Who Are You? (the obligatory interview thread)

[Ricky]

I've just been curious lately and I often find myself off daydreaming while I'm supposed to be programming or studying..
but I wonder who all of you really are. This has to be the most diverse forum I've ever had the pleasure of being a part of
and I want to know the background of the many skilled programmers we have here, like how did you learn programming
and what made you get into it? Did you go to school to learn or are you an autodidact?
What country are you from and what languages do you speak?

I'm a 19 year old hispanic highschool drop out :? (left school but got diploma and going to college, no worries :wink:)
I program as a hobby and have been studying all programming languages on and off for about 6 years now.
I myself am an autodidact, I've taught myself C and "enough" C++ but am always learning new things.
I regret not knowing more languages since there are people from all over the world here.. everyone in my
house speaks at least 3 languages (English, Spanish and French) with the exception of my uncle and I. He speaks Latin, Greek, Spanish
and French and only knows how to say "Hello" and "My Friend" in English. I know English and Spanish
and a few* words in Dutch but I'm still studying

I want to know.. Who is Laurent Gomila?
Why did he decide to make SFML?
What is his preferred compiler?
What got him into programming in the first place?
Why do I keep saying "he" what if Laurent is a woman? :shock:
How long have you been programming Laurent?
Who taught you? (who ever it was think he can give me some tips?:wink:)

I'd love a detailed "story" reply from you Laurent, the curiosity has been killing me for some time now and I really want to know your background more <3.

And I want to get to know about all of you too
A bit of an awkward place to be doing a social activity but if you don't mind tell me a bit about yourselves.

[Groogy]

Hi!

I go by three different names. Groogy, SirVogelius and my real name Henrik. I got hooked on computers when I was about 5-6 when my mom bought me a Amiga 600. But I'm very curious at nature and this weird plastic thing did these amazing stuff on the TV and I just had to know why. I kept asking my mother which only had basic knowledge in Visual Basic... Anyway it stood still until the time when we got a PC with Internet and I could google "how to make a game" and my search for knowledge begun. This was somewhere around when I was 10. Going from C++ to C, Java, PHP, Objective-C and finally to Ruby.

Now I am 20 years old and I attend the second year at a professional university called The Game Assembly in Malmö, Sweden. Already made a few games and I can say this is the one I am proudest of:

We were 2,5 programmers, 4 artists who worked together for 8 weeks along with our studies. So maybe 2-4 hours each day or something like that. The game is pretty short but our requirement was only 30min of gameplay for an average player. I recommend this school for others! What it does is build up teamwork and communication skills which are #1 skill needed when developing bigger games.

I speak Swedish, English and Danish. I'm half danish and my middle-name Vogelius is an old family name from nobility which only my family is allowed to wear in Denmark. There's a Swedish family with the same thing but don't know if there's any relation.

Interests: Games, Computers, Politics, Ideologies and Norse Mythology.

[Haikarainen]

Might as well, could be fun to hear what kind of people you other guys here are

I'm a 21 year old dude who also lives in Sweden, but unlike Groogy, I live up in the north. I share a 3-room apartment with my pregnant gf and a cat. Do a lot of webdevelopment as well as general C++-programming. Currently working on a game with 3 other people, it doesn't have a name yet but it will be a multiplayer sidescrolling RPG/adventure game. Not massively multiplayer, but like groups of 4 that explore an awesome world of quests and puzzles. Also working on my own data-library for packing files into archives, check file consistency etc.

Other than that, my keywords of interests would be; network, linux, pot, tv-series, gaming etc.

Games; CodMW2, BFBC2(preordered BF3), LoL, WC3 and C&C Zero Hour.
TV-Series; Chuck, Modern Family, The Middle, Falling Skies, Southpark, Family guy, American dad and used to like weeds(before it got all girly).

History for the bored:

My interest of general development started when I was around 6 or so, my father teached me how to create a website using HTML and CSS. From there on after I was blasting around the interwebs on our awesomely fast 28.8K modem, learning Javascript and such.

~2 years later(about 8yrs old), I got the knowledge that my brother was creating his very own game in an app called "The Games Factory". I was amazed and did VERY many unfinished games in it.

