Happy Atheist Forum

When I was about 12, I begged my parents to get me this large technical manual on C++ Programming, and read it voraciously. The book was like an alient language to me, spouting off all this stuff that I couldn't imagine. (I think the internet was one year away when I had finished it.

I read the whole book without ever once writing a piece of code, and for good reason, too. I was a poor mexican that didn't even own a computer. It was a very surreal experience. Then one day, we got a computer the year compuserve was established. A little later than that, when I was about 16, I downloaded a free compiler from our dial-up connection overnight.

The rest, as they say, is history. I'm fairly well versed in Command-line programming, functions, pointers(that was crazy). Recently I learned of data structures in programming, about two-three years ago, and so I was really excited.
I'll probably start programming again. Right now, I'm having difficulty deciding just what I should program, as my skills are nowhwere near professional level, but I don't need to start with something completely simple, like tic-tac-toe or anything.

I'm also thinking about learning assembly!

Anyways, this thread is a fork from A|P's Alcoholism thread(go A|P! I'm rooting for you!) Talk about programming, or your latest project, or if you have a question about the subject I can try to answer it. Just in general computer programming talk, really, if you know what I mean. Commence!  

I learned when I was young too. I think I was 8 when I got my first computer. In those days computers came with programming manuals. So I learned BASIC, then C when I was about 12, C++ at 16 and a whole bunch since. My favorite is Java. It's much easier and better designed for most things than C++ and the syntax is similar enough to C++ that it doesn't take much time to learn for a C++ programmer. I suggest seeing if you prefer it. LoneMateria prefers C#. They're both good.

I really didn't find computer programming until High School.  I went to a Technical High School where the only computer class offered was CISCO Networking (which I still hate to this day).  After I was in that class for a while (I think like a year because you couldn't change your electives once you picked it) my buddy told me he wanted to be a computer programmer.  Once I found out what it was I wanted to be one too.  Something about making the computer do exactly what you tell it too was real appealing to me.

I got a book on C++ which I only read like 2 chapters into it.  I had fun messing with code later in the book and I never really got back to the book.  After a while a different friend I met later wanted to do game programming ... and being a gamer I was on board.  I didn't start to program until I was in a 2 year college.  There I got my A.A.S. Degree in Computer Programming (going to work on my bs once I find a job ... stupid florida has no freaking work for me).  I took fun classes while I was there.  I excelled at C++ (until I got to pointers that is ... i fucking hate pointers with all my being).  I took Java and C# the same semester and although they are essentially the same language I like C# much better.  Probably because that language doesn't have any pointers in it :-D.  We never hit the number of students to take a Visual Basic class but when I took game programming 1 we used Dark Basic which was a shitty, shitty, shitty language but it was fun.  We broke off into teams and created a 2D game (we did a small RPG type game).  I'm drawing inspiration from that shit language for the game i'm currently trying to make ... by myself >.<.  In game programming 2 we learned XNA and it ended up not getting many people so we did a directed study.  It was fun we made a 3D Asteroids game.  XNA (if you dont know) is Microsoft's game programming language, its used to make games for the Xbox 360 (which we never got a chance to test to see if it would work on it... our teacher promised a 360 to use but never delivered).

Anyway i've been talking about making my own game for forever but I just haven't done it (laziness ... damnit).  I've finally started to work on it.  It's in Java since my buddy who does Music Production work is supposed to be helping and he uses a MAC (Cross platform baby ... that and C# doesn't work on MAC).  Its going to be a bejeweled type game with a mix of 2 other games.  The game is going to be split screen at the bottom will be the bejeweled game board.  At the top will be space ships (yes its a space game ... sort of)  Once you match 3 lasers at the bottom (or whatever tile i will depict for weapons) your ship will fire at the enemy ships.  After 3 turns the computer has 3 turns to fire back and whoever is destroyed loses.  Then like in Puzzle Quest there are going to be abilities on the side that you can choose from once you match enough of the colors, these will let you fire special weapons, launch fighters or whatever.  I have a lot of work to do on it but hopefully it will be awesome when its done.

