Omnimaga
Calculator Community => Other Calculators => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on June 17, 2010, 03:02:54 am
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As some of you are aware of, on July 4th 2010, I will have been programming for TI calculators for exactly 9 years. However, I am afraid there won't be a 10th year.
As some people on the forums and IRC (and more recently the entire Omnimaga staff) have been seeing from time to time since at least February, I have done and said things (such as in this topic that only staff/irc chanops can see (http://ourl.ca/4776)) that implied that this Summer would be my last in the TI community. The reasons were not explained to everyone at first, but were related to things outside the Internet, which the entire staff and a few others are aware of. Initially, I planned to leave last February, but then pushed it back to an undefined time, then later Summer time. As for now it is uncertain about what will happen. However, it is becoming clear that this 9th year of programming is going to be my last. My learning capacity, which slowly deteriorates with the time, is not going to allow me to push Axe Parser further than the game project I had in mind, and its sequel will require me to team up with someone else for the tilemapping. Since I have tried other languages to no avail, that I am no longer interested into RPG programming and that what I want to make is impossible in TI-BASIC, I see no point in continuing further afterward if no matter how hard people, especially Quigibo, try at helping me, I still can't understand things that would allow me to make better games. So basically, once I'm done with the game I would like to make (if I even do it at all), I am also done with all kind of programming. I also have very big issues at getting used to new stuff. I am fine with slight syntax changes in a language, but not stuff such as token names. 6 years ago I would have been fine (I did it with Omnicalc, when they switched from Sprite() to Real(20)), but things happened to me since then (and long before).
As for my future in the TI community, I given indication one week ago that June may be my last month in the TI community. This is not because of community problems, as no major issue occured in a long while. It is stuff outside the Internet and past things that slowly changed me into something that will eventually be a nuisance for Omnimaga and the community. If things goes well I could very well remain around for several more years. I'll see how that goes, but now you know why there was an hosting ownership change and two new admins hired at once not so long ago. I prefer to plan things in advance in case.
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'Twas an hounour doing business with you, Sir. I liked your games, and I sincerely hope that, even if you quit programming, you can still hang out here.
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Good-bye, DJ... We'll miss you. Too bad you say you must leave the community, too.
Farewell, adieu...
(At least we'll still have your games... :P)
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Kevin, you are fricken amazing. You are epic full of win.
When you leave, you leave an awesome legacy: this site. This is the most popular forum in a community that was dying. A couple months ago, the community was sliding into a black hole of nothingness, and this forum is one of the major reasons the community remains strong. That is your doing.
Three cheers for Kevin Ouellet\DJ Omnimaga!
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Hurray Hurray Hurray !
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Hip Hip Hurray! Hip Hip Hurray! Hip Hip Hurray!
:P
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Hopefully you will be able to stay longer then you think. We will really miss you if you leave. You are the reason this community is here, and you have saved the TI community.
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I won't to wish a farewell yet because:
If things goes well I could very well remain around for several more years. I'll see how that goes...
Hope is the last thing to end.
Anyway, you were incredible in coding and releasing your games, talk in the forums (ok, true on 99% of times but happens to other persons as well), keeping a community like this one and even reviving the TI calculator community recently.
I really defend you should be a bit around, even if behind the scenes backing Builderboy, Eeems and Ztrumpet. Think about this.
And if is good for you end any stress originate from coding, I totally support your choice. ;) But, please, do not loose the joy of playing calculator games. ;D
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I haven't been here very long, but I can already feel the huge impact you have made to the TI community. I haven't even known that graphing calculators existed for as long as you have been programming. Your amazing games and your helpful advice have given people (including myself) inspiration to continue to work on making fun games and great programs on these calculators. I can only wish you the best in luck in whatever you do, and even if you aren't going to be programming anymore, it would be great if you stuck around for a little more to just hang out. :)
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It's a shame, I started playing your games about two years ago, and still enjoy them to this day. I wish you the best.
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I hope I can at least stick around for a while longer. It is rather hard, though, with life. I will most likely need a break from certain stuff soon (not to be selfish towards people needing help, but it is rather hard to moderate a site, answer people requests via PM, e-mail and IRC and help other people on Axe stuff (that I am already not very experienced with), when I would like to participate in discussions here and IRC channels and maybe even code my planned game. Plus at work we get 1.5x more customers than usual and often work more hours. I think I am burning myself out by devoting so much effort on all those at once, so I think I will be stopping 1 and 2 for a while as much as possible. Until my work vacations in Late July it might be a good idea. I have three other forum admins anyway, so I could maybe just perform admin tasks when I feel like it.
