making my own stupid RPG game. And for another, your post
was sort of off topic in my little conversation about hyperbole.

That’s a lower-case L, not a numeral 1. It’s a mailing list, with L for
List.

The reason I brought it up was to hopefully entice you to go somewhere
else, preferably far far away.

118

On Mon, Jul 16, 2007 at 07:54:06AM +0900, James Edward G. II wrote:

On Jul 15, 2007, at 4:24 PM, Joe W. wrote:

Well ya
know what? I found a much funner thing that is so much better than
Ruby.(in my opinion of course).

Just for the sake of the archives, you can play with Logo like
environments using our favorite gal Ruby:

Ruby Quiz - Turtle Graphics (#104)

Good idea. I wonder how many people will search for something useful in
the archives and find this bizarre collection of threads instead.

119

On Mon, Jul 16, 2007 at 08:46:55AM +0900, Joe W. wrote:

No one suggested you should keep doing exactly the same thing over and
over.

-s

Give me 10 examples of these ‘basic programs’. Either way, people still
told me to write them for a few months. so its still like 250 thousand
times. Estimate* Probably not exact, but close.

I bet you could find ten examples of simple programs, of increasing
complexity, in Chris P.'s Learning to Program, in Why’s Poignant
Guide,
in Satish T.'s online tutorial, or in Brian M.'s Everyday
Scripting. More to the point, these books/tutorials (three of which are
available in some form online, for free) will actually teach you how to
use the principles employed in these programs to create programs for
arbitrary purposes of your own.

It’s all part of a learning process – like learning multiplication
tables before you try to leap into a linear algebra class in college.

. . . but you’re obviously not interested in actually learning anything.

120

======
Hitler

Now it cannot get any worse.

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The dolphin was to draw everybody’s attention.

Listen,

MINASWAN.

You guys don’t want a flame-war, right?

I know Joe doesn’t (he says that, and he responds very well to helpful
advice that he understands as helpful).

I don’t (it was funny in the beginning, and it helped me get to know
someone who I hope to be working with quite a lot (now I know what he
does in life, where he is positioned socially, what he likes, etc’)
but then started to piss me off when I saw how much time people put
into it that they could put instead into wonderful opensource projects
that they wrote and I love to use.

Let’s end it, OK?

Truce.

                              .-.
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More ASCII art to make SURE to draw everyone’s attention.

I cannot force this conversation to end (many tried saying “stop
feeding” before me and failed), so I will have to go for something
better:

==============================
From now on, only technical advice

Guys, limit your posts to technical advice, like code samples, stories
about your own forays into game programming as kids, links to
interesting libraries, frameworks or languages (although I think Joe
is on the right path with learning Logo turtle graphics, then computer
science 101 with logo (the book I gave him goes as far as writing a
BASIC interpreter!), then Ruby (it would be pretty simple to do turtle
graphics with Ruby or to use _why’s amazing HacketyHack, but I chose
Logo as the most rewarding way IMHO and there’s no reason to suddenly
set him off that path).

Joe, please only reply to what you see as technical advice. If
something seems to insult you, email me privately and I will read it
and see if it’s a technical tip that you misunderstood (e.g. the UML
tip) or flames, in which case - just drop it.

That way, the Ruby mailing list will benefit from a great advice
thread on something that interests young programmers very much, and
Joe, you will benefit from advice only instead of wasting your time on
flames, time you could have used to go to the gym, to hang out with
your friends, to sleep (oh sweet sleep :P), to listen to great music
or to… ehm… Well, not in this mailing list, I wouldn’t think
it’s appropriate… “to have fun”, yeah.

If anyone was so insulted that he cannot just let it go, understanding
that this flame war started with a silly misunderstanding caused by
there being TOO MANY helpful guys in this list (and seriously, it’s a
misunderstanding I myself might have made, when I started
programming).

To clarify that:

  1. Joe asked for advice on how to start programming so that he can
    eventually create a game.
  2. Someone told him the standard reply: this and that good free book
    will teach you how to create simple programs like “Hello, world”, and
    you can start from there and go into deeper and deeper grounds.
    However, be wary that a game like you want takes years of knowledge
    and years of coding for a whole team (I wish /I/ were told that when I
    started dreaming about creating computer games).
  3. Joe said he’s at it and thanked the guys who gave him those books,
    and then asked for something more visual-oriented. At this time he was
    reading Learn to Program and _why’s, IIRC, and enjoyed them very much
    (both great books, I agree).
  4. A few newcomers to the thread repeated the standard reply, AFTER
    Joe already followed it.
  5. Joe got frustrated at having to do the same thing over and over,
    which is how he misread the repetition of the same advice (I also get
    pissed at that, like in math class when they give me the same kind of
    excersize again and again… I think all hackers are, aren’t we?
    That’s why we program: “programming will never be monotonous, since
    every time something is repetitive, we will simply automate it”).
  6. A flame war ensued of over 200 messages.
  7. A few people tried to give helpful useful advice but their voices
    were faint in the ruckus.
  8. I gave a long piece of helpful advice tailored exactly to Joe’s
    needs and personality (learn logo, learn actual programming with logo,
    always experiment with doing cool stuff, then talk to me again and
    I’ll give you the next steps).
  9. Joe became polite again, thanking me very much ( :slight_smile: ) again and
    again ( :slight_smile: ) and sending me warm and fuzzy-feeling-creating messages
    on how much he enjoys using abstractions (“to” clauses, Logo’s
    methods) to create cool graphics. Accidentally, he replied to the list
    instead of to my private email as I intended (that’s why I don’t like
    ruby-forum, because people don’t notice that it’s actually a frontend
    to a mailing list).
  10. People asked him not very politely (remember, flamewar tension) to
    take the discussion off list, and flames re-ensued.
  11. THIS STOPS NOW. Thank you.

| | | | | \ | || |_ | | | |_____| | \ |
| | | | | _| | | __| ||| | | | _|

This is me being over repetitive.

Now as I said, let’s turn this into a 100% technical advice thread.

Aur