I started out with Basic on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum in 1983. Via Turbo Basic (1988) and M$ Professional Basic (1991), I went to M$ Visual Basic version 3 (1993). Since VB ran so incredibly slow on my home PC, I switched over to Delphi. I barely used Basic again ever since. In the 90's, I also had a short love affair with Foxpro and other xbase dialects (anyone here who remembers Clipper or the disastrous DBase IV?) and a long hate affair with Cobol. For those of you, who don't know that evil language, I can only say that Cobol is suitable for masochists only. Since 2001, I mainly program in Java.

Every programming teacher i've ever had say COBOL is an awful language.  I imagine programming with it is like letting someone run your nuts over with their car.  Not very fun.  Has anyone here used Python?  My buddy did game programming with it in Ohio (he used pygame).  He loved it but I never was able to use it ... something about my vista sucking ass. ( I had it about a week on my XP compie before it died.)

COBOL is not the worst language. INTERCAL is the worst language. You must read the INTERCAL manual (http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/intercal-man/s03.html#4.1)! It is the funniest programming language manual ever written =). I sometimes read it at work and I annoy people because I can't help but chuckle.

My head is hurting just reading it and I can't quit laughing.  The squiggle .  I can't believe someone came up with that language either.  Probably the same person who wrote that manual.

Wow, Intercal truly beats Cobol in terms of evilness. Talking about weird computer languages, here at work some of my colleagues still program in APL. Here an example.[attachment=0:o9d9ublv]a2ap1g1.gif[/attachment:o9d9ublv]
I think it is easier to read Egyptian hieroglyphs than APL code.

APL is pretty awesomely hard to understand I admit. But INTERCAL has a human element that I like. The following statement is legal in INTERCAL:
PLEASE GIVE UP
as is
PLEASE DON'T GIVE UP (which is a nop).

Have you all seen False?
http://strlen.com/false/index.html

I'm glad i don't program in any of those languages.  If those were all that is available I would have made a different career choice.

Holy Hell, I want to learn INTERCAL! That looks so insanely fun I would die of bliss.  

... what about RPG, APL, or Lisp?

I like C++ and C# (as well as Perl and SQL).

Actually got to sit in on a class taught by Bjarne back in the 80's - he was teaching and getting feedback on C++.
Ah, them good ole' Bell Labs days...

JoeActor

p.s. SAIL has the best error message I've heard about: "Wee Beasties.  Wee Beasties.  Oh! Where can ye be?  These Beasties have caused and error for thee!"

I jumped on the Lua bandwagon a while back. It would be a really good language if they just made some obvious tweaks, like having an integer type, or example.

Oh well.  

Has anyone used Ruby?  I've heard mixed reviews about Ruby on Rails.

Quote from: "LoneMateria"Has anyone used Ruby?  I've heard mixed reviews about Ruby on Rails.

Yeah I've used it a fair bit. It's a good dynamically typed language. I slightly prefer the syntax and semantics to Python. Python is also good and it seems to have a lot more in the way of libraries available, so I generally use that instead these days. Ruby on Rails is an exception in that regard. I haven't used it but a colleague of mine did for his web site and his opinion of it was favorable. But then he'd previously been using PHP for his site, which is awful.

Quote from: "AlP"

Quote from: "LoneMateria"Has anyone used Ruby?  I've heard mixed reviews about Ruby on Rails.

Yeah I've used it a fair bit. It's a good dynamically typed language. I slightly prefer the syntax and semantics to Python. Python is also good and it seems to have a lot more in the way of libraries available, so I generally use that instead these days. Ruby on Rails is an exception in that regard. I haven't used it but a colleague of mine did for his web site and his opinion of it was favorable. But then he'd previously been using PHP for his site, which is awful.

Yeah i've had my run in with PHP.  The first forum site I was a part of my friend owned and he made me an Admin.  He was using VBulletin and he purchased a RCS (RPG Creation System) that was written by some other company.  He essentially put it on the site and was Beta testing it for them.  There were many glitches and errors in it and with my very limited knowledge of C++ at the time I was searching through the code looking for the errors, which surprisingly I excelled at finding.  No logic errors but syntax errors.  But it was a pain in the ass and it's the main reason why I never learned PHP.

Anyway side note about Rails have you used it?  I remember there are other languages using the Rails framework however I can't think of them right now.  The only framework I have experience with is the .Net framework but I really enjoy it.  It makes crossing languages easy.  I liked C# on the .Net but when I wrote a program in C++ using .Net it was easier to use since the framework is the same.

