I’ve been messing around a bit with C lately. So I have decided to make a little virtual pet type thing in it. I have no clue how to deal with a lot of things, such as, how in a text based ascii character drawn application, do you make it constantly receptive to input without being constantly demanding of input.
Secondly some more difficult aspects of my ascii animation, do I have to rwdraw everything every frame? Is it not possible to only redraw the actual moving part?
I am having a lot of fun though. So far of all the programming languages I tried (in this incredibly short space of time) I have had most fun with C. I think this is because it’s simple. Like, python was not so simple, it threw a whole load of concepts at me before I’d really grasped the basics. Because it had simpler syntax it seemed like I should be able to grasp more concepts at once, but concepts involve more cognitive load than syntax.
C had at first intimidating looking syntax, but its nice and regular and pedantic. So it quickly floated into the background.
I also think partly its because I really don’t understand this object oriented thing yet. C is not confusing me with object oriented stuff that I don’t understand (although I am told it can :p).
Anyway, even though its quite simple really, it is very satisfying to see my little ascii creature bobbing around the screen. All thanks to Linux without whom I never would have discovered the coolness of programming :p
