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[justinlee999]

I ordered a softcover copy of "Learn Python the Hard Way", then they started printing it, and shipped to me on February 1st. With around 7-21 days. I had a good feeling it would arrive on Valentine's Day, and when my dad got out of the house he gave me a package containing the lovely book.

Unfortunately the book is a little bit damaged (white lines on the edges, a scratch or two, etc.) which wouldn't be a big deal if I wasn't so OCD about it, staring into it.

Anyway, I can see "January 21, 2012" on the first page of my book, guess they printed it on that day, but that is strange since they said they are printing the book when I ordered and I ordered it on January 26th... meh, who cares, perhaps they anticipated my order? :V

In retrospect though, I kind of feel bad for my wallet for buying this book since the HTML edition is completely free, and there is hardly any new content, but hey, support the author and novelty I guess.

[MorleyDev]

Interview went well. As it was for a coding job, they gave us a little puzzle. Apparently only two people they interviewed have ever come up with how to solve it, and one of them was me May wind up in London it seems...

[Levi]

Interview went well. As it was for a coding job, they gave us a little puzzle. Apparently only two people they interviewed have ever come up with how to solve it, and one of them was me May wind up in London it seems...

Nice!  Congrats. 

[Stargrasper]

Interview went well. As it was for a coding job, they gave us a little puzzle. Apparently only two people they interviewed have ever come up with how to solve it, and one of them was me May wind up in London it seems...

Well done.  What was the puzzle?

[MorleyDev]

Basically you had a grid of specific size and starting from any position at the far right you can only move to the right (going up or down one in the process). You had to come up with an algorithm to detect all possible paths. Maybe that only two have solved it speaks to the programming skill of most undergraduate computer science students...or maybe I'm just amazing

[Aqizzar]

Basically you had a grid of specific size and could only move in certain ways, and had to come up with an algorithm to detect all possible paths. Maybe that only two have solved it speaks to the programming skill of most undergraduate computer science students...or maybe I'm just amazing

How amenable are they to brute forcing it?  Because I wrote a basic "Can I move here?" AI for my roguelike experiment with nothing more complicated than an if-ladder.  Heck, I can't even think of a simpler way to do it.

Oh wait, it's pathfinding, not collision detection.  Well, nevermind, but I could still probably do it if I had longer than an interview.

[nenjin]

None of them are fantastically complicated games (maybe E.Y.E.), all of them have very distinct and memorable styling, and they were mostly made by very small teams.  With the magic of digital payment and distribution, you can get away with titles that are basically slick retreads of foundational game principles, built on a crazy motif, and sell it for a couple bucks because you no longer have to worry about finding and filling commercial shelf space.

By the same token, just go look at the list of ~$5 games that aren't triple A, that don't enjoy Terraria-levels of success. It's huge. A game being simple and cost-effective is no guarantee, it's got to capture the imagination of the public as well.

I kind of decided that I'm going to make no effort toward a real game until I've produced my own indie project, myself, without a team supporting me. Anything beyond that seems like stretching for someone that has no practical coding experience. (Can you count the # of self-starts we've seen around here, where people literally have money to burn and that's the only thing they bring to the table?)

[Levi]

I kind of decided that I'm going to make no effort toward a real game until I've produced my own indie project, myself, without a team supporting me. Anything beyond that seems like stretching for someone that has no practical coding experience. (Can you count the # of self-starts we've seen around here, where people literally have money to burn and that's the only thing they bring to the table?)

To be honest I think this is the most reasonable way to go.

[fergus]

Basically you had a grid of specific size and starting from any position at the far right you can only move to the right (going up or down one in the process). You had to come up with an algorithm to detect all possible paths. Maybe that only two have solved it speaks to the programming skill of most undergraduate computer science students...or maybe I'm just amazing

Did you mean "can only move to the left"?
What does "detect all possible paths" mean? List them? Count them? Find every square that can be reached?

[MorleyDev]

Basically you had a grid of specific size and starting from any position at the far right you can only move to the right (going up or down one in the process). You had to come up with an algorithm to detect all possible paths. Maybe that only two have solved it speaks to the programming skill of most undergraduate computer science students...or maybe I'm just amazing

Did you mean "can only move to the left"?
What does "detect all possible paths" mean? List them? Count them? Find every square that can be reached?

*head desk* That would be the result of me trying to give the idea without specifics, rewriting the same sentence until every version is one massive muddle in my brain and I don't know what I wrote -_- And you start on the left and can only move right.

I recursively iterated along and created a tree of every path stored and that was apparently adequate.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Right, so I was directed here from 'that other programming thread' to get some help using c++ and libtcod to program a basic rl. 1st Q.) what do I need to know about the base language to reliably program this? 2nd.) are there any tutorials dealing with this? 3rd and final.) Is there anything else I need to know?

[Max White]

Well to start with, how good are you with c++? Is this a language you are used to?

[Urist McScoopbeard]

To some extent, Its the only ive learned (and im using that term liberally) and ive written some basic programs with it, although I have no experience with libtcod.

[Max White]

Are you suuuure you want to jump right into making a game with libtcod? I think you should really have a handle on c++ before you go so far as to something like a roguelike with it.

Also, it is never too late to pick up a new language. Libtcod has implementations in c# and python as well, both easier to pick up, so you will be making roguelikes more quickly in either.

[nenjin]

I kind of agree with the lizard. If you can make a crappy RL in C++ that prints stuff to screen, libtcod will be easier to get a handle on.

And even just programming a pretty deep non-graphical game in C++ can teach you a lot about the language.