I haven't used rails myself. If I was writing a web app I definitely wouldn't use .net. C# and .net are awesome on the desktop but MS has failed in the web app space. If you're thinking about writing a web app look at App Engine (http://code.google.com/appengine/). Free hosting is good. I believe is supports Python and Java and it has its own framework, which has the typical emphasis on scalability.

I'm gonna keep that in mind.  I'd use ASP.Net if I was really interested in producing some webpage.  Just because anything you make you can use either C#.Net or VisualBasic.Net to code with.  However you have to find a company that hosts Windows servers >.<  I know linux is better at least in this instance.

ASP is the spawn of the devil. Bloated and resource intesive. Just browsing the damn webpages slows my computer to a crawl.

Quote from: "Renegnicat"ASP is the spawn of the devil. Bloated and resource intesive. Just browsing the damn webpages slows my computer to a crawl.

But it allows you to write C# or Visual Basic Code right on your webpages instead of having to make a stand alone application or a JApplet and then put that in there.  Everything is in one spot.

Keep in mind that C# was created for an environment that presumed a lot more speed and resources than is typically given on the internet. In my opinion, the idea of allowing a programming language directly into the webpages is a very powerful one. But the language shouldn't be from the .net framework. It should be light-weight and flexible. For all the power of .net, it's very resource intensive! my modem just can't handle .aspx pages.

It's the right idea. But it needs to be implemented in a better way.

GWT lets you write web pages in Java instead of JavaScript. It also gives you a framework and tools. Unlike (as far as I know) ASP.NET, it translates the Java into JavaScript that runs client side, so the performance is better for people with low bandwidth. You can use GWT with AppEngine now I think. Hint =).

Nice! I'll have to use that!  

Quick question for those who know Java.  So like I mentioned I like C# and C# is essentially the exact same thing as Java.  Well in C#'s .Net framework I can create a groupbox where it can put a border around a region then everything I want can be put into that region.  If I remember correctly when I stick an object in that region its X,Y coordinates start with 0,0 at the groupboxes XY.  I think I might be confusing in my description so here is an example.  Say I have a window and I create a Groupbox at 100,100.  Now I add an object say a button into that group box and I put it at position 10,10 in that groupbox.  It would really be at 110,110 however say I decide to move my groupbox.  I move it to 250,250 then the button will be at 260,260.

Anyway like i've mentioned before the game I'm working on is using Java.  And I decided that I can make the game real easy (relatively) if I use group boxes instead of using some math formula to draw out my objects everywhere.  However Java doesn't have that feature.  What I've looked up their equivalent is is the border feature.  The following site is where I see its code.

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/border.html

However from their example it doesn't look like I can add objects to it so I won't be able to use it in my game.  Am I just mistaken or is there something i'm missing here?  (This is the end of my question but i'm going to describe how I want my game to function so if you aren't interested just skip the next paragraph)

In my game I got the idea the other day to use group boxes.  (It came to me in a flash of brilliance)  Because my game is going to be split screen.  The top section will have the battle grounds and the bottom will have the game board (bejeweled or Puzzle Quest equivalent).  So when the group box came to mind I thought I could take it a bit further.  I'm going to have abilities to use in the fight on the left which I can groupbox out and my center line that divides the screens and has a timer and a turn counter (plus possibly one or two other things) could be in it and i might have nested groupboxes for Health and stuff like that.  Just because in C# you can do a different background for each and that would greatly simplify my graphics problem as well as a few other problems I think I might encounter.  When I make a program I like to make things as simple as humanly possible.  I don't want redundancies and I don't want to do a ton of math calculations if I don't have to.  I'd rather just create a groupbox with a certain tiling background picture instead of figuring out how many times to draw a given picture based on what the user set his display settings to.  Much simpler.


***EDIT*** Looking into it more I think I can get what I need using JPanels

I'm still having difficulties with this.  I've created a JFrame which is my main window but there doesn't seem to be a way to stick an object in a certain spot.  In C# you can place any object in any position however in Java I seem to be limited to using the BorderLayout.CENTER (or north, east etc.)  Very frustrating Google doesn't seem to be helping me.  I need to be able to pick a spot to place my objects >.<  Can anyone help me?

