Further postables

[aesmael]

When I tell the people I know who code that I would like also to learn that dark art they ask what my goal is, what I want to make with it. I might at last have some things to qualify as answers.

The first is, the lead of one of my stories is living in a ten day week. I would like to build something calendrical to make tracking her time easier. Currently I am getting by with a spreadsheet but do not find it optimal. In about six months to a year her calendar will change, so that is a deadline of sorts. If I can learn and make before then, perhaps I can also make something flexible enough to handle new and old calendars both.

The second relates to something I created in my mid-teens, a transliteration of English. Possibly other languages using the Latin alphabet too but I do not know them well enough to say. It is a simple enough pattern, based on hexagonal tiling with text spread across a two-dimensional plane. I would like to build something to display this transliteration as an output.

At the moment it is seeming like a quite complicated project and I doubt it would be of any more use than passing encoded between friends (perhaps as an image?). I wonder if I could extend my original idea, perhaps into a third dimension (layers or angles?). Sentence arrangement was terrible in what I came up with, maybe I can fix that too.

Comments

[mantic-angel.livejournal.com]

Further and further, the universe does suggest I need to start teaching an online coding class or something :)

The calendar program sounds pretty easy, although it depends a bit on the output format you want and how complex your calendar system is. The other one pretty much requires a graphical interface, which takes a bit more time. Depends on the language you use and what your foundation is, but they'd both be pretty good learning tasks IMO.

Any thoughts given as to what programming language you're interested in?

"They ask what my goal is, what I want to make with it."
I always found this the most peculiar question to ask. I learn because it seems interesting, because I want to know how the art works. I didn't learn calculus to solve a specific formula, and I didn't learn physics with any specific pyrotechnic application in mind. Why should I have a specific goal to programming? :)

Although, honestly, the ability to write little convenience programs like you mentioned makes it a really cool field of study!!

[aesmael.livejournal.com]

It was a somewhat stressful question, as the only answer I could think to give had roughly the same meaning as yours (both of them).

I have no clue yet which language I might use, which suggests where I should start continue. The second one definitely is most interesting to me right now and I thoroughly expect it to be a long term project. Hopefully not one that becomes abandoned, but I do look forward to finding all the little problems that need solving. I do at the moment believe I will need to create a font early on, as so far as I know the actual characters are not part of any standard character-set, but I would not be surprised to discover that is unnecessary either.

And I simply must ask: What general pyrotechnics application had you in mind?

[mantic-angel.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be one to recommend a language - I'm only familiar with a few, and none of them have a strong visual component. If you wanted to do it the "quick and lazy" route, Excel VBA would be a good start (and it sounds like you're used to Excel, or at least spreadsheets in general). I personally like C++ since it's a strong, flexible language, but graphical applications require a bit of extra work.

No general applications either. I learned about physics because I think it's cool. The rockets were a bonus :)

[lost-angelwings.livejournal.com]

I want to help you with that? :( I like stuff like that and I'm good with math :(

[aesmael.livejournal.com]

Collaboration and cooperation are fun. Also math.

[open-other-end.livejournal.com]

I can hep too, mmph. :)

For the hex thing, you can be creative with text formatting. eg

  a b
 c d e
  f g

Storing everything in an array would require some creativity, but should be doable.

[aesmael.livejournal.com]

I was thinking I make take an intermediate step with something simpler, such as making a font for the transliteration I devised.

[mantic-angel.livejournal.com]

Actually, an array would be pretty simple - hex is surprisingly easy to reprsent as a normal 2-dimensional array, since it still has columns and rows, it's just the display itself that's "staggered."

For example, the sample data you did is equivalant to:
cadbe
_f_g_

I wish I could hammer out the protocode off the top of my head, but I can't think in code at work :)

[flynnacatri.livejournal.com]

Sadly I know nothing of use but the second idea sounds fascinating ♥

[aesmael.livejournal.com]

How do you make the heart shape?

[flynnacatri.livejournal.com]

*&hearts*; (minus the *) - don't forget ; on the end ♥♥ ^_^