what a great forum!

GradualGames · Post by **GradualGames** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 11:35 am

So, I've been delving into NES development for a few months now, and this forum (and the accompanying website) has proven to be a fantastic resource! There are so many helpful people on here. Also, there seems to be a refreshing air of professionalism and relative lack of flame wars. In fact, I haven't seen one yet! Has that ever happened on this site?

My guess is that a lot of 6502 programmers are in their late 20's or in their 30's, and thus are more mature than all the wannabe kiddies on more general game development sites. (kudos to all members here who are under 20 and are mature beyond their years)

Congratulations to everyone on making this place so inviting and informative!

Regards,
-Zom

Celius · Post by **Celius** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 12:26 pm

I totally agree with you. When I first came to this site, I thought it was very professional without stupid drama (oh god, compared to like YouTube). Though I was extremely annoying when I came here for about two years, and I give thumbs up to all who endured my stupidity. I like to think I've become a little (a lot) less annoying.

I've learned A TON from this site, starting from not knowing squat about anything to understanding various programming concepts, the way the NES works (generally; I don't quite understand a lot of the SUPER technical stuff), and many other things that I wouldn't have learned otherwise.

And yeah, I figure most people are in their 20's and 30's here. But I'm one who believes that your age does not need to determine your professionalism. I'm sure in the past somewhere I stated my age, but I don't really like to anymore because I think no matter what it is it changes people's perception of me, and I just want people to see me as me. Wow, I guess that's starting a Youtube drama rant, so stop there

.

Bregalad · Post by **Bregalad** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 2:20 pm

Yeah, I'm not in my late 20's and even less in my eraly 30's but yet, like Celius, I don't think the age of someone does matter how stupid or intelligent he is in any way. Too many people at 15 say someone who is 12 is stupid, then peole at 18 say someone at 15 is stupid, and people who are 22 says people who are 19 are stupid, but in fact the stupid thing is to make all that drama for 3 insignificant years in the universe.

I learned a lot on this forum, from speaking english to a lot of little details about the NES and obscure japan only NES games, so this is definitely a great plce.

GradualGames · Post by **GradualGames** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:06 pm

Someone (I think J0D$I can't remember how to spell it haha) said something in another thread about how great this forum is, and it made me feel like responding but I felt it would be most appropriate in this thread...

I've never encountered a group of people on the internet so inviting and tolerant of newbies. The only condition seems to be if you have a newbie question, ask it in the newbie forum, and no one is going to make you feel like an idiot. Unless you ask a question that seems to imply you want someone to give you all the answers so you don't have to exert any effort yourself...which totally makes sense.

Which brings up another thought. Has anyone ever had a "mentor" in programming? I've had a mentor in other pursuits in my life, and it was really helpful. Sometimes I wish I could have had a mentor in programming earlier on, but the programming world almost seems to be like the wild west. You have to prove yourself and teach yourself, or so it seems. Even college was like this (for me anyway, having majored in Computer Science...I had mostly very uninspiring and unhelpful professors)

That isn't a bad thing I suppose, but sometimes there are individuals that just need that extra boost. Sometimes you encounter an individual who seems really irritating and APPEARS to not want to do any work for themselves, but really they just need a boost so they realize they CAN learn things on their own...has anyone been a mentor or received mentorship on this forum? I think its a great thing when it happens, both for the mentor and the mentoree. It is quite gratifying to encourage someone and see them grow and learn. Of course, the mentoree does have to stand on their own two feet at some point...otherwise they're just leeching off of their mentor's hard earned knowledge.

Celius · Post by **Celius** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 4:09 pm

There was actually a point where I demonstrated such a lack of understanding that blargg sent me a PM saying that he'd help me out a little. He did help me a lot in learning some really essential stuff in programming. For the most part though, I learned all programming stuff on my own.

I am very fortunate to have come to this forum, because it's pretty active and everyone is very knowledgeable/helpful. I can't imagine where I'd be without this forum, because one day I randomly googled "NES game making tools" knowing -nothing- about programming, and found the main page for this site. If I hadn't found it, I may have just gone to play video games and not pursue game development at all! Now that I'm pretty aware of programming concepts and whatnot thanks to this site, I have more of a chance to learn about systems where there isn't a great forum like this (e.g. Gameboy, SNES, Playstation).

GradualGames · Post by **GradualGames** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 5:22 pm

I just realized I lied in my previous post. I did have a teacher early on. When I first got into programming, there was a small computer programming class for kids in my town..I learned how to make simple games in QBasic. I think when I said I didn't have a mentor I actually meant when I started to do more advanced things, such as when I taught myself intel assembly language. It's more like I lacked direction and discipline. I never finished anything back then. It may have been nice to have someone encourage me and say: "So, you want to make a blah blah blah? Well then stick with it and make sure you plan out X, and learn Y." etc. I dunno. That's all water under the bridge though, I've come through lots of trials and tribulations and now I enjoy programming as much as I did back then, with some added discipline.

