pouët.net

because its somewhat related and im an attention whore (not the demogroup):

le Gargaj said:


it was my fuel since the beginning of the scene :D

well I wanted to say, "since I entered the demoscene" :)

I was exactly the same for many, many years (like from C64 to windows xp :P ). I tried to learn coding a bunch of times, enjoyed it a bit, then didn't understand stuff, got frustrated, gave up.

But I was always doing 'related' stuff, shell scripting, using 3D tools and such. Then I found PHP wasn't so hard, and did a bunch of stuff in that. And then i discovered Quartz Composer (kind of a visual programming tool) which was huge fun - making demos without the coding part :D It's possible to write your own shaders in that tool, and also write little 'sub programs' in javascript, so i learned a bit of GLSL and a bit of javascript.

Well, if you can write some GLSL and some javascript you're able to pretty much write a whole demo from scratch, and suddenly you're a coder. Learning more 'serious' stuff isn't a big step any more.

There's a couple of big lessons there:

1. Find something enjoyable. Learning C++ or ASM might be painful, but there's a ton of things like processing that are fun and much easier to get into.
2. Keep at it, and keep challenging yourself, that's the only way to progress in *anything*.

And is doing all this to impress people silly? Well, yeah, but you're learning super useful skills along the way too. I now work full time coding cool stuff instead of doing IT support for some company. That's 100% a result of wanting to make demos, and playing around with various things and learning stuff :)

I'm very lame coder, I'd say I'm not a coder, as everything I ever coded was copied pieces of code from various sources and understood only very little, like my old Speccy demos and stuff. I also tried to code an asm music player for a C64, just because I needed it. I copied some stuff from the web and it worked. But it's all I can do. I have absolutely no presumptions to think up some piece of code by myself. None. Totally. No logical imagination. But - I can compose a song - in my head, and if I quickly write it down somewhere I can reproduce it later on a computer into a tracker. That's what I'm sure I can. This is why I don't focus on coding too much. Of course, doing coding rarely makes me forgetting all the skills and, for example, the case with the c64 music player - I don't remember it as I'm using it rarely and I can just modify my source code once a year to change texts and colours and that's what I need.

In one of my former jobs I was forced to do programming in FoxPro. I have never understood how this object programming works! Too many windows, too many parameters, total chaos. I didn't understand basic principles, how the program works. Luckily I left that job soon. Then I tried some M$ Visual tools, found it's the same shit and gave up. My friend said: If you wanna code, try Javascript. It's easy, like Basic. Yes, it's not bad. I tried it, it worked a bit. Things like Hello World. Still don't know what should I do with so many commands and instructions and those weird syntaxes. Or web. That PHP, HTML and JS combinations. It's sooo complicated when viewing others' website source codes. No, no, no, this is not for me. I stay on the 8-bitters and focus on what I can do and not what I will never understand. I'd never work as a coder. For me it's a devastating idea.

But despite all this aversion towards coding I quite like making demos. Sometimes I have ideas for effects, but I can't code them. Instead, I'm trying to force my group mates to make what I imagine and it's hard, sometimes it's useless effort. It's a feeling like I'm in a well and can't climb out. I know very well that I'm not able to code what I think up. It's frustrating so I escape by not trying to do it but doing music or gfx.

I'd like to work as a gardener or a fashion designer but not as a coder (unfortunately none of that is possible form various reasons). Or a trashman, they don't need to think up code :)

trixter: that´s the spirit =D

Factor: so make a wild, where's the problem?

Factor6, as mog says in the wild categories generally anything goes. :) Revision has seen scanner cameras with Raspberry Pis, videos of people dancing in abandoned buildings, long-exposures of LED-strips. TRSAC I think once had a compo where you submitted art you built yourself in the physical world. Someone even submitted a pound cake to the Sundown wild compo. It didn't rank well and got eaten before most knew about it, but so it went.

