Eff Seven

The course is proving quite work-heavy at the moment, something that I’m definitely not enjoying at all, but despite that I have managed to procure the occasional hour to work on things other than computing. Felix has gone considerably downhill for me this term, but thankfully the team of editors is fantastic this year and the slack has been duly picked up and they barely need me at the moment.

So, what have I been doing? Well, I’m glad you asked. First of all, I began to use Valve’s Hammer program to work with their Source engine, one of the graphics packages currently doing the rounds in powering all manner of gaming. It’s nowhere near as bad as I had anticipated, far better than my last trip through it’s main rival UnrealEd, which I think is probably down to the different approach to building 3D worlds. I’ve even got as far as scripting sequences, though animation still eludes me.

I’ve also been buying more into the In A Nutshell series. These books are seriously good if you plan on learning a programming language. Albeit, you need a grounding in some form of programming to get the most out of them, but if you’re a coder that’s looking to know everything you need about a new language you really can’t beat it. They document the standard libraries,  they go over the syntax, the particulars of things like I/O. My C++ In A Nutshell book arrived yesterday via Amazon, and I picked up the PHP one for my girlfriend last weekend. Both really excellent.

And, yes, I’ve bought some presents.  Mmm. Incidentally, the header image changes with each post I make here, so if you like any of the photos and want a larger version just get in touch with me or leave a comment on the post you like the image for. You can browse images in the archive and suchlike, too.

One more week of lectures, and then a week of intensive programming. Then Christmas begins. I think.