Fastforward to ~15 years of age; I had recently mastered PHP and I was really proud of my awesome skills, through the years I had also played around with stuff like Basic and other "programming languages". My interest of gamecreation got to my attention again and I decided it was time to give C++ a try. I had a hard time learning it since of its steep learningcurve, and my social life didn't really help either since(not been a fullblown geek all my life, comes in waves kinda). So it took some attempts and huge efforts, and a few years later I had grip of the basic concepts like classes, functions, hierchary etc.

[Laurent]

Ok, so... I'm not a girl :lol:

Nothing fancy about my private life : I'm french, I'm 27, I'm married, I own a ferret, and iPad and I'm planning to have a baby next year.

I discovered programming at 9 at school, but I truly started to write my own programs at 15, after I rediscovered Visual Basic on my father's computer. I have a master degree in computer science, but almost everything that I know about programing languages and software design, I learnt it myself from forums, blogs and tutorials.

After my master I went to Singapour to work for a small video game company. The company was a big mess but it was fun and I learnt a lot. Then I came back to France and got my current job, which is unfortunately not related to video games anymore (but I still have a lot of fun).

The story of SFML is simple (and fast!). After realizing that SDL 1.2 was so old (both in its design and its miplementation), and lacked so many "modern" features, I decided to give it a try and created my own graphics library, with the idea that it could be simpler and faster than SDL. At that time I was in France but still working remotely for the Singapourean company, so... it only took me a few weeks to complete a first version :lol:.
I showed the result on a french forum, and people said "hey, don't limit your library to graphics, make it a multimedia library by adding audio, network, etc.". I was less interested in these things than in graphics, but I never say no to learn new stuff. A few months later SFML was born...

[Haikarainen]

I showed the result on a french forum, and people said "hey, don't limit your library to graphics, make it a multimedia library by adding audio, network, etc.". I was less interested in these things than in graphics, but I never say no to learn new stuff. A few months later SFML was born...

Interesting stuff, you dont happen to have the link to the forumthread? That would be awesome to see, SFML at babyage

[Laurent]

Interesting stuff, you dont happen to have the link to the forumthread? That would be awesome to see, SFML at babyage

I found the thread, but... it's a private one. I wanted to have limited feedback of experienced users (the forum admins) before making SFML public. So basically nobody can see this discussion.

[Silvah]

I wonder if anyone at all really reads this topic


So, I'm German, though I live in... no, not Shayol Ghul, but in Poland (not that there's much of a difference between Shayol Ghul and Poland), I'm 27, I'm married (my wife is French), I love playing soccer... yadda yadda yadda, this stuff is so effing boring, isn't it?

Contrary to what I might have made you think, I'm actually rather calm and quiet, I don't really like having arguments and stuff. Then again, I can't stand when I see somebody being wrong (as in "incorrect"), that's probably why I end up arguing anyway, at least on this forum :oops:

I dunno how old I was when I started programming. 17? 18 perhaps? Ditto for what made me get into it. Most of what I know I learnt either myself when reading code, documentation and help, or from friends of mine. I was never interested in writing games, I always liked being very close to the metal: in one of my previous jobs I was writing code for embedded devices. Lots of fun. I assure you.

I also think that the infamous quote "premature optimization is the root of all evil" is in vast majority of cases misinterpreted as "any performance gain is the root of all evil", so people use it as an excuse for writing sloppy code. And they also don't know, or don't want to know, that optimization, in majority of cases, is the same as YAGNI, KISS and DRY. Last time I checked, these were regarded as a Good Thing.

As for languages: I know English (of course), Polish, some German. I used to know German very well - well, I'm (I was?) a native speaker, after all - but I haven't used it for years, so I have forgotten much of it, mainly der Wortschatz, er, the vocabulary was affected. I'm also a conlanger, that is, a person who's creating her own languages.
Programming languages? Many of them.

Oh, and for whoever was wondering: my signature means "may your future be happy" in Japanese.

Did I forgot something?

[easy]

... I own a ferret, ...

Hmmm a ferret! I'm planning on buying one too... Comes handy in the rush hours!