Quote from: "LoneMateria"I'm still having difficulties with this.  I've created a JFrame which is my main window but there doesn't seem to be a way to stick an object in a certain spot.  In C# you can place any object in any position however in Java I seem to be limited to using the BorderLayout.CENTER (or north, east etc.)  Very frustrating Google doesn't seem to be helping me.  I need to be able to pick a spot to place my objects >.<  Can anyone help me?

Sorry I haven't done any serious GUI programming in a long time. That is certainly an area where C# shines over Java on the Windows desktop. On the rare occasions I do GUI programming I use C#. Lol. Maybe there's a Java programmer on the forum who can help...

Hi LoneMateria,

On a JFrame your can position your components at an exact location, if you set its LayoutManager to null and use the setBounds method of each component to set the position and size of the component.

FYI:  setBounds(int x, int y,  int width,  int height)
Moves and resizes this component. The new location of the top-left corner is specified by x and y, and the new size is specified by width and height.

Simple example:

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;

public class Absolute {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    JFrame f = new JFrame();
    f.setLayout(null);

    JButton ok = new JButton("OK");
    ok.setBounds(50, 150, 80, 25);

    JButton close = new JButton("Close");
    close.setBounds(150, 150, 80, 25);

    f.add(ok);
    f.add(close);

    f.setSize(300, 250);
    f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    f.setVisible(true);
  }
}

Awesome thanx Tom.  I took Java in college where we did a ton of GUI work and I saved my projects.  But none of them actually had us set a certain object at a certain position.  C# we did it all the time (and I took them both the same semester).  Anyway i'm gonna grab some coffee and try it out.  Thanks again ^_^

***EDIT*** works like a charm thanks again Tom ^_^

Glad to be of any help. Those LayoutManagers in Java can be a real pain in the you know where. Anyway, for games I'd recommend to draw your objects directly on a canvas. In general, Swing-and AWT components might be too "heavyweight" for your purpose, resulting in flickering screens. I must however admit that I've got more experience with Java GUI development than with games development.

I hope it doesn't flicker in the end.... I guess I'll deal with that when it comes.  I have some game development experience.  I took 2 courses in game programming in college ... one using XNA (which about made me blow my brains out because the book was garbage and didn't teach you anything ... seriously it would be like: This is how you rotate pyramid on the screen: Then it would give you 8 lines of code without explaining what is happening ... lets say I was close to hurting someone) and they used Dark Basic ... which is a terrible language.  The compiler was such garbage that if I couldn't figure out why the game isn't working i'd save, shutdown my compiler and then bring it back up and it would magically work... terrible.  But it taught me the basics which I should be able to duplicate into a Java program ... hopefully.  Worse case scenario I make it look pretty and add it to a portfolio.

Alright new problem with the game.  So I've finished some of my background functions and some of the core components.  Now I need to display my grid of objects on the screen.   First thing is first I want to put my background in my JPanel.  Well apparently JPanels aren't setup to use JPanel.drawImage(img, x, y, observer).  I've looked for way around this by google searches.  The only one that looks somewhat promising isn't practical for a game because every time it draws an image it grabs the image from its file instead of loading it and storing it in memory to be referenced.  I'm frankly at a loss and was wondering if anyone had ideas on what to do.

***EDIT*** I should probably be a bit more specific here.  I tried to extend JPanel with a different class to take care of this problem  however this created the problem with the images always reloaded from the file.  But i just can't think of a way to do this >.<.  I basically tried to modify this code I found online.


import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.logging.Level;
import java.util.logging.Logger;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.swing.JPanel;

public class ImagePanel extends JPanel{

    private BufferedImage image;

    public ImagePanel() {
       try {                
          image = ImageIO.read(new File("image name and path"));
       } catch (IOException ex) {
            // handle exception...
       }
    }

    @Override
    public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        g.drawImage(image, 0, 0, null); // see javadoc for more info on the parameters

    }
But honestly I don't want to go and remake my current JPanels into ImagePanels if I don't have to.  So i'm looking for some way to do this ... >.<

What you could do, is to preload the images that you'd need at the start of your program and then pass the required image as a parameter in the ImagePanel constructor (or to a setter method to change images) . Something like this:

public class myMainClass {

private final BufferedImage image1;
private final BufferedImage image2;
private ImagePanel panel;

public void myMainMethod() {
      // load all images
      image1 = createImage("filename1");
      image2 = createImage("filename2");
     
      // create ImagePanel with first image
      panel =  new ImagePanel(image1);
      .......