Celius · Post by **Celius** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 7:30 pm

Yeah, I didn't start programming until 2005. I certainly lacked direction when I arrived, and actually didn't get real direction until like two years ago. I find the most important thing is to understand exactly how everything really works. When you understand what exactly each piece of code is doing, then you'll know why things work or don't work, and what will work to accomplish what you want to do. Then of course you want to understand the stages of making a homebrew game. These aren't the same stages for everyone, but generally you want to plan everything out before coding, and then create the engine in separate chunks as to make sure everything is working, then combine them at the end. You may want to take a break and create some data here and there for testing/entertainment purposes, but generally all data should be created last. I haven't gone through all the stages yet, so I guess I don't have good authority saying that. I'm still in the coding phase right now. But I get a little farther every day.

Post by **tepples** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 8:39 pm

Celius wrote:generally all data should be created last.

"Generally" leaves it vague.

Here's how I see it: A computer program is a formal system for transforming input into output, and the specification of a program describes the desired output. You'll want to have several "test cases", or pairs of input and output, to verify that your program behaves correctly. For example, the output of a scrolling engine is a background plane. So you'll need to 'shop up a screen mockup that looks like this background plane. You'll also need some data that the program will transform into output: raw CHR data, metatile mappings, object shapes, and map data. This way, you have something to measure your program against. As you complete the program, you also make a test case for each feature that you complete.

Celius · Post by **Celius** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 8:56 pm

Yeah, I said "generally" because of what you described, basically. It should all be created last, with the exception of test data. If you're testing an AI handler, you need AI data to test with. In this case, you create the data before completing the engine.

miau · Post by **miau** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:03 am

ZomCoder wrote: Which brings up another thought. Has anyone ever had a "mentor" in programming? I've had a mentor in other pursuits in my life, and it was really helpful. Sometimes I wish I could have had a mentor in programming earlier on, but the programming world almost seems to be like the wild west. You have to prove yourself and teach yourself, or so it seems. Even college was like this (for me anyway, having majored in Computer Science...I had mostly very uninspiring and unhelpful professors)

Personally, I wish I had a mentor for music composition and pixel art.

I usually google twice, though, before asking other people. That's why I rarely create threads here. Also, I usually don't contribute to other people's conversations either because I feel most of the experienced users on this board are so much better at explaining things... They're faster at hitting the submit button, too

For people that are used to the IRC mentality (users idling 90% of the time) there's still #nesdev on EFNet which complements the forum well, I think, and allows for a little more lax conversations once in a while.
Might be easier to get in touch with people there.

I've met a number of great people on irc generally - not just #nesdev.
Amongst them: a pixel artist who now does all the art for my projects. Our love for retro game consoles has made us best (internet) friends and always leads to interesting conversations. I am mentoring him in programming questions occasionally.
It's this community and people like him that are motivating me to spend more time on my hobby.

Also, yeah, I love how this board stays mostly clean of personal drama and focuses on what it's really about.

This post is an exception however.

WedNESday · Post by **WedNESday** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 12:20 pm

You're right. This is a great forum, and I'm the best member on it.

tokumaru · Post by **tokumaru** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:36 pm

WedNESday wrote:You're right. This is a great forum, and I'm the best member on it.

I'm pretty sure you're trying to be funny with that statement, but I felt like responding anyway.

You almost exclusively show up to ask questions to help you with your emulator... Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that hardly qualifies you as "the best member". I don't even think it's possible to pick someone to occupy that position. Most frequent posters are very helpful.

Jarhmander · Post by **Jarhmander** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 8:38 pm

ZomCoder wrote:Someone (I think J0D$I can't remember how to spell it haha)

Is that me?

WedNESday · Post by **WedNESday** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 3:42 am

tokumaru wrote:
WedNESday wrote:You're right. This is a great forum, and I'm the best member on it.
I'm pretty sure you're trying to be funny with that statement, but I felt like responding anyway.

You almost exclusively show up to ask questions to help you with your emulator... Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that hardly qualifies you as "the best member". I don't even think it's possible to pick someone to occupy that position. Most frequent posters are very helpful.

blargg is probably the best member. *Grinds his teeth*

GradualGames · Post by **GradualGames** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 7:06 am

~J-@D!~ wrote:
ZomCoder wrote:Someone (I think J0D$I can't remember how to spell it haha)
Is that me?

Yes, I think in a thread in the newbie section I saw you say something about this forum and it inspired me to continue to gush about the forum also so I chose to put said gush in this thread.