When all your friends are gamers/developers! Just a typical Sunday 🤓🤓🤓

Paradise

Very cool!

I wish my life were like that... At school no one programs at the level I do, so I ended up befriending a group of people who are all avid gamers... And because of that I have started gaming...

at college, I went to a one the meetings for the "programming club"

They were making kids' "learning" game for the a local public library, specifically for a 3' x 4.5' android "table top tablet" they got from some edu grant.

Later on that I looked up the model (can't remember what it was, some brand I'd never heard of) the display was 1366x768... despite being tv size. The home screen made it obvious this shit had hardware equivalent to teh pay-to-go "smart phones" you buy at a gas station

12 students (3 of whom were working on their group's website; wordpress + jQuery)

XNA --> mono... for something designed only for android...

Their game was a 2d crossword puzzle, but for each word it zoomed in and became a hangman mini-game.

They were so happy that they got the camera to "zoom" from one word to another, linear animation, textures just got scaled, became blurry. But it would start to freeze after the 2nd or 3rd word. so 5 of them were "debugging" (via print stmts)

I take this all in within the first 10-15 minutes. Finally it was too much for me.

> "Why the fuck are you using C# if it's only for android?"
> "Well we tried using unity but we couldn't get the svn to work right."
> "... I couldn't imagine how the two are related. But that's besides the point, unity fucking blows"
> the "lead developer" hears this and "swaggers" over
> "Yeah well what would you suggest?!" clearly upset the new guy is questioning their choices

> "Well, first off I wouldn't use C# or MICROSOFT's game development platform for something SPECIFICALLY running on ANDROID! I'd probably choose something like libGDX"
> guy turns to his computer, googles libGDX, turns back with a oh-you-poor-noob expression.
> "thats for java, what are you some kind of apple fan boy?"
> !?!?!??!? wtffffffff
> "the ANDROID SDK IS IN JAVA!! and libGDX runs on top of LWJGL which gives you direct access to OpenGL ES"
> "whats that"
> "OpenGL?"
> "yeah"

> literal *facepalm*
> "its c++ that draws triangles really fast"
> everybody stares at me
> project leader === dear-in-headlights.jpg
> "I know c++"
> "oh do you? Show me"
> lead "developer" opens up DevC++
> rolls-eyes.gif
> "right now I'm working on a _innovative_ new program to help our team sync files"
> peer over his shoulder

> gag. ugliest code I've ever seen. consists of 2 .cpp files (and the corresponding .h) containing an `int main(char* argv[]) { ... }`
and another function using the winapi to do ftp to a hardcoded ip (his laptop)
> "but it only works when I'm at my dorm, I can't figure that out"
> "well first off, it's `int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { ... }` and secondly its because you hardcoded an ip address _which changes when you move around campus_"

> "WELL, im always on `edunet` and when I uh when check my ip"
> pulls up EXTERNAL ip checking website
> "it's the same as back in my dorm. I don't think YOU know what you're talking about"
> `edunet` is a multi-ap roaming network. entire campus exits network from only a small set of external ips. You constantly get disconnected when moving from one building to another & need to reauth.
> this kid is a senior in CompSci, leader of the "programming" club

> I can't take it anymore. Turn around and walk out. fuck these idiots
-------
> 6 months later, right as second semester is about to end
> I see two of the other kids there on the bus
> "so how did that work out for you guys"
> "oh well we finished the game, but the library got rid of it."
> "why?"
> "well we couldn't figure out how to lock down the device, so you people kept setting the background to gay porn and the like"
> "...why would it have internet access"

> "well we decided it should let you have social media access so you could tweet/fb post about your score"
> game made for 2nd graders...
> "well that was stupid"
> "yeah, plus like 6 people got their facebooks fucked with"
> found out the app used the native facebook/twitter apps to trigger the android `Intentions` to post to social media
> offered no obvious/apparent facility to logout (you would have to go to the homescreen, open fb/twitter app, options -> logout)

> "well that was REALLY fucking stupid? who's idea was that?"
> (name of that head "developer")
> "yeah you know that TA (teachers assistant) who got all of her nudes leaked?"
> "....yeah"
> "well she had posted to fb from the game with a class of kids she brought to the library from a preschool she interns with"
> ...
> that girl's career, life was ruined.
> later heard she attempted suicide
>
> I learned something that day.
> Programming Degree !== Programmer