      // change image in ImagePanel to second image
      panel.setImage(image2);
      .......
   }

private BufferedImage createImage(String filename) {
try {
return ImageIO.read(new File(filename));
} catch (IOException ex) {
// handle exception...
}
}
}

public class ImagePanel extends JPanel {
private BufferedImage image;

public ImagePanel(BufferedImage p_image) {
image = p_image;
}

public void setImage(BufferedImage p_image) {
image = p_image;
repaint(); // might not be required
}

@Override
public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
g.drawImage(image, 0, 0, null); // see javadoc for more info on the parameters
}
}


Thank you again Tom ... i'm going to try and implement it tonight.  I was getting so frustrated.  I originally wanted to load all the pictures to memory before my program started and create a loading screen ... this will definitely help me achieve that end.  Thanks again ... I feel like such a noob asking questions >.<

***EDIT*** alright, with a little tinkering the function is up and working ... thanks again tom.  One last question (shouldn't need code this time... hopefully).  I set my JFrame to 1280 X 720 and then I based my JPanels off of those sizes.  However when it first loads it cuts off a small portion of the canvas and I have to manually resize it to display the full image ... I noticed this earlier before I put the images in.  Does Java naturally cut off say ... 20 pixels or so of the JFrame for border (proally more) or did I screw up somewhere?

I'm about to finish coding a website tomorrow...be on the lookout for stupid questions (if I run into snags).

Hi LoneMateria, the "loss" of 20 pixels is indeed caused by the component's margins (insets) and border.

Quote from: "Tom62"Hi LoneMateria, the "loss" of 20 pixels is indeed caused by the component's margins (insets) and border.

OK cool thanks again Tom ... that should be the last of my noob questions for a while ... GUI programming in an unfamiliar language is fun... and the experience is invaluable.

A while wasn't as long as I expected.  So i'm using MouseListener to detect my click events.  2 strange things are happening.  First I declared an array of those ImagePanels from earlier.  Just to make sure my click event is working i'm testing them by  setting this.setVisibile(false);  Basically just turning them invisible.  Now when I click them it will turn many invisible on my first click.  Sometimes it takes more.  However after counting like 80 clicks or so I get an error message I know nothing about:


Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.StackOverflowError
at java.awt.AWTEventMulticaster.mouseExited(Unknown Source)
It also spams the second line at me.  It might have to do with the number of Places I initiated MouseLIstener.  If this is a stack problem is there a way I can clear the stack?

btw this is my ImagePanel Class now and I invoke everything withing my game.java section
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.logging.Level;
import java.util.logging.Logger;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.swing.Action;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JComponent;
import java.awt.Toolkit;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.MouseAdapter;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;

public class ImagePanel extends JPanel implements MouseListener
{
   private BufferedImage image;
   public static int xPos,
              yPos,
              sWidth,
              sHeight,
              boardX,
              boardY;
   public boolean isTrue = false,
                  isClicked = false,
                  draggedLeft = false,
                  draggedRight = false,
                  draggedUp = false,
                  draggedDown = false;
 
   public ImagePanel(BufferedImage p_image, int x, int y, int width, int height)
   {
      image = p_image;
      xPos = x;
      yPos = y;
      sWidth = width;
      sHeight = height;
      this.addMouseListener(this);
   }
   
   public ImagePanel(BufferedImage p_image)
   {
  image = p_image;
  isTrue = true;
   }

   public void setImage(BufferedImage p_image)
   {
      image = p_image;
      this.addMouseListener(this);
      repaint(); // might not be required
   }
   public void setImage(BufferedImage p_image, int x, int y, int width, int height)
   {
  image = p_image;
  xPos = x;
  yPos = y;
  sWidth = width;
  sHeight = height;
  this.addMouseListener(this);
  repaint();
   }
   public void setBoardPos(int x, int y)
   {
  boardX = x;
  boardY = y;
  this.addMouseListener(this);
  repaint();
   }


