Adventures in Programming

[Rusakov]

So I'm back to programming... again. This time I've decided to learn Swift, but right now I'm trying two techniques to keep me motivated:

1. having a project in mind

2. learning just enough to get me started on said project, and then working on it.

My current project I hope to work on is an X11 window manager for Linux. Maybe not all that practical (installing Swift is still rather difficult on non-*buntu distributions, I might have to fix that...). I'm actually really excited about this. I've found a tutorial on writing a very basic window manager via Xlib and C++. Skimming it, I think I have a good enough grasp of basic C++ syntax to follow along and I'll be starting off with that.

I have a Bitbucket repository set up for the more ambitious project goal of making a fully-featured window manager, but it's mostly empty and probably won't be seeing much use for the time being.

Updates will hopefully be coming in the not-too-distant future.

[Daryn]

Hey, I wish you the best of luck man! Learning to program can be a real pain, but having a goal in mind can really help with that. Especially when you start to learn things that you know you can use.

[Rusakov]

Hey, I wish you the best of luck man! Learning to program can be a real pain, but having a goal in mind can really help with that. Especially when you start to learn things that you know you can use.

Thanks! Right now I have to figure out how to interop with Xlib, but I can probably start programming my idea after I have that figured out. Though I'm going to wait until after my foot followup and birthday. So I'll be getting back on track after Wednesday... hopefully.

[Rusakov]

Turns out I'm not as good at parsing C++ as I thought. x_x

I'll have to figure out another project to do...

[Daryn]

What about a Mastodon client?

[Rusakov]

What about a Mastodon client?

Worth a shot I suppose.

[Rusakov]

I take back what I said yesterday. I was very tired and out of sorts then.

I'll soldier on with my window manager idea.

[Daryn]

Hey, sometimes a good night's sleep can help you refocus. Keep at it, man.

[Rusakov]

Hey, sometimes a good night's sleep can help you refocus. Keep at it, man.

Thanks! Yeah, I'm glad I slept before making a decision. I've made some bad decisions from lack of sleep before. x_x

[Rusakov]

Swift wasn't really working out. Since I'm a Linux user there's no easy way to install or update Swift. So now this thread should probably be renamed "Adventures in Programming" or something.

So I've decided to go to Python. While this is the latest of MANY tries at learning it, I've gotten farther at it than before thanks to skimming the stuff I already knew in favor of saving time, energy and motivation for stuff I don't know.

Later I hope to learn how to use the Qt framework.

Oh, and I've been working on some HTML5 site stuff too!

[Daryn]

Python is a good bit of fun, and there's a lot of support for it. It's definitely worth trying to push through. The whole whitespace thing can be a bit of a pain, though.

[Rusakov]

Whitespace is no biggie for me. Idle takes care of it fine, plus I'm not religious about it (I only prefer tabs because it requires one keystroke instead of four, but I'm flexible if the need ever arises).