[Ricky]

Hi!

I go by three different names. Groogy, SirVogelius and my real name Henrik. I got hooked on computers when I was about 5-6 when my mom bought me a Amiga 600. But I'm very curious at nature and this weird plastic thing did these amazing stuff on the TV and I just had to know why. I kept asking my mother which only had basic knowledge in Visual Basic... Anyway it stood still until the time when we got a PC with Internet and I could google "how to make a game" and my search for knowledge begun. This was somewhere around when I was 10. Going from C++ to C, Java, PHP, Objective-C and finally to Ruby.

Now I am 20 years old and I attend the second year at a professional university called The Game Assembly in Malmö, Sweden. Already made a few games and I can say this is the one I am proudest of:

We were 2,5 programmers, 4 artists who worked together for 8 weeks along with our studies. So maybe 2-4 hours each day or something like that. The game is pretty short but our requirement was only 30min of gameplay for an average player. I recommend this school for others! What it does is build up teamwork and communication skills which are #1 skill needed when developing bigger games.

I speak Swedish, English and Danish. I'm half danish and my middle-name Vogelius is an old family name from nobility which only my family is allowed to wear in Denmark. There's a Swedish family with the same thing but don't know if there's any relation.

Interests: Games, Computers, Politics, Ideologies and Norse Mythology.

Groogy that is amazing :shock:
I'm also fascinated by politics and ideologies.
You could say when it comes to politics I'm a revolutionary but since I live in the US where people seem to just "take it"
I don't see anything happening soon xD and as for ideologies I am a firm believer in that all men *and women are created
equal and that anything you can do I can too. Because of this belief I don't believe that there is such a thing as a race or
different types of man. A technique often used to get soldiers to kill innocents is to make them believe that the people they
are killing are not human because they speak a language they don't understand or because their culture is "strange" and different.
I believe different culture does not make a different type of human, after all it is not genetic. Another ideology of mine I hold
on to firmly is that everything can be learned anything can be taught. What is a Swedish man? (for example )
a man who lives in Sweden, who speaks Swedish, who eats Swedish food and listens to Swedish music. What would happen
if we take the man as a child, same "Swedish" DNA and put him in I don't know lets say Canada. Now the "Swedish" boy is eating
Canadian food, Speaking French and doesn't have a drop of Swedish culture. I ask you Groogy and readers
What is the man now? Canadian or Swedish?
ahh this is an important question, anything can be learned, cultures especially and what makes a man.. what you know ofcourse!
I don't think I'm a philosopher or anything but its just some stuff I've thought of and I think it feels right you let me know friend. xD
It just feels right because I'm not much of a nationalist but then again I just don't see the point in a whole country taking credit
for what one man did.

Might as well, could be fun to hear what kind of people you other guys here are

I'm a 21 year old dude who also lives in Sweden, but unlike Groogy, I live up in the north. I share a 3-room apartment with my pregnant gf and a cat. Do a lot of webdevelopment as well as general C++-programming. Currently working on a game with 3 other people, it doesn't have a name yet but it will be a multiplayer sidescrolling RPG/adventure game. Not massively multiplayer, but like groups of 4 that explore an awesome world of quests and puzzles. Also working on my own data-library for packing files into archives, check file consistency etc.

Other than that, my keywords of interests would be; network, linux, pot, tv-series, gaming etc.

Games; CodMW2, BFBC2(preordered BF3), LoL, WC3 and C&C Zero Hour.
TV-Series; Chuck, Modern Family, The Middle, Falling Skies, Southpark, Family guy, American dad and used to like weeds(before it got all girly).

History for the bored:

My interest of general development started when I was around 6 or so, my father teached me how to create a website using HTML and CSS. From there on after I was blasting around the interwebs on our awesomely fast 28.8K modem, learning Javascript and such.

~2 years later(about 8yrs old), I got the knowledge that my brother was creating his very own game in an app called "The Games Factory". I was amazed and did VERY many unfinished games in it.