   @Override
   public void paintComponent(Graphics g)
   {  
  if(isTrue == true)
  g.drawImage(image, 0, 0, null);
  else
  g.drawImage(image, xPos, yPos, sWidth, sHeight, null);
  this.addMouseListener(this);
  repaint();
   }

   @Override
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e)
{
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
  if (isClicked == false)
      isClicked = true;
  else
  isClicked = false;
  this.setVisible(false);
}

@Override
public void mouseEntered(MouseEvent e)
{
// TODO Auto-generated method stub

}

@Override
public void mouseExited(MouseEvent e)
{
// TODO Auto-generated method stub

}

@Override
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e)
{
// TODO Auto-generated method stub

}

@Override
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e)
{
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
}
}
Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

I think I may have fixed it.  The way I had it set up was I was adding a MouseListener to every instance of ImagePanel I had.  Well the JPanel that the game is in is an ImagePanel.  Once I took the mouse click feature away from it it seems like the problem went away.  Hopefully that was it.

The exception is a stack overflow so you've probably got some kind of unintended recursion. I'm not familiar with Java GUI events so my spidey-sense isn't working. Have you tried debugging it in the Eclipse debugger or similar? You can set that to freeze the execution of the program when the exception is thrown. If you look at the call stack you should get a better idea of what's going on.

Quote from: "AlP"The exception is a stack overflow so you've probably got some kind of unintended recursion. I'm not familiar with Java GUI events so my spidey-sense isn't working. Have you tried debugging it in the Eclipse debugger or similar? You can set that to freeze the execution of the program when the exception is thrown. If you look at the call stack you should get a better idea of what's going on.

I have no recursion in my program (I was going to use it but found an easier way).  Anyway It is no longer giving me the error message.  It looks like the problem was that I kept adding a new MouseListener to it every time I accessed a function.  I was trying to figure out where to put them and got frustrated and threw them in everything ... and it worked ... until it gave me that error message.  Anyway I changed how I implemented them to make damn sure I only implemented them once.  I haven't had a problem since.

I also figured out the clicking problem.  I still got to write the drag function but when I click I have to keep my mouse still and click on the object, even the slightest movement will activate a different handler.  These objects have a few handlers for Mouse features and I need to figure out which ones I will use and delete the rest.  But one step at a time.  I tell you what this is a very good learning experience for me.  I still don't like java but i'm learning a ton of different things.

You should try doing some GUI work in java.  Its ... different .

*deleted to protect Idea*

It's a brilliant idea. A few thoughts...

Google Toolbar without the need to get information from all the DNS servers.

Web browsers such as Chrome "warm up" the DNS server by resolving the URLs on the pages a user visits to IP addresses, which might create noise.

Companies such as OpenDNS are probably already doing this if they have any sense.

Well, the main problems I can see is that I am uncertain whether I will even be able to access DNS server logs, as I have no idea how to go about doing that, and since I'm not a DNS server administrator... I don't think I want to hack into anything.

You said that google get's this information through google toolbar, though. How does that work? I don't think I could do the same unless I already built up a good size of links.  ;)

Quote from: "Renegnicat"Well, the main problems I can see is that I am uncertain whether I will even be able to access DNS server logs, as I have no idea how to go about doing that, and since I'm not a DNS server administrator... I don't think I want to hack into anything.

You said that google get's this information through google toolbar, though. How does that work? I don't think I could do the same unless I already built up a good size of links.  ;)

Scroll to the end of this page.
http://www.google.com/privacy_faq.html

This is awesome! NPTEL (joint venture between the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science) seems to have made a lot of their college Computer Science lectures available as video online. I'm talking like entire courses. Look for the ones that have "video" in the type column. I have a bachelors degree in Computer Science and having reviewed some of them they appear to be good. Let me know what you think. I'm still working my way through. It could take months =). Don't worry about hurting their bandwidth; the videos are served on youtube. Now CS education is as easy to find as porn!

http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses.php?branch=Comp (http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses.php?branch=Comp)

Sample:

[youtube:r6pv7chj]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlUFkMKSB3Y[/youtube:r6pv7chj]

Awesome link A|P.  My gf's, mom's, bf uses that site to learn new stuff (he is Indian [dot not feather] but a Christian from India).  Heather's mom recognized the voice from the video.  I'm definately gonna watch these half hour lectures in my spare time ... which I still have lots of.