If I continue at this rate, I'll get too unstable and irritated and people will get more and more angry at myself and hold grudges (if it didn't happen already)
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stay as long as you think you should mate we will miss you but we have no reason to hold you you need to do what needs to be done your health takes priority. if you need to stop coding so you dont go crazy thats fine top coding if you need to not go on irc fine take a break let your self relax and get rid of some stress.
ive been burning my self out as well lately and i have gotten irritable at the littlest of things and have destroyed personal property cause of it its not worth it never will be take a break and i hope you can stay as long as possible a coder or not
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Holy run on batman :P
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lol i should probaly edit that i never check for grammer in my posts XD or on irc or in real life actually i just plain never X.x
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*grammar
;)
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At least he did not use grammar as a verb
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lol i really need to start double checking posts even on neritic i get hounded for bad grammar ,and spelling ,and punctuation ,and run ons ,and the like...err there i go again
/me goes to make a active attempt to get better at spelling and grammaar
EDIT:grammer=/=grammar
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I generally just use Opera spellchecker and when it reports bad spellings that makes sense I edit them. I am not that great at grammar, though.
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Hope you'll hang around on Omnimaga even if you stop programming. All your contributions to the community are awesome, including this site, thank you for doing all of this. We will never forgot you nor what you have done for all of us. Best wishes for everything you're going to do next.
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Well it looks like my idea will be impossible to make even in its simpler form, too. I can't even do collision detection at all with Pxl-test(), so my TI programming carreer ends tonight. I would practically need to have somebody make the entire game for me at this point, something that is impossible for two reasons: nobody would ever bother to do such thing and the only way I can get people to understand what kind of game I would like to be done is to actually program the game, so it's some sort of endless loop. You will never get to see the idea I had.
Illusiat 13 is also officially discontinued.
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DJ I have a lot of respect for you. Working a job and still find a way to get on omnimaga and answer maybe hundreds of questions a day as well as PM's it enough to stress anyone out. Hope that everything will work out for best.
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It's kind of a dillema at the moment lately about programming. My mind is totally unstable about this. I absolutely want to make that game, but I just can't figure out how to do anything. And now it seems like it's not just Axe, but more anything involving unaligned collision detection. I can't do that game if I can only achieve tile-by-tile movement. It will just not work right.
To me it seems clear from now on I'll be doomed to just do like Zera did: design game concepts and suggest them as project ideas for other people. And for that, I miss the artistic skills and ability to explain things...
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Well doing that really isn't that bad of a thing. I mean it keeps your mind up and still thinking. Plus you never know when you might be able to help a little with like a little thing that someone doesn't quite get working but you do know how to make it work. If you ever have trouble describing something you can always talk to someone too to help with that or just try your best and see what happens. Who knows, maybe somebody might misunderstand and then create something even better than you thought or something. Just gotta keep your head up :)
Off-Topic: 1000th POST! WOOOHOOO!
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Well congrats on your 1000th post. I could maybe ask for help, but from my experience in the 5 years I ran OMnimaga, most of the time, when I ask for help nobody cares. Now, only Quigibo, who's the Axe author, and sometimes Calc84maniac, ever bothers to reply. This makes me even more relunctant about posting about my problem. This is not to mention everytime I ask for help, people try to help me on stuff that is totally unrelated to the main question instead (no offense), such as optimizations. It would be best at least if the optimizations came with help related to the problem, since once you change your code to fix the bug, you're gonna re-need additional help on optimizing anyway (due to different code)
I may just go through the old topics and look for Builderboy or Eeems tutorials, but my concern is that it will be impossible for people to clafiry them for me, not to mention they are written for outdated versions of Axe. Also SirCmpwn tutorial is not out yet and we do not know the date, so maybe I would be better waiting, idk.
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Thanks.
Well if you ever need help with anything you know you can always track me down either here or on MSN and I'll try my best. Granted, I won't be able to for a couple weeks because of my trip (though I'll try to check a couple times when I can) but when I get back I will.
Ya, I've noticed that about a lot of topics, not just yours. People ask one thing and get optimizations instead. I think we should start stressing the fact that help with code comes first then optimizations second.
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Have I done that? If I have I apologize immediately. I also promise to focus on the question at hand, not giving optimizations. :)
I volunteer to give DJ help if necessary too.
[offtopic]1000 posts? Come on, man... I have only ~300. :P[/offtopic]
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If you need any help at all, just say the word and i think i might be able to help :)
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Well it sucks to see you go again, and this time permanently. You have been a great asset to the community and have definitely provided a great haven for programmers of all languages and non-programmers alike. I'm sure Omnimaga will continue to strive.
On a side note, I have been thinking its about time for me to call it quits too. I seem to be going in the other direction though. I am moving on to mobile development and bigger projects that I just dont have time for calcs as much as I used too. I do plan to finish a good majority of my projects though. So you wont see me fully gone until they are done.
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Heh tifreak hates my grammerz. @sircmpwn
In fact swivel does too.
