I enjoy programming. Software is so cool! Recently I realized that all websites are software. I think it's a helpful mental model. So welcome to a simple piece of software that is all about me and what I'm interested in. Pretty vague compared to a text editor on the "functionality" front.
Right now I'm trying to master Javascript and AngularJS. I wouldn't mind getting super good at Sublime Text 2 as well.
KK, very good, I am now at the next level of presentation!
I'm slightly obsessed with UIs where you don't have to scroll.
Dude. Heartthrob by Tegan & Sara is such a good album. So is Confess by Twin Shadow. I think they might be some of my favorite albums ever.
My experience is that learning isn't so much a linear, predictable thing. I might think that first I gain X skills and then I make Y software, but it's all a little messier than that.
Christopher Alexander wrote an amazing series of books called the Nature of Order and I think the second book in the series is all about the process of designing things that resonate with human nature. Long story short: it's important to be iterative!
Could you say that learning is the process of designing concepts in my own mind? Unquestionably the more that I have to continuously make choices the more that any process can be called "design."
Teaching yourself programming involves a *lot* of choices. So, presumably, I should have some kind of "principles of well-designed knowledge-in-the-brain" if I'm going to spend a lot of time making it. I wonder what those would be?
P.S. fellow technogarks: I'm going to try to use local storage to change this here software so that it saves your spot.
Persistence! Persistence is what makes me like a piece of software +5 #ahundredpercentofthetime
P.P.S. aspiring whisperers of silly somethings into the ears of others: it worked!
Sort of. Actually I had to fix this software's first non-trivial bug (relatively speaking). When the page first loaded, the right arrow wouldn't work until I first pressed the left arrow. I figured out that I had to run the value I got back from local storage through parseInt()
Look at the source! You'll see. ^_^
Did you know that "quine" is a word for a program that prints out its own source code?
But maybe only if that's all that it does and it doesn't take any other input. I'm going to make that into a more fuzzily defined adjective. Quine-ness is a spectrum, man!
Good job entertaining myself.
By the way, I've been thinking about the context of software a lot lately and non-intuitive terms and concepts that we still use because of inertia. (Like for example, the *nix root directory structure? #ireadthatsomewhere)
Can we just simplify things a little bit and call source code computer code? That's what it is.
Okay my mind is being my own troll. I know that we don't still use the *nix root directory structure because of inertia. Backward compatibility probably necessitates it at this point. What I meant is that it's an arbitrary signifier based on a peculiarity of the context in which it was developed.
I am just about stressing myself out trying to be really specific and accurate in what I'm saying here.
Thank goodness that the brains reading this aren't computers! Otherwise I would crash them and be sad. ^_^
I am entertaining myself by imagining that the brain reading this is a Turing machine. Tape, tape tape...
This is a cool neocities site.
try typing "next"
try typing "previous"
I would suggest typing "psychedelic". After the experience invites you into an entrancing world of, you know, humoring me, and you need more entertainment, perhaps you might even try pushing the up arrow. :/
(I know the typing might take fast fingers. Pretend that it's space invaders!)
So right now there are a few things that are really interesting to me in terms of software interfaces. One of those things is displaying content that fits the screen without scrolling, specifically cards. Perhaps it is in software DNA to make cards that it can pass to other programs or process itself? I think it's such a good idea. Another thing that really gets me is typing commands! So much more adaptable than clicking stuffffff...
If you can remember this, you just leveled up!
"first" and "last"
I just realized I'm kind of trolling you if you type those in 'cause you'll lose your spot. FYI?
Well, I just did something kind of neat. I've looked at some of the other pages on neocities, and I've linked to a couple that I thought were cool.
Now if I want to see all of the links to other neocities sites that I've made, I can just type the command "links" (or you can, if you want to)
Well, I just definitely got a pretty rad counter for my website. I feel awfully cool right now guys, I ain't gonna lie.
Well, back to thinking. You know what I really like about this? It feels like I'm playing. And isn't playing supposed to be the most natural way to learn? I think that that might be key to learning all of the software technologies that I'm interested in: I have to make a way that I can play with them.
Learning something and being afraid of typing the wrong thing and having everything go kablooie is not good playing. That is like ten year old me trying to learn C on Mac OS 7.6 and quickly learning to be scared of pointers. #flashback
Actually, I guess it's not bad playing, if things can fix themselves. I actually think glitches are super cool. Things being bricked is not so cool.
Ooh, I have an idea for something fun. I wish I was knowledgeable of good design patterns for saving things that change rapidly into persistent storage so that I don't make a kabillion requests. Perhaps... a timer?
#tooeasy ^_^
If anyone who is professional about such things looks at my source code (computer code?) they are going to be disappointed in me. Maybe it's an *ironic* rat's nest...
Uhhh...
Yess! I made a toy for you guys now too. (/myself, etc.) Try dragging around the blue circles! And then, if you come back, it should remember where you put them.
I know, I know. I'm easily entertained.
Kk. That's a way less obnoxious looking counter. Got to feel like I'm being sociable somehow!
For prosperity and stuff. Time for me to fall asleep.