Thursday 10 December 2015

Still no baby...so writing a book

She's still not popped, and she's getting very fed of up me asking if she has..so I'll back off for a bit.

In other news, I've started to document my learning process on the Raspberry Pi, which I am learning to use so that I can give some talks on at uni. quite a few of them want to do assembly coding and cross platform remote development. So the Pi was chosen to make that possible...and your's truly has been the one working it all out.

Since this was my 1st experience with the Pi as an actual target device for programming, it struck me it was a good idea to try to share that experience with others who may be starting out on the machine
After collating a few of my notes I realised I had the basics of a tutorial I've always want to do.

Combining my 1st year starting programming courses with later more advanced, working on consoles.

The Pi isn't a console of course but the process with you work with it using a remote dev machine and VisualGBD to allow you to use Visual Studio, is basically the same so it could be a good introduction to the methods of working I usually use when doing PS4 work without actually having access to a PS4 which of course is the situation for most home coders. A cheap pretend console might be a good way to provide some tips to new coders so that when they come across real consoles the methods are not totally alien to them, even if the software and SDK's are.

Depending on where you look the machine appears to be more powerful than a Nintendo GameCube and on par with a PS2 or original Xbox. There were some amazing games on those machines, so if I can get a working framework together built on OpenGL ES2.0 I'll be a very happy man.

Anyway, no idea if it will end up as anything worth reading, but I have been partially inspired by one of my students who gifted and signed for me a copy of his 2nd edition of a book on Mine craft modding.

If I document my whole journey, from the frustration of getting it working to having that 1st OpenGL ES triangle displayed, to creating a framework to make a few of my 1st year games. It should pad out to a few hundred pages of semi interesting stuff.

I'll have to also break out the dormant 3D skills to write a framework that can cope with models and scenes, but that might be a 2nd book.

Having a book published also takes off a bit of academic pressure I get from time to time over not having a masters degree. so another good reason. Money isn't one of the other reasons, apparently tech books don't really make much cash, or hot the top of the best seller list often, but if I can get it out, I think it will be nice to say I'm an author...even if the plot is a bit dull and the butler probably does it at the end.

Anyway, time to ask if she's popped yet?

.
Ahthankyew

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