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Well it sucks to see you go again, and this time permanently. You have been a great asset to the community and have definitely provided a great haven for programmers of all languages and non-programmers alike. I'm sure Omnimaga will continue to strive.
On a side note, I have been thinking its about time for me to call it quits too. I seem to be going in the other direction though. I am moving on to mobile development and bigger projects that I just dont have time for calcs as much as I used too. I do plan to finish a good majority of my projects though. So you wont see me fully gone until they are done.
well as said in my initial post, chances that I completly leave are not 100%. IN fact they are low. It's just programming that I am most likely gonna move on from. I love the community and what people create, but I cannot seem to go at a lower level programming than I am right now. I guess my speciality was limited to RPGs after all... but sadly, I got bored of creating RPGs, since they take so long to create and requires so much thoughts for what to add in them and time to debug
I hope if you quit calc stuff that you still show up around from time to time. :)
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Well it sucks to see you go again, and this time permanently. You have been a great asset to the community and have definitely provided a great haven for programmers of all languages and non-programmers alike. I'm sure Omnimaga will continue to strive.
On a side note, I have been thinking its about time for me to call it quits too. I seem to be going in the other direction though. I am moving on to mobile development and bigger projects that I just dont have time for calcs as much as I used too. I do plan to finish a good majority of my projects though. So you wont see me fully gone until they are done.
well as said in my initial post, chances that I completly leave are not 100%. IN fact they are low. It's just programming that I am most likely gonna move on from. I love the community and what people create, but I cannot seem to go at a lower level programming than I am right now. I guess my speciality was limited to RPGs after all... but sadly, I got bored of creating RPGs, since they take so long to create and requires so much thoughts for what to add in them and time to debug
I hope if you quit calc stuff that you still show up around from time to time. :)
-Programming is tough, and I know you're a capable guy it just takes a lot of time. We all have busy lives and finding that time to sit down and really get down and dirty with a language is hard to come by. So I understand where you're coming from. You know how long projects can really drag on a coder and cause a coder to lose interest. Working on RPGs doesnt help that issue any either.
As for me I wont be gone this year for sure, not until I can bring some life back into RS at least.
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it would be nice to see RS have more activity. It has updates, but most are behind the scenes :/
Buckeye is doing a good job but it would be nice to see the other staff post more too :(
On Omnimaga, there are some staff rules to prevent staff from going inactive. On the old board we had some in its early days, but we decided to be more lax afterward. Finally only two or three staff were active anymore coding. Now for example, staff needs to post a minimum of 10 times within the last 30 days, with the exception of July and August, where it's 5 (to acommodate trips and the like). They also need to have some active projects or the like. We also make sure staff are active enough (including working on a project) before adding them to the team.
ANother thing that can be done is branching out, but sadly that doesn't always work. With Cemetech, it did, with hardware mods, Blockland and Freebuild, but with Omnimaga, with PC stuff, ROM hacking, Casio/HP calcs and to a lesser extent, music, it didn't. On MaxCoderz they tried branching out toward PC and 68k stuff and it failed too.
And WOW Madskillz you have like the highest amount of arcade trophies I think ;D
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I do not want to get anyone's hopes up, but
After suggestions from Builderboy, SirCmpwn and someone else I forgot who, I have managed to find some ideas to circumvent my issues in my last Axe project attempt. Finally, I discovered that what I was trying to do was not just hard in Axe, but apparently in any existing language that doesn't support floating points. Most of my issues also came up from the fact it is rather tricky to deal with negative values in Axe when it comes to physics+collision detection. For example, when accelerating to the left, my sprite would instantly go to max speed to the right. I never could figure this out. I also had issues with collision detections.
Finally, after a talk with Builderboy, I faced the reality that I would be forced to check for collision detection for all 4 sides separately, add another check for when I jump. I also realized it would be too much hassle to deal with acceleration where I can move at speeds like every 0.5 pixels.
So what I decided to do, after I cleared my mind temporary from some stuff (including the pressure from being admin), was to rewrite the engine from scratch. I also was forced to make it at a lower quality than what I had planned at first. One feature was completly changed and the physics when you accelerate/decelerate are rather weird: it checks for left/right keypresses every 6 frames, and basically you'll move at 1 pixel rate, then suddently after 6 frames it will jump to the double, then 3 pixel rate, then 4. It may look a bit half-assled (sp?) when you move at times, because of this. But sorry, this will have to do now, if I ever want to release something using it. It is not that bad either, anyway, I think.
Finally, what I did was to convert the engine so instead of the sprite moving around, it's the entire tilemap moving around (well, there are no tilemap yet, but the way the engine works, I can pretty much use anything that are 8x8 plain black squares on the back-buffer.) and the sprite remains at the center of the screen. In other words, scrolling. For some odd reasons, this was the easiest part of the project to code so far. I think this will be a bit trickier when I use actual tilemaps, though (or something that looks like tilemaps).
