Gaming is Good

I recently came to realize that gaming can be good if you look at it with a programmatic point of view. For instance: The other day I was playing Oblivion, and thought to myself "Man, there has to be a lot of if-then-else statements in there".

Now, this kind of behavior probably isn't regular in some people, but when your a programmer (well, this works for me) you look at things in different ways. You see software, and think "I wonder how they did that" or "Man, I bet I could make something like that", and you probably could, if you put your mind to it.

Programming for fun vs for a career

Whenever I tell people that I'm a programmer, they tend to automatically assume that I do it for a career and that I'm some kind of supreme computer overlord.

Untrue.

I like to program for fun, and I know my way around a computer, but I couldn't tear the software apart and piece it back together with my eyes closed either, though.

Python, oh Python.

Well, for my Computer Science class that I'm taking online, I'm learning Python. I'm not bad at it, and I rather like the syntax, compared to others I've tried, like C++, or C.

I've enjoyed turning in the projects I've been given by my teacher, and I love to write the code, but now I have come to the assignment that I've been dreading. Making up my own project.

I'm awful at thinking of things to do, which is why I'm bored 99.99% of the time. I wouldn't call it lack of motivation or laziness per say, but... well, lack of not knowing what to do.

There needs to be a book, or something, with a giant list of programming project ideas.


Edit:

After some searching around I found this list. I know I'll be using it in the future.

C Primer Plus

So the other day I was in Goodwill, looking for anything that had to do with Celts or Vikings(not the sports team), and I ran across a rather old programming book (published 1998) called The Waite Group's C Primer Plus Third Edition.

I've had some experience with C++ before, like using it for things like creating app launchers (which I now use VB.NET for), or my 11th grade Science Fair project (fun times). Now, as far as I can see, in this book, not much has changed. I'm not a big expert on C++ or anything, but it looks mostly the same.

Just flipping through the book I can see some differences between my practices and the author's.

For example, he uses printf instead of cout, or he uses scanf where I use cin.

I guess it all matters where you learn from (I personally learned from a ":For Dummies" book), and at what time a certain syntax is popular.