Coding

I code for fun. As incredibly nerdy as that sounds, I’ll try to justify it – Coding is applying my problem-solving, logic and mathematical skills and it gives an instantaneous, visible result. At the moment, I’m learning how to make Xbox 360 and Windows-based games through XNA Game Studio, which adds functionality to C# specifically for games development.

So: I’m proficient in Visual Basic .NET. I’ve not tried anything seriously complicated with it, but I’m fairly sure that I can do most anything I would ever need to. The lack of 3D graphics manipulation kills me though.

I’m capable of writing webpages which are compliant with XHTML 1.1 standards, and am pretty good at CSS so long as it doesn’t have to be cross-browser, which is something I’m currently dealing with. Trying to make stuff be XHTML Standards-Compliant AND work in IE is damned near impossible. Looking at HTML 5 and CSS 3, the imminent future of the internet is going to be awesome as soon as people start using the cool features.

I can do a little PHP, and a little C++. I’ve also got a grasp of the rudiments of C# and XNA Game Studio by virtue of using Microsoft’s DreamSpark initiative to get free copies of their software. I’ve completed the 2D tutorials thus far and started messing with 3D. Making a fully-fledged game is still some distance away though.

I intend to learn a lot more of the aforementioned languages, plus Java and Flash ActionScript 3, over the summer. My plan with ActionScript is to make a Flash game to put on Kongregate and make a little money from advertising revenue. It won’t be a huge amount, but as a learning experience I think it’s fantastic.

That’s about it on the coding front really. For now, but I’m always learning.