I don't promise anything, but at least this is a start, and I think removing myself from admin helped a bit removing some pressure (altough I got some a few days ago because I learned the person that was in charge of changing the FTP password typed it wrong, locking the entire team out of the site. Fortunately it is fixed, now, but it was scary.)
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Good news! Glad to know.
Some programming aspects are really counter-intuitive like all kinds of math is done in the low level as integer numbers. So it takes some time to get over (learn the low level, discover alternatives or eventually use another language are some ways to get over) those low level inner workings of coding. Hopefully exists BASIC and the like for relieving us from all these hard aspects.
Axe Parser really makes you immerse a bit into the unsigned and signed integers math, though. But BASIC can be annoying sometimes for giving us all those DIM, MEM, OVERFLOW, UNDEFINED errors. How many times I was starting to be irritated for errors after others and had to leave for another day. :P
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Awesome DJ! I'm glad you're coding more again. Good luck on your project! ;D
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Thanks guys. Also Galandros I agree a bit about BASIC. For me, though, DIM and LBL errors were more an issue in my early days of programming, though, because I was still learning how to use lists and matrices as well as Gotos. I finally stopped using the later. Besides that, the errors I got hit the most by are ERR:DOMAIN, MEMORY and SYNTAX. The worst gotta be Domain in my case. MEM errors were solved mostly by not misusing Goto and by splitting my programs in more files.
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*whew*/me gives a relieved sigh
that was pretty scary for a bit, but i'm glad to hear that you're still working on stuff, even if it's only temporarily
you've been a huge influence in my own programming "history" even if i only just joined the forum and i've never released any major projects. your musics especially have been a huge help; i listen while programming and it helps me focus and work faster
anyways, if there's anything i can do to help don't hesitate to ask. contrary to popular opinion, not all of us have lives of our own to keep us busy, and my own current projects will either a. be finished very soon for the axe contest or b. act solely as something i come back to every month or so in my freetime and will realistically never be completed
at least stick around in the forums, will ya? there's no way i'm going to let myself come in here just in time to see a living legend disappear
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Thanks a lot. Glad you appreciate my stuff. About the music, which songs in particular do you like, by the way?
And yeah, I'll try to stick around as long as I can. Technically, though, I shouldn't even have been around since a week ago, though, because back in November I did myself a promise that if I ever hurted Omnimaga (and a member) with one of my overeactions or other stuff I do, I would remove myself from the community to prevent it from happening again. This happened a week ago, kinda, so I sort-of broke my own promise, really. (which I told some other people before) If I noticed I caused trouble too often and end up with lots of people who used to like me on my bad side again, I'll probably do what I promised, though.
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I will probably post a topic about the project if I manage to implement the map engine display.
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Well it has been 9 years now. The last one? Idk. Maybe I'll release some new stuff, still, even if from now on my coding would be heavily helped by others, meaning none of my projects may be fully my own nor fully solo.
For sure, though, in the last 9 years, I have seen so much stuff happening, some bad stuff, as well as some good ones. I can remember some of the following, for example in the bad stuff there would be the first big activity slump in the TI community in 2001, along with the Ticalc.org CD recall and their archives going offline for months, one year later the Dimension TI/Calc.org server crash with a big piece of history going away (I missed Badja website for a while), Ticalc.org pending queue reaching a record of 1380+ files in 2002, Void Productions dying, Drubu Productions flame wars on MaxCoderz and obviously Hays Games and incidents between some #tcpa members and Omnimaga (which eventually lead to Omnimaga shut down in 2008).
And of course there were good times, too. Hays Games, while being bad, still provided entertainment in the TI community in some ways, even if indirectly sometimes (such as their guestbook, until bots started flooding it). Many great progs coming out since that time, meeting great people, some of which I've been talking to for 7 years now (tr1p1ea and Iambian), discovering new epic lib-enhanced BASIC tricks, Omnimaga success in 2005-06, despite not being as good as the new site and meeting even more great people recently. There were of course some great times back in the old MaxCoderz days as well, even thought back then I was a forum n00b
If I managed to finish that many projects past 2003, even thought at this time the BASIC vs ASM arguments were pouring on the Internets, it's because of other people that supported me during the entire time and if Omnimaga new website is so successful it's because of all the people that supported me since the beginning, motivating me to make it as good as I can then the contributions of all the members around.
For now, though, my future in TI programming lies in my capacity to learn more new complex stuff and of course hoping I won't have a repeat of the life issues I had to deal with in Sept and Oct last year. I would like to remain around for as long as possible (and hope a lot of the current people stick around for a while too, even if some of us no longer code for calcs anymore by then)