After long consideration I recommend alcohol, possibly assisted by benzodiazepines available from your local gangster.

@Factor6: coding can be an affliction that forces one to think it's "the obvious career path" just because you're able to do so.

I went for that and 14 years later I'm servicing marine diesel engines and ship electronics. May not last for long, but I do feel the original passion for coding shit coming back. I lost that when it became a desk job.

Factor6: don't let low self esteem ruin the day for you. if you want to try coding, start with an easy language first so that you can grasp the basic notion of programming that will later help with more complex languages. Personally, I suggest AutoIt which is a basic like simplification of C++. Of course, you don't have to play the coder part if you don't like it. If you like music or graphics then go for it. It is always up to you, and most important, how comfortable you feel about it so don't stress yourself to like something that you don't. Concerning the coding part you can start by writing small and simple code, see how it works and then proceed to more complex stuff. Also, make sure that you don't copy-paste someone else's source code since it is important to understand every line in your code so that you can progress further and add more lines to it. in general, if you need any help with everything be it code, music or graphics the demoscene is one of the best places to ask, since people will always be more than welcome to help you. :)

Copy pasting is not bad at all in the beginning - in the end you'll try to fit it in a way that it'll break and you'll go look for the clues as to why, and in the end perhaps pick up on what it all means.

damn that batman cpc demo had such an awesome soundtrack,

plek: allow me to disagree on this one. copying-pasting is usually a very bad choice for starters since they can't figure out most of the code nor understand which part does what and usually end up with an attitude like Factor6's about programming in general. also, each coder usually develops their own style on how to layout and structure the code, making it even more difficult for a starter to understand it thoroughly.

I've been programming for a long time, lets keep it at that, and it did at the very least not hurt me to do some copy pasting during my first steps.

so do i plek, maybe for you it worked (allow me to have my doubts though), copy-pasting is usually a very bad idea for the reasons i explained above...

Fed a few pages of this topic in a summarization algorithm:

"Once I met up with Gargaj, he introduced me to a lot of people and the rest of the party was a social blur for me...the more parties you attend you just keep meeting more people and keeping tabs with them over the internets and flamewars on pouet so you get to know what topics interest each person and chats become less awkward : alcohol helps but is not mandatory... "

Gargaj is all the social lubricant you need!

Factor6, I think you are way overthinking this.
Think of it as staring too long down the 10 meter pludging platform, the more you look down/think, the less you're going to make the jump.

As for not wanting/not being able to code, there are several other activities in a demogroup than cod/gfx/zik yet unreferenced on Pouet in which you might find joy to feel integrated more, if that is indeed your goal.

Also, if it makes you feel better, I've yet to see more than maybe 10 "normal" (genuine social-friendly) people at a party - involved people, not come-alongers. All the rest are exactly like you. Lately I've even met a "normal" person trying hard to artificially appear as you just so to "fit in": it was a surprise but just goes to show you shouldn't/wouldn't be singled out.

So cheer up !

Indeed. And Factor6's ranking in Forever party competitions clearly shows his mucic is appreciated by a lot of people.



I would offer my help here, but I often have the same problem with my own ideas. I solved it by working on machines no one cares about, this way there is no comparison point and no one can tell wether my code is bad, or it's just the machine that's too limited.
As someone else said, it's all just "smoke and mirrors".

I actually don't care that much about the people at demoparties. All I really care about is the releases. That's why you mostly find me near my machine, coding my entries at a party.

Came for the demos, stayed for the demos. :)

So that's why Mercury intros as so dam good! Remind me to never talk to you again ;)

plek: you mean copypasting the screenmodes, getpixel and putpixel routines written in ASM and filling the blanks with a more sensible language, right? ;)

You can do copy/pasting, just be aware that it leads to impostor syndrome later;)

Sorry guys, but the discussion is a joke for me. If you don't love or even like programming, just forget it. Dedication and passion is a prerequisite to go anywhere with it, especially in your spare time.