Hey A|P do you know any good places to look for contract work for programmers?  Or, hell, any job really?

I haven't looked for contract work in years. I do the exempt employee thing.

When I'm looking for work I update my resume on linkedin.com and get some recent colleagues to add recommendations. That's useful because there are recruiters actively searching resumes on linkedin and because it's helpful to be able to give someone a URL with all that information. I used to do the same thing with monster.com but I think it's dead now. Then I start emailing and making calls to companies I'm interested in working for. Sorry, no easy answer.

I have a very strong feeling that this company might be hiring (like rabid software engineer hiring maniacal lunatics that really want to hire software engineers). Just a strong feeling that they might be mind you.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/ (http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/)

They have an excellent paid internship program too.

thanx for the help.  I'm checking out the google jobs you listed.  I'm already on Linkedin but I got nothing.  I may need to update my resume .

This is the cheesiest version of this song I could find.
[youtube:2ekuv017]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S1fISh-pag[/youtube:2ekuv017]
Write in Java!

That reminds me of another Beatles song:

Yesterday (based on Yesterday, The Beatles)
      Yesterday,
      All those backups seemed a waste of pay
      Now my database has gone away
      Oh, I believe in yesterday
     
      Suddenly,
      There's not half the files there used to be
      There's a deadline hanging over me
      The system crashed so suddenly
     
      I - pushed - something wrong
      What it was I could not say
     
      Now - all my data's gone
      and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay
     
      Yesterday,
      The need for back-ups seemed so far away
      I knew my data was all here to stay
      Now I believe in yesterday

#!/usr/bin/perl

APPEAL:

listen (please, please);

open yourself, wide;
    join (you, me),
connect (us,together),

tell me.

do something if distressed;

    @dawn, dance;
    @evening, sing;
    read (books,$poems,stories) until peaceful;
    study if able;

    write me if-you-please;

sort your feelings, reset goals, seek (friends, family, anyone);

        do*not*die (like this)
        if sin abounds;

keys (hidden), open (locks, doors), tell secrets;
do not, I-beg-you, close them, yet.

                            accept (yourself, changes),
                            bind (grief, despair);

require truth, goodness if-you-will, each moment;

select (always), length(of-days)

# listen (a perl poem)
# Sharon Hopkins
# rev. June 19, 1995Link (http://budi.insan.co.id/courses/el2001/plpaper.pdf)

Some other silly stuff:

There are 10 types of people in the world
Those who understand binary and those who don't

There is no place like 127.0.0.1

Why did the Integer drown?
Because he couldn't Float!

package MS.pickpocket.utils
 
public class MSUtils {
  public static C# getC#(){
    return ( C# )new Java().clone();
  }
}


http://www.thinkgeek.com

Those of us who read this thread would probably enjoy stuff from that site.  

Some of the fun ones are
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/car/2898/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/retro-gaming/a282/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/retro-gaming/b34a/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/clearance/on-sale/bd09/

Quote from: "Tom62"jokes

Why do geeks celebrate Christmas on Halloween?
Because Oct. 31 = Dec. 25

How many programmers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
None.
(it's a hardware problem)

A man is smoking a cigarette and blowing smoke rings into the air.  His girlfriend becomes irritated with the smoke and says, “Can’t you see the warning on the cigarette pack?  Smoking is hazardous to your health!”  To which the man replies, “I am a programmer.  We don’t worry about warnings; we only worry about errors.”

A computer science student is studying under a tree and another pulls up on a flashy new bike.  The first student asks, “Where’d you get that?”
The student on the bike replies, “While I was studying outside, a beautiful girl pulled up on her bike.  She took off all her clothes and said, ‘You can have anything you want’.” The first student responds, “Good choice!  Her clothes probably wouldn’t have fit you.”

http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python-class/

I just happened to look on reddit's front page and this was up there.   can teach you python.  So if anyone was interested in Python and just haven't learned it (like me) then this might be good.

I saw this comic and I figured you all would appreciate it.


(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimgs.xkcd.com%2Fcomics%2Fdevotion_to_duty.png&hash=6612b8af61a17273c9e3fa0725e63fa7decb5721)