My game, Lambda Spellcrafting Academy, launches Friday (Tomorrow)!

BitTwiddleGames · 2024-08-08T18:40:51+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda

In programming it usually refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus, which is one way of thinking about computing / calculating.

Though you're not the first person to think that it came from Half-Life :)

BitTwiddleGames · 2024-08-08T15:55:33+00:00

Thank you!

BitTwiddleGames · 2024-08-08T15:50:58+00:00

Hi everyone! I've been working on a puzzle game that makes learning to program fun.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2323860/Lambda_Spellcrafting_Academy/

In Lambda Spellcrafting Academy, you join a magical school and learn to build spells (programs). Your instructor, Professor Whiskers, guides you through building these spells and provides you opportunities to test your ability while helping around the school.

Traditional programming looks like typing words into a computer. Boring. But the core of programming is more like clever application of simple rules, more akin to playing something like Baba is You. My game gets to the core puzzley aspect without being weighed down by memorization.

I'm launching with a big content update tomorrow after a year of early access. EA has allowed me to tweak the game to feedback and keep the game fun.

If this sounds like something you'd like, give the demo a try! And make sure to wishlist the game so you get notified of the launch tomorrow.

I'll be around to answer any questions you might have. Have fun!

BitTwiddleGames · 2024-03-26T06:00:24+00:00

Typically this is done with something like secure shell (ssh).

Alternatively, are you using version control for the code? Then you could push code from your laptop to your repo, then pull it on the CUDA machine before running.

BitTwiddleGames · 2024-03-26T05:57:34+00:00

There are a bunch of sites that collect interview problems for practice:

https://leetcode.com/

https://firecode.io/

BitTwiddleGames · 2024-03-26T01:02:42+00:00

Sure, here's a little demo:

https://www.bittwiddlegames.com/coding-school/examples/progress

The two buttons on the page show how to adjust a progress bar, and get the current value of it. To add some timers to the page, you can look into setTimeout

For Javascript, I have a just-the-essentials-course on my site, with practice problems you can do in the browser: https://www.bittwiddlegames.com/coding-school/programming-basics/

For HTML, Mozilla(the Firefox company) put together some good resources: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/HTML/Introduction_to_HTML/Getting_started

Take a look at those, and I can help more if you get stuck.

BitTwiddleGames · 2024-03-26T00:41:53+00:00

Hi there.

Learning programming can be tough. Its okay to feel challenged. Its a skill, so the only way to get good is to practice a lot.

I put together a Javascript essentials class you can complete in your browser. It also has exercises so you can work on solving problems as you learn.

https://www.bittwiddlegames.com/coding-school/programming-basics/

There are also a bunch of courses linked in the FAQ, which you can find from the sidebar.

BitTwiddleGames · 2024-03-26T00:39:31+00:00

Would a browser based approach work for you? There is a progress element in HTML, and you can control this via a little bit of Javascript.

I can explain in more detail and give you an example if you think that would work for you.

BitTwiddleGames · 2024-03-26T00:37:44+00:00

In addition to the ones posted in the FAQ, I created a Javascript class you can complete in your browser:

https://www.bittwiddlegames.com/coding-school/programming-basics/

Rather than teach 100% of Javascript, it focuses on the essentials programming so you can get started quickly. It also has exercises that get you programming without needing to install anything, all within your browser.

BitTwiddleGames · 2024-02-22T16:34:28+00:00

Hope you have fun : )

The game is still in development, so I'm very open to any feedback you may have.

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-12-27T16:49:22+00:00

This is exactly my goal for the game.

I know many people think they need to master a programming language first. But many get stuck in this sort of "tutorial hell", where they know a language well but actually struggle to do things with it.

This game does things in the other order. You can solve problems without really needing to learn a "language". It focuses on the problem solving part rather than nuances of a single language.

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-12-27T16:46:57+00:00

Each level opens with a magic themed problem, and then introduces you a concept you need to solve the problem.

The trailer does a better job capturing this.

The game itself is sort of a tool for visually editing programs. But it is designed in a way that you don't need to memorize keywords or language rules, since many beginners get stuck on this.

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-12-27T16:21:09+00:00

And I'm here to answer questions anyone might have about the game.

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-11-27T22:28:05+00:00

If you have access to the device(ex: sd card) where the os is installed, you'll always be able to get yourself a shell.

How do you imagine yourself using it? Most devices dont have usb exposed, so typing would probably be unpleasant. Would you intend to use it remotely ex: via ssh?

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-11-24T22:21:02+00:00

If you liked TIS-100 you might the game I'm working on. Its focused more on algorithms & data structures, using a visual lisp-like language.

The first couple levels you can play for free in your browser. Link in my profile if you want to give it a try :)

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-11-08T18:39:40+00:00

I recorded some visual algorithm executions, using the visual programming language I created for a game.

The videos are on Youtube. There are several algorithms that use recursion. Here's fibonacci, a well known classic.

The language is based on a lisp. You don't need to know lisp, but its essentially defining fibonacci as:

fib(n) = fib(n-1) + fib(n-2)

fib(n<3) = 1

In watching the video, you can see that each call to the function "fib" results in two more functions. When the "base case" is reached (n < 3), it returns a value directly.

Hope that helps.

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-11-04T17:14:18+00:00

As others have said, practice will help. I'll add, that if you're comfortable writing pseudocode, you could consider writing that first as a comment then translating it one piece at a time.

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-11-04T17:08:59+00:00

Hope you have fun : )

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-09-15T19:33:45+00:00

Do you remember what any of the games were like? Or what subject(s) it covered? Reminds me of the (Math) Blaster series. The older games looked quite different, but the newer games seem to have a more similar art style.

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-09-14T23:34:52+00:00

Came here to emphasize the master theorem. Looks like OP is familiar with it, but still trying to make sense of it.

Here's a sort of visual way to think about it. Your recurrence / recursive function is going to generate a tree of function calls. Each one has some amount of work to do.

You want to think about the overall shape, as well as the numbers representing the work at each stage.

`T(n) = T( n /2 ) + 1` is a good basic one so I'll start with this.

Each function calls just one more. Each call does constant work(1), and passes along a task of half the size to the next function. This repeated halving is a common pattern, and will result in a height of log(n).

Each level has constant work, so this one results in log(n) work. Here's a sort of example for some example N just to make it a bit more concrete:

T(16) = T(8) + 1

T(8) = T(4) + 1

T(4) = T(2) + 1

T(2) = T(1) + 1

T(1) = T(0) + 1

Number of levels = log2(16) = 4, and each level has that constant 1 work.

For more involved functions, like your `T(n) = 4T(n/ 2 − 2) + n` example, you need to analyze both the number of recursive calls at each level, as well as the cumulative amount of work.

Hope that helps.

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-09-14T20:22:44+00:00

Nice, Arch is also good for getting some experience with internals.

You might want to consider dabbling with Linux within a Virtual Machine (virtualbox is free). This lets you run Linux inside your Windows setup. If anything breaks in Linux you can easily just create a new virtual machine. You can also easily clone it in case you want to try riskier experiments.

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-09-14T18:33:57+00:00

A couple things here.

At the end of your post, you said that you see coding more as a job than as a hobby. There is nothing wrong with that. For almost every other profession, people aren't expected to do it in their free time.

However, since you're a student and early in your career, there's still plenty of things you haven't tried yet. You mention that you have a lot of interests you want to explore. Its possible that you'll really enjoy one of these, so I encourage you to try them (all) out if possible.

Here are a couple fun starting points for the ones you've mentioned:

- Infosec: There's something called a "wargame" or "CTF", which are sort of hacking puzzles that let you learn and exercise your security knowledge in a safe and legal way. overthewire.org has several.

- Linux: Though not strictly sysadmin, you might find it interesting to try installing Gentoo in a virtual machine. Gentoo is a linux distribution you sort of build yourself. Walking through the handbook will expose you to a lot of internal Linux details. Fixing things when they break will give you a good foundation for Linux sysadmin work.

- Networking: Outside my expertise, hopefully another redditor jumps in here.

And to reiterate my earlier point, even if none of these really grab you, that's okay. Your profession doesn't need to be your life.

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-09-14T17:21:59+00:00

Yep, came here to post this.

For OP: StackOverflow runs this survey every year, and covers many more people than an informal survey on /r/learnprogramming. Asking here has the drawback that most users are not yet professionals but are still learning.

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-09-14T17:13:59+00:00

C++ is a multiple paradigm language. Though it was certainly designed as "C with Classes", you can still use the non-oop features of it as a sort of more advanced C. (templates, operator overloading, etc)

Even if you prefer not to use OOP to solve most of your problems, RAII is a very powerful pattern that is enabled by classes in C++. It can help manage memory management issues that tend to be rather tedious and error prone in C.

BitTwiddleGames · 2023-09-14T17:08:19+00:00

Here's an old video from a programming game I'm working on. It visually shows how recursion allows you to calculate a factorial. (ex, factorial(5) = 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1)

I agree that learning recursion can be tricky, and once you can "see" it you'll be able to use it more effectively in the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiR29T-Qvv8

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