Fastforward to ~15 years of age; I had recently mastered PHP and I was really proud of my awesome skills, through the years I had also played around with stuff like Basic and other "programming languages". My interest of gamecreation got to my attention again and I decided it was time to give C++ a try. I had a hard time learning it since of its steep learningcurve, and my social life didn't really help either since(not been a fullblown geek all my life, comes in waves kinda). So it took some attempts and huge efforts, and a few years later I had grip of the basic concepts like classes, functions, hierchary etc.

Haikarainen how do you find time to program you have so much to keep you busy
You really are an inspiring person when I look at this, if I could ever learn to multitask like you I'd actually get something done for once
I'm also on the same path but started like this, since I wanted to make games and didn't care for the other stuff
I started with Gamemaker when I was 12 (weak I know) then I learned a bit of C and Assembler and how to use debuggers.. made a simple hack for an online game
then I stopped studying reverse engineering and focused mainly on C. From time to time I do some C++ but I don't know enough C++ to feel
comfortable enough to use it as my main language. I've taught myself HTML, CSS and I want to learn PHP and MySQL but I can never find time xD
you really have to give me some pointers friend

lol I wanted to make games and for some time I was studying cracking and hacking xD
so stopped that and went back to studying C

Ok, so... I'm not a girl :lol:

Nothing fancy about my private life : I'm french, I'm 27, I'm married, I own a ferret, and iPad and I'm planning to have a baby next year.

I discovered programming at 9 at school, but I truly started to write my own programs at 15, after I rediscovered Visual Basic on my father's computer. I have a master degree in computer science, but almost everything that I know about programing languages and software design, I learnt it myself from forums, blogs and tutorials.

After my master I went to Singapour to work for a small video game company. The company was a big mess but it was fun and I learnt a lot. Then I came back to France and got my current job, which is unfortunately not related to video games anymore (but I still have a lot of fun).

The story of SFML is simple (and fast!). After realizing that SDL 1.2 was so old (both in its design and its miplementation), and lacked so many "modern" features, I decided to give it a try and created my own graphics library, with the idea that it could be simpler and faster than SDL. At that time I was in France but still working remotely for the Singapourean company, so... it only took me a few weeks to complete a first version :lol:.
I showed the result on a french forum, and people said "hey, don't limit your library to graphics, make it a multimedia library by adding audio, network, etc.". I was less interested in these things than in graphics, but I never say no to learn new stuff. A few months later SFML was born...

I thought as much, not saying there aren't programmer girls out there but I did get the dude vibe from you xD
I'm really happy for you that you are going to be a father soon!
I was going to do computer science as my major but I'm too much of a nerd xD
I decided on engineering (I want to make the chips you guys program :twisted: ) I thought of it like this
the computer science stuff I want to learn I can already teach myself why not learn the bare metal
Congratulations Laurent on SFML its a huge success and I'm sure its popularity will grow into an industry standard someday.
Keep up the awesome work friend.

I wonder if anyone at all really reads this topic


So, I'm German, though I live in... no, not Shayol Ghul, but in Poland (not that there's much of a difference between Shayol Ghul and Poland), I'm 27, I'm married (my wife is French), I love playing soccer... yadda yadda yadda, this stuff is so effing boring, isn't it?

Contrary to what I might have made you think, I'm actually rather calm and quiet, I don't really like having arguments and stuff. Then again, I can't stand when I see somebody being wrong (as in "incorrect"), that's probably why I end up arguing anyway, at least on this forum :oops:

I dunno how old I was when I started programming. 17? 18 perhaps? Ditto for what made me get into it. Most of what I know I learnt either myself when reading code, documentation and help, or from friends of mine. I was never interested in writing games, I always liked being very close to the metal: in one of my previous jobs I was writing code for embedded devices. Lots of fun. I assure you.

I also think that the infamous quote "premature optimization is the root of all evil" is in vast majority of cases misinterpreted as "any performance gain is the root of all evil", so people use it as an excuse for writing sloppy code. And they also don't know, or don't want to know, that optimization, in majority of cases, is the same as YAGNI, KISS and DRY. Last time I checked, these were regarded as a Good Thing.

