If..Else Log

Poker Chip tricks: "Because there's more to poker than simply playing with the cards you're dealt"

Oh no! If..Else is flooded.

One of the things which I've never been able to understand is why people buy walkthroughs/use cheats for computer games. For me, the completion of a game is never the main objective in and of itself. Instead, the main reason I play video games, and this may sound a bit tautological, is because it's the actual game playing I enjoy. If I don't enjoy playing it, then I won't. Whether I get past a certain section is irrelevent as long as I enjoy the process of doing so.

One of my favourite games is Ikaruga. For those who don't know anything about the game, it's a 2d shoot 'em up, though that hardly does justice to the game. What the game really is, is a showcase for the complexity of simplicity. Stripping away all the chaff from shoot 'em ups, it instead introduces an utterly ingenious game mechanic. The ship and all enemies have one of two polarities, black and white, and your ship (which can switch polarities with a button press) is capable of absorbing hits of the same polarity. Now what would be a gimmick in other games is exploited to the fullest by the developers.

However, this is also a game in which despite having owned the game since it's launch almost 2 years ago, has utterly defeated me. From time to time, I will sit down, put in the disc and sit down and try and get a little further. Sometimes I would get in the zone and make it a little further. Other times, I'd stumble. However, even on the worst of the stumbles, if I was offered a walkthrough or cheat that would guarantee progress, I wouldn't take it. For me, video games have always been about the journey, not the destination. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

A few pages from the script of Rocky 6

Khaled's post on how he learned how to develop and design websites should stand as a shining example to us all. Whilst it is important to realise that asking for help isn't a crime and that we all learn from others, it's also important to make that next step from depending on the work of others to applying that knowledge by yourself. It's inevitable that in doing so that there will be high points and low points; at the beginning, there's always a temptation to think "it'll be faster if I get <someone else> to do this" or "I can't handle this". However, persistance pays off and eventually the many misteps and small successes accummulate; the pieces start falling together and where at one point you were struggling to recognise the alphabet, you're now able to read a whole chapter.

My first website was really a pathetic little thing. Despite using computers for much of my life, it wasn't until 1999 when I made my first site. This was a whole 6 years ago in the days where Netscape was still a wonder and not a curse. However, it was an important step and despite not being a wonder to look at, it allowed me to conceptualise all the little things that I now take for granted.

I'm fortunate in that I've never been afraid of technology; I've always wanted to know how things work and how I can make it work the way I do. One of the most important quality that we need to succeed is persistance and curiosity. We need to be curious enough to have ideas and determined enough to see through that idea through.

Khaled's Broken Kode is a testament to how persistance pays off. Not only is it a wonder to look at and browse but he's gone and returned some of that hard work to the community in the form of the excellent Rin and Manji wordpress themes.

Since I've already posted links to part 1 and 2 of the road to FogBugz, here's part 3 where Joel writes on developing a ASP to PHP compiler.

Coffee2Code just keeps on going! A fantastic boon to the WP community and an inspiration to us all.

Belle de Jour named and identified as being the works of a British author rather than that of a call girl.

An autograv is an autograph with your Gravatar. On the wall is a collection of autogravs, nicely framed and hung.

Tired of good films. Here are some auto-generated bad ones…