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Socoder -> Off Topic -> any (coding related) regrets?

Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 03:24
waroffice

any (coding related) regrets?


Back in the day (2001/2002 ish) I had no real responsibilities, lived with my parents and worked in my dad's PC repair shop. All the time in the world to code

And I did code, entered a couple competitions on blitzcoder, didn't get on the podium but got a runner up prize for my Christmas themed game, Santa Claus in - He's dropped his bag

Not long after this I was invited to Idigicon as part of a group visit, a wet, 21 year old coder. I had been to college but not really noticed the real world going on in front of me. Naive level 9000

My regret is not seeing what I could have done with this relationship, didn't stick to coding as much (I discovered girls) and have never really pursued it as a career.

Now every kid coming from highschool wants to code games, and they can, it is so accessible these days!

I feel it has left me behind, Im never going to be that guy that makes the next Worms or SWIV or Zelda ripoff

oh well, nothing I can do now other than tinker for my own enjoyment

yeah I now feel old, 21 in 2001!!!!
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 03:34
Jayenkai
I had ambitions..
But that was a long long time ago.

At college, I made the first version of JNKPlat. It was great, and everyone at college played it.
Awesome!
One day at the local CarBoot sale, I was browsing the awesome PD-Guy's PD collection when a young child (10/11, maybe) came up to me and asked "Are you that JNK guy?"

Weirdest fucking moment of my life.
Apparently him and his brother loved to play JNKPlat, and run away from all the bats!

After that moment, thoughts of "Fame" went out the window. I'd had my moment, and it was weird. "That'll do!!" says I.
As for Fortune.. Yeah, that's not really happened, has it..

Meh, whatever.

-=-=-
''Load, Next List!''
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 03:40
waroffice
I just code random stuff for work now, anything from simple config generators to SNMP Trap logging tools, thats the same right?????

I do like it when a process is drawn up at work and it includes the use of a tool I coded between lunch breaks
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 03:44
GfK
I don't remember you visiting Idigicon - a few of their open days happened when I worked there in 2001-02. Always remember George kidnapping Blodrone's Mr Merrygrim. Kicked up a right fuss over it.

I've always been a bit of a Del-Boy with my "this time next year" attitude. It's only now, in the last couple of years, that I'm coming to accept that success isn't just around the corner. It's out of reach and this is, as they say, "it". Hence trying out other ventures.

Oh... regrets - not really. Maybe if I'd kept in the game after leaving Infogrames? I'm here, and I'm OK. It's been a rocky road and I'll always wish for better. But it could have been worse.
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 03:47
waroffice
I was a totally different person back then, people that I remember sort of from the visit are a scottish guy with long hair, and cyberseth, barber shop quartet singer

dont recall any staff, alto the only part of the tour i remember is a sort of attik with nerds working on stuff
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 03:51
GfK
Scottish guy was Blu Matt. Had a great night out with him in Edinburgh once. Extremely likeable chap.

|edit| though he wasn't actually a Scot - he'd just lived up there for a long time
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 04:38
waroffice
I thought he was called something like psionics or something, wrote a book? or am I thinking of the wrong guy

|update| -=-=- |update|
This dude had the accent and all, i couldn't understand him
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 04:40
cyangames
I regret not pushing Super Grid Run to greenlight back in 2013, I convinced myself off the recent slew of Jim Sterlings videos that it wasn't a good idea, only to become frustrated when a bunch of clone games went on there and got approved, probably missed out a fair amount of money that way.

But, aside from that I'm pretty happy with my slightly obscure path I've taken as a coder, from early steps with commpdore +4 basic, bbc basic, quick basic followed by a long run with Visual Basic 3,4,5, and 6, integrating that with Direct X during Uni years. Learning Actionscript, PHP, CSS, HTML, MySQL etc along the way.

Picking up Unity and the sadly soon to be defunct unityscript around 2011 to get back into making games, with the main aim to make some money from it never fully took off, Super Grid Run did earn a tasy grand though. but the mobile market was soon to explode in a crazy way, which I've not been fond of since.

Microconsoles were great fun to develop for and the failed Gamestick will always hold a place in my heart, it was my first dev-uint, bless it, the OUYA was cool too and still gets used often in our house!

3d games are cool to undertake but the market just seemed to be becoming massive and I wandered if my smaller games really had much of a place in them, without relying to what now seemed to be the lottery of Mobile games.

So, come 2015 I decided to take a look into older languages such as C for making gameboy games, thanks lil brother Oli! Which has led me to making over 15 lil homebrew games for that console, some now in production for physical cartridges, GAME DEV GOAL GET! followed up by my descent into the Arcane world of 6502 assembly and NES development.

It's a weird arc that one but I've loved every bit of it, including the frustration!

I'm still doing all that web-dev and design stuff as my 9 to 5 though and oddly some VB.NET work at the moment, ha!

Wander what language I'll hook-up with next...

TLDR; The ambition is still there to make games that people love to play, just different sorts of games now I guess

-=-=-
Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 04:43
GfK
Ohhhhh.... might have been Specis? I've been to Scotland many, many times but he had the strongest accent I've ever heard. I think he lives on Skye. Oh God there were some fun times there - me (with a Barnsley accent), Specis, and a Dutch guy I think, whose name currently escapes me. All been at the drink for several hours, trying to have a conversation with some hilarious language barriers.

There was a guy called Psionic but I think he was from the black country or somewhere down that way.
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 04:56
waroffice
specis, thats the guy!!!!

He still around?
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 06:37
GfK
It's a bit hard to tell, what with every forum I ever interacted with him on going tits-up....
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 06:42
Jayenkai
Last here, October 19th, 2015!
https://socoder.net/?Profile=Specis

-=-=-
''Load, Next List!''
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 11:22
Dabz
1) Not backing up the trillions of lines of code I've wrote for the past 30 years
2) Not being arsed to rewrite the good stuff that I never backed up
3) Not even knowing the regrets I have about 1 and 2, I still not being arsed to back stuff up

I'm my own coding regret!

Dabz

-=-=-
Intel Core i5 6400 2.7GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (8GB), 8Gig DDR4 RAM, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD, Windows 10 64bit
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 11:26
Jayenkai
I lost the source for Green's 16-bit Collection after a HD crash.

That taught me to backup!!!

Once bitten.. .. back it up!!!

-=-=-
''Load, Next List!''
Fri, 18 Aug 2017, 16:30
curtastic
Not turning my games into phone apps or web apps sooner.
Not keeping in touch with people who wanted to help or at least test.
Not finishing things.
Sat, 19 Aug 2017, 03:08
rockford
Losing everything I ever did with Div after multiple computer/HD failures and web hosts going tits up.
Sat, 19 Aug 2017, 04:50
Pakz
Using a 123 pasword on a coding site and being hacked then. The code is still there though but my account has been anomynized by the devs.
Sun, 20 Aug 2017, 14:56
jm2bits
Taking a 5 year hiatus to be an engineer in the Navy is probably the biggest impact on my coding career.. but I have still done OK. Since leaving in 2010 I have ended up as a tech programmer at a nice little studio in Cheshire working on Games Workshop games and building in-house tech for PC/Mobile/Nintendo Switch. So probably my dream job for my 16yo self (With lots of other stuff!)

I think my biggest mistake was in 2010 - I had just finished my last trip in the navy and had loads of time (8 months paid holiday before starting uni) a mac mini + and iPod touch... and I decided that I would do Xbox live indie games + WP7 instead.... /dickhead.
Sat, 26 Aug 2017, 13:10
GfK
Just remembered while watching Only Fools & Horses (which is completely nothing to do with it) that the Dutch guy's name was Foppy!