As for languages: I know English (of course), Polish, some German. I used to know German very well - well, I'm (I was?) a native speaker, after all - but I haven't used it for years, so I have forgotten much of it, mainly der Wortschatz, er, the vocabulary was affected. I'm also a conlanger, that is, a person who's creating her own languages.
Programming languages? Many of them.

Oh, and for whoever was wondering: my signature means "may your future be happy" in Japanese.

Did I forgot something?

I agree!
I am one of those people that optimize everything, and if I learn a new way to do something
I go into all my old projects and implement it to keep things clean and simple.
My mother and her sisters made languages and codes to communicate with each other when they were little
so I don't know if this is the same but I'd love to know more
thanks for sharing friend

Hey I know there are more of us out there lurking the forums, post about yourself here

This thread makes me feel like the world is big but small at the same time, strange right?

[Hiura]

Great idea, Ricky.

My turn!  

I'm a Swiss, French-speaking student at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne ( http://epfl.ch ) in computer science. I'm currently doing my bachelor. I've been learning English for several years – but as you can see I still do.. herrr! make some mistake! At one point of my childhood I was able to speak a little bit of German but without practice everything was forget too quickly.

When I was a child we had a Apple computer (OS 7, 8 and 9 I think) but it was not my favorite activity and it was only at the age of 14 we got a PC with access to the Internet. First, I used to play some RPG games but got bored quickly and turned to web development (very basic stuff in PHP/MySQL/HTML/CSS). PHP was cool but I was not very interested in making web site so I went to learn C/C++ mixup by reading tutorials and following forums. After realizing that my knowledge of C/C++ was not very good I decided to buy AC++ (great book btw). So to speak I am autodidact when it comes to programming stuff. I also learnt about the existence of the UNIX world and broke a few time the OS on the familial computer. ^^'

In 2007 I discovered SFML and it immediately replaced the old, C based, SDL library in my (very) small project. At the time I was learning more and more about Object Oriented Programming so it was a logical choice. (Well, there are other arguments for switching from SDL to SFML but that's not relevant here, isn't it ?)

Two years later I did my "Travail de Maturité" with a friend of mine – a project we are told to do during our last years of high school. It was a mathematical software written in C++ capable of solving most (in)equalities of any integer degree with a web interface (wtf were we thinking??).

Then I started my studies at EPFL and at the same time I started developing SFML 2.0 for Mac. It was a real challenge because at that time I didn't know anything about Objective-C, Cocoa API and more generally OS X development – I just got a MacBook for a few weeks only!

Currently, I'm beginning my second year at EPFL (I had to redo the first year..  let's say that learning how to learn FAST was hard). I'm lucky because I have a "student assistant" job at my university : it consists in answering some of the life science students' questions about C++ programming and helping them in their semester project (last year they had to simulate a spread of a virus with basic gene mutation and to simulate a boids in 3D).

I currently have some knowledge in various C-like languages and Java; basic knowledge in VHDL (heurrK), asm and Scala, a language developed at EPFL based over the JVM – I'll be learning this language next semester and it will be teach by its author – what an honor!  

Beside computer stuff, without being too personal, I love climbing, snowboarding or cycling on a casual basis. I also got a lazy fat cat and go voting. Two word about my personality before letting you go (I should have written less I agree!) : I consider myself conscientious, sometimes a little bit to perfectionist I have to admit, but also lazy, open minded to new or different ideas and concepts, and have a generally calm temper.

[Sui]

I'm new to SFML (and the forum). It was recommended to me by a fellow indie (Brendon - of Atom Zombie Smasher fame).

I started out writing games at the age of 9-ish on my Vic-20, mostly text adventures and little action games. I also spent a lot of time in English seaside arcades playing a variety of games - my fave arcade game of all time is Ikari Warriors (two player Commando with twisty sticks).

I'm 38 now and still haven't lost interest in making games. Currently I split my time between contracting (database stuff), game dev and looking after my 7 month old son (who's crawling and into everything!)

