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Hi Brian, all,

On Mon, Oct 10, 2005 at 07:58:34AM -0700, Brian Morris wrote:
> Please keep in mind that development is just a hobby for me, so my
> opinions and views reflect that of a tinkerer, not a professional.

Who cares!? ;-) For me there is no distinction at all.  In fact most
hobby coders are a far cry better than people with PhD's in computer
science.  Not really a bash of my old roomate but um... yeah... had to
hold the guys hand a lot.  To his credit he was very good at
computational fluid dynamics. ;-)  I can barely do multiplication.

> I was introduced to Lua about a year ago by messing around with the
> World of Warcraft game interface (at that time I wrote BandageCount,
> Colorblind++, NoPages, etc.).  While it is functional for the most part
> it has some quirks that drove me batty, like how it eats itself alive if
> you try to get it to perform multiple evaluations to trigger an If
> statement.

Hrm... that's interesting.  I haven't really research it at all I just
started programming in it and also read the manual a lot.  Still reading
it actually.  But you are the second person to mention it in relation to
gaming.  Small interpreters are great for allowing modifications to a
game.  In fact since the days of Doomhack games have increasingly become
more customizable to the point where when I was at e3 in oh... was it
99... I forget... but a lot of people were actually demo'ing the mod
features in their booths.  I think mods are so popular because after you
beat the game the box is pretty boring, at least before mass internet...
I could ramble for days on this tangent if anyone else wants to talk
game coding/modding.  Although of late I don't have a computer that has
any games installed nor is capable of running any of the latest ones.
Which is probably for the best since it keeps me programming and reading
books.

> The language that inspired me the most by far is PERL.  After years of
> using other scripted and compiled languages PERL was like a breath of
> fresh air.  The power of its file, REGEX and array handling is
> unsurpassed, and these features have let me automate just about anything
> I've ever wanted in Linux.  The syntax can be a bit daunting at first,
> but once you get used to it, it somehow begins to seem completely logical.

I used to have a real sort of faux hatred for PERL.  Just like I once
had a faux contempt for Macs (post Apple][e).  I guess it's habit to
make false assumptions and stick with them for long periods of time.
Lately I've forced myself to many extents to try and find ways to enjoy
and reverse anything my inner voice has something negative to comment
on.  Perl is a great example.  I used to think it was obfuscated cruft.
And granted in any language there are people who will write some really
disgusting unmaintainable code.  My first uses of perl were like:  `perl
- -e 'print "A"x8192" ;-)  Since then I've learned some more but as
someone else mentioned every time I write perl I have to relearn it
because I use it so rarely.

peace,
core

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