This weekend I saw an absolutely riveting movie, "Silence of the Lambs." There were a few things which I found really amazing about the movie. First, how interesting the characters are. While several are admittedly very nasty and sick, the portrayal of Hannibal as both the most sane and most dangerous leads to a very interesting conflict on how much to root for him. The nature of the title, at first so opaque, it artfully revealed as the movie progresses, giving a window into the darker past of the main character. What really stunned me was how much fear the movie could invoke. Due to some of my reading choices and hobbies the film didn't leave me continually terrified, but once the momentum of the movie built up, my heart was pounding the rest of the way through.

This past week in class I transferred over to Python. I have found the program to be much, much simpler for what seems to be the aim of programming in this class, and I really value how intuitive it is. I have spoken to several other people (foremost Allan Sadun) who have programmed in both, and was a bit disappointed to hear that graphics are a bit harder to do in Python than in Java, but not disheartened. I am not as much a fan of the lab method for Python (as it seems too similar to how my math homework sometimes turns out) and worry that the number of questions could balloon, but apart from that have had no issues with it. My prime concern at this time is how easy it will be to manage the class when it has been so split. I am sure that it is accomplish-able, I just worry that it may put more strain on Mr. Stevens.

Over the last weekend, I found a wonderful set of tutorials for a game I have called NWN2, which I was looking into using the toolset of to make games. I stumbled across some tutorials for scripting and modding the game code, which looked very interesting. When I read up on it and looked at some examples that I could access, I found out that it was a C based language, and the syntax reminded me of Java. This was something I was really excited to find, and hope to put to use later in my spare time.

The following link is a link to only one of the sites, there are many more tutorials on a site called the vault, which compiles a lot of scripting and toolset work into one location, as well as instructions.
http://www.nwn2scripting.com/

This last week, we went over string return methods. I have been getting more used to Java, but it is taking longer than I would hope. I am more excited about beginning to program, however, and am always looking for new ways to get better at it. Sadly, core classes have been getting in the way of this. Once Mr. Stephens walked me through one of the labs, I found that Java was a lot more intuitive than I first thought. The only issue that I have still been having is finding in what location to put the relavent piece of code, and that is what I think I would want next addressed.

Blog Post: This Week

I have had more trouble with java than I was expecting. I just wish that the program commands made a little more sense (as in, words or phrases that were more like speaking to the computer), although I guess I will have to deal with it, in the end. It will take some getting used to that is for sure, and will require some more work, but I believe I can work it out.