I banged out a retro arcade game (Gravity Core) in 2007. It sold quite a few copies but certainly not enough to quit the day job (a lot of people found it too hard - even after several difficulty setting updates).
You can get the demo from here if you want a challenge:
http://www.suisoft.co.uk/gravitycore/

I knocked up an article on my development experiences:
http://www.suisoft.co.uk/gravitycore/postmortem.htm

At the mo, I'm using SFML as a basis for a new game. It's a straightforward vertical shooter. I'm using it to get a codebase I can use as a basis for other more complex games, so it will be free (probably with a donation option for anyone who enjoys it and wants to PayPal me a few dollars).

Other interests:
Movies, fiction, Rock/Metal music, hiking.

Cheers,
Gary

[OniLinkPlus]

I go by OniLink++ on the internet, but you can call me by my real name (Kody). 16 years old, mildly autistic, born and raised in Portland Oregon. Home of the legendary Linus Torvalds.

I got interested in game development at the age of 10, and started out with Game Maker. Never finished anything in it, unfortunately. From there, I learned about Multimedia Fusion 2 and pirated it (not proud of this decision, but I swear I would have bought it if I had the money). Again, never finished anything in it.

For a while, I was quite popular on Youtube for making a pathetic video showing off a gameshark code in SM64. From there, I learned how to make my own gameshark codes, and learned about C++ from YoshiElectron and Frauber. When I heard it was used by most video game companies, I thought, "I have to learn how to use it!"

Started out with your traditional hello world program, learned about SDL, used that for a while using LazyFoo's website as a guide. While I was working with SDL, one of my "friends" (more like acquaintances), Retriever II, who created the Taloncrossing Content Management System, suggested I use SFML. Looked it up, saw that the newest version, 1.5, was just released, and tried it out.

Then, around the end of summer 2009, I stopped programming altogether for a LONG time to do Let's Plays on Youtube. I eventually began to slide back away from LPs towards programming again. By the time that happened, SFML 1.6 was out, and I had an ATi graphics card. Upon discovering that dreadful ATi bug, I moved to SFML2, and have stayed there ever since.

It's almost scary how I can remember virtually all of this. :S

Anyways, right now I'm working on a game engine. I'm currently working on the level editor, which is turning out to be quite a nuisance (mostly because I'm lazy). After that, I'm going to look for people to develop a game with me, probably based on LHC conspiracy theories.

[eXpl0it3r]

Nice game, untfortunatly too short.


I'm 20, from the Swissgerman speaking part of Switzerland and speak Swissgerman, German, English and a bit French (only if it has to be). In about a week my first semester in Computer Science will start.
I've many many acronyms in the internet, but eXpl0it3r is rather new and I haven't used it often. It doesn't have any connection to anything, I just wanted a fancy nick that isn't used often when at all.

I've always been around PCs and loved them. At about the age of 5 (the time of Windows 3.x and many many Shareware DOS games) I started using them too, to play games or trying to look like playing games. So I can actually also say I've always been around games and loved them even more!  :wink:
(Need a gamelist? Captain comic, Jetpack, Commander Keen, King Quests, Robot, Maniac Maison, etc.)

Inspiered of all those games I wanted to make my own. But I think it wasn't that motivation that brought me at the age of about 12 to programming, it was more the curiosity and ability to create something on your own.
Visual Basic 6 became my first programming language, because we had a book and the software. The jump to VB.NET was hard, but it started to be like just writing a point and choosing from the dropdownmenu the right class/object etc. I also didn't/don't like dotNET...
With the internet getting cheaper and fast I started make some websites with PHP, HTML and at last CSS.
But I still wanted to make games and searching the internet made it obvious C++ was the language, so I started learning it with books, tutorials, video tutorials, podcasts etc.
With the years and many failures I gained more knowledge about it and how it really works, not how it's written in the books. The books can't teach you to programm, they only show some syntax...

For my final assignment at highschool a friend and I wrote a small physic simulator with C++ and DirectX. I finished highschool and had some freetime and started to search for better ways to implement stuff like the physic simulation. I also wanted to search for FREE and corss-platform possibility. I first found SDL and really liked it, but there was nothing for sound, for image support you needed an extra 'plugin' and it seemed not really organized. So I searched further mainly for free, cross-platform audio libraries until... I found SFML, it is organized in a proper C++ way, can handle audio and I was stunned how many image format are supported! Everything that I didn't like with SDL was gone with SFML. :wink:
SFML did give a big boost to my knowledge about C++ and game development!
I have already some game ideas, but first the basics!

Okay enough tales about some guy from cyberspace...

Any questions feel free to ask. (forum, PM, e-mail)

[Grimshaw]

What a marvelous topic to read

I am a little too fresh blood to have anything good to tell, but i will try !

So, first of all, a big UP for all you guys for being such inspiring people, and another big UP for communication, which makes these community a little better every day!

I go by the name of Artur Moreira, usually known as DevilWithin, like a programmer/gamer nickname, taken from somewhere in the Tekken series, which i loved since ever (probably one of the first games i played was Tekken 3).

I was born and live in Portugal, in a really confortable city near Porto. I love to learn languages that are way outside my confort zone, but i am only proficient with english and portuguese! I love to discuss religion, some politics, human behaviour, and i like to answer every question that pops in my head, i have huge creativity strikes, and really void periods, but i guess thats normal! Anyway i love to find a justification for why people act the way they do, how racional are we?

 I am 19 years old and unlike you guys, i didn't start early to program. Actually, until i was like 15, i didnt know how programs were made, at all.


But, at age 15, i started for good, and its been an intense ride so far! I picked up C language, old school and learnt it good. I took a little high school course about programming basics and general computer stuff. In the day i was learning the boring stuff i wouldnt look for on my own, reinforcing my knowledge and in the night learning way more advanced concepts in C and then C++, testing myself constantly by writing programs from all kinds. Also making side projects with new languages at all times.

So, in those three years i was learning a lot about everything, made a lot of software and then started on games and never stoped again! I used to play with OpenGL and basic stuff, making little demos, putting in PhysX physics, etc etc it was a bit overwhelming, but i kept going, learning from everywhere and those skills got better with time.

After those three years, i felt good about my knowledge, but also that it wasnt near my ambition yet, so i entered a Computer Science course in "Faculdade de Ciencias da Universidade do Porto" which i currently attend in the second year of my studies. Since then, i really went for top skills in programming, so i try to understand everything really good, to become an amazing programmer.

Like an year ago, i started a little engine to assist me in my games, using a few libraries like SFML and it simply evolved into a bigger project, with a really nice concept, my Parabola Engine, which i am really proud of, even tough its not done yet. Concurrently, i also program the games i really feel like doing! About this engine, i plan to release it completely free, to REALLY help people make their games, that would be the face of my company, a little like SFML community and then there would be the games i make for sale! I'm really trying to have a decent build for a first release these days, but there so much to do and so little time

While i do all these things, i also work full time in a Phone Store to make some cash!

Along the way i learnt how to play the guitar quite well, which was one of the best decisions i have ever had. I also developed my skills with visual arts as far as i could, learning to paint, model and other things!

My dream is to keep going in indie game industry, opening a small company, with a home-office, a website and my games for sale! This should be one-step away, as soon as i make a good-selling game.

I would love to have a team to make these games, but i am just waiting for the right people to show up, since most teams dont have what it takes to suceed as a group. For a reason i've tried to master the different areas of game development

I still have to find time for my girlfriend in themiddle of all of this, and i love to make long training sessions with my boxing bag

I would really like to get to know you people even better, by talking and sharing ideas more often. I wouldnt even mind to speak to each one of you every day in any IM software, as it would be a rich experience! I know like one person that makes games besides me! Some feedback about our projects is always welcome!

Also, im a boring guy because i wrote all this stuff ahha

[MorleyDev]

Sure.
Gender: Male
Age: 19
Nationality: English

I'm currently a student attending the University of Brighton and about to start my second year studying Computer Science. It's a bachelor course but with the option to do a masters (which I'm considering), and afterwards maybe even a PhD ( entirely so I can make people call me Dr), but not sure yet.

I know a wide variety of programming languages and can pick them up pretty fast, but I started when I was about 13 with QuickBASIC (gasp, shock horror disgust) and quickly switched over to FreeBasic (gasp, shock, horror, outrage) before moving on to C++. