Unit 13: Hello, World

Earlier in the year I read the book called Homeland by Cory Doctorow.  It’s the sequel to his more popular book Little Brother. In Homeland the main character has to deal with a huge torrent full of government documents that the government doesn't want the world to see. It’s a Techie kind of thriller and I would say that these books are directed at nerdy people and teens. It’s about question authority and about why we let other people make rules for the way we live. They are very interesting reads and I totally suggest them to all of my library teens.

In Homeland there is an awesome moment where the main character is building and programming a website for a politician. The book then goes on to talk about the awesomeness of writing code. The idea of creating something from nothing and then executing it and seeing what you've created in action. The “HelloWorld” code that most computer language lesson books teach is a perfect example of this. ‘Hello World’ is instant gratification that you've created something worth seeing (even if it’s a little text on a web browser written in JavaScript).

I personally love creating things and I defiantly would love to learn more about C++ and graphical based game design. Currently at my job I am working on learning how to get an App published in the Apple store using software that lets you design and upload it to the Apple store (GameSalad). This is great if you want to rely on a 3rd party, but I want to learn how to do it from scratch too.

I think it’s great that we live in a world with such a mass of openly available information on learning to do just about anything. The only time where really need to pay for any of that education is if we want to get that information in binded form. I’m graduating after this semester and I can’t wait to start playing with learning game design as a hobby. This class was really great to get my juices going in that direction.