After thinking about it and talking to entheh I came to the conclusion that Programming isn't for me. So I am giving up programming and will no longer take part (after this post) in anything on Allegro.cc or #allegro. Good Bye.

gah... everyone leaving us Good luck Harbringer Zero we'll miss you.

Hate to see you go man. Have a nice life.

Everybody seems to be leaving...:(

We'll miss you, Harbinger. Good luck.

grabs trout and hunts down entheh

Goodbye!

Go get him DTK.. I wanta see a good ol' trout slappin'

Sorry, that sounds a bit too permanent to me. Moods are as volatile as the weather (and Ben is the living proof).

Hey, my mood hasn't been volatile since ... months ago, I guess

And if you guys wanna know what happened, he said he could never get past the design stage before he got bored. I told him he should make a decision: either choose a game idea and persevere, or conclude that programming wasn't for him. He made his decision. I told him he was still welcome in the channel, but he left. Nice of him to mention me in his post here, I was touched.

Rash, you know, you're welcome in #allegro too

You'll come crawling back.... just like BP did.
Well, even if you don't, we'll miss you.

Sometimes I feel the same way, but it's fun for me even if I'm not doing it right.

Always sorry to see anyone leave... always happy when they return

Just to prepare everyone: I'm taking a short vacation in a month or two, so by that time, I won't be posting for a while. In the unlikely event that I'm missed, don't panic: I'm not leaving

It's kinda cool to realize that you'll actually be missed -- this is a rather (impressively) tight community, for the most part.

To Clayton, in case you ever read this: If programming no longer brings you happiness, well, who am I to say that is bad? But if you simply do not complete projects, and still manage to learn some languages (a useful skill) and have a time of it, I say there's no reason to shut yourself off completely. Come speedhack with us, eh; at least you know you'll have a distinct beginning and end to that!

I'd actually say, as to being devoted to an independant side project: having enough motivation and drive to finish such a grand undertaking without being paid or otherwise pushed to do so is a rarity, not a requirement. Especially if you're aspirations are big -- most people simply don't have either the resources or the willpower to regularly progress.

Happends to me almost every day. I normaly start 3 or 4 projects every week. Today i posted my most completed game in months (still on queue when i write this). It is complete to 95% (more levels and an ending needed) so i think this will be my first completed game in a couple of years.

The thing is not to let that stop you. Just keep trying. But because it looks like you made up your mind, have a nice life anyway.

Yeah. I agree with Zaphos. I have NEVER finished a project. And that only bothers me a little. Im in it for learning. Everytime I get somewhat good at one thing it becomes boring, and I move on to the next thing Well thats not quite true, but close enough.

to date I've worked on 2 VMs, 3 GUI libs, 1 CFG lib, 2 Perl/TK apps, 1 audio playing library, 1 HTTP server, 2 crappy games, 1 full screen midi player writen in allegro, 1 OpenGL model renderer, 1 model editor, 1 CGI client library in C, 1 super secret AI project, 1 avi2mpeg prog, 1 animation/movie player lib, 1 con lib (for dos menu like interfaces in allegro), 1 lib to tie Xine and Allegro together, 1 chat program for palmOS, numerous versions of my website..., and other miscelaneous stuff in the 5 or so years I've had a computer. AND none of them are what I'd call "finished".
Not finishing anything isnt a big deal unless you have a major problem with not finishing things...

Huh? Did you forget the mockup ban incident already?
And you never did say who the f*** glis was.

Presenting such an alternative to him was really stupid of you. Making a design is all nice and well in an official environment, but if you're programming for a hobby and want to get (really) good at it I would actually advise him to mess around and learn from his own mistakes. There's nothing more intense experience wise than spending hours searching for your own mistakes and finally fixing them (although admittedly such a prospect doesn't sound appealing). See wannabee and larval stage.

Sorry, I need to watch out Chris doesn't post any misinformation about C++ (unless of course he goes to the channel himself).

Rash: Feel like solving my problems that I've been trying to solve for two freaking months?
That's not exactly what I call motivating.

Rash, you can either pick on me and alienate yourself with me, leaving me despising you (again) and you with an empty feeling, or we can treat each other as equals as I thought you'd already learnt to do. The choice is yours.

Regarding your penultimate point, I should like to draw your attention to the fact that this guy has been continually downloading, installing, burning to CD, deleting, redownloading, reinstalling, probably burning to more CDs, Dev-C++, Allegro, FBlend, DUMB, JGMOD, FMOD, several Linux distributions, QNX, and god knows what else, for the past year. I've rarely caught him actually using these downloads. When he does, he runs into a small problem (one that could easily be solved with a little experimentation or doc-reading), and promptly gives up and tries something else. However, since you obviously know better, you can take over as his teacher.

Funnily, Clayton has left and come back before

People who have trouble with the design should make some simple clones like Defender or even simple old Asteroids. Has CW ever finished a game? Even I have made Tetris

Always start with simple projects. Not that I practise what I preach

Plagiarism!

Sorry to see you go Clayton, but I'm the first one who will tell you to follow your own vision. I was into game programming way back when I was 14-15 on a c-64 then lost interest in it all together until a couple of years ago. If you really want to make games you will. If you really want to draw comics you will. Good luck!

I hate Spellcaster's new sig

EDIT: I also hate being beaten ...

EDIT2:

Hey!

I think spell's logic in his sig doesn't entirely contradict 23's: while it is good to understand and be capable of writing such methods, it is also good to have an efficient and easily used method that saves the programmer from trouble in time and/or performance critical programming.

As to Ben^H^H^HBruce's post; I agree that I don't know the entire situation and I'm not going to call Clayton's decision a wrong one, but for most coders in tough times and suffering multiple project failure, the case is closer to TF's and since clayton probably won't return anyway ... my message is still valid enough not to be edited away.

Rash: You don't like Bruce much, do you? You of all here should realize by now that he doesn't like to be teased or mocked ...

Do what works for you man, good luck.

It's a shame you go... and I don't get why. If I'd decide that I prefer building rice towers, I'd simply do so - and still drop in here from time to time.

So, consider to ping us from time to time
We'll miss you.

Goodbye, Clayton http://separts.areta.org/smileys/lonely.gif
Best of luck in whatever you do http://separts.areta.org/smileys/hug.gif

Actually, Zaphos, I really don't care. All I want is to be able to talk to Rash normally, since he's an intelligent, interesting person.

I don't get the comparison with TF - what's that about?

Well ben, look at my previous message.

Though I should note that while none of them are finished, I haven't Officially given up on them...

Is that a word?

The problem with CW, DE and HZ is that he had bigger aspirations than he could cope with. He wanted to make a super project as his first go. Never starting at the bottom like he should.

He should at least hang around once in a while.

It sure is. Never heard the expression, "funnily enough"?

Hey Cage! How did you do that thing with the smilies?? Hugging etc?

Oh and Go Hard Harbinger! Come back when you're ready to have another go

What, you guys don't have these smileys too?
http://separts.areta.org/smileys/fart.gif
Actually, they're from my very own personal stash, I collect 'em

Well I don't... where do you get them and how do you add them into your posts??

you add them using the [ img ] tag (sans the spaces). There's been quite a few kewl ones people liked to

A few bazillion smilies

http://smilies.jeeptalk.org/otn/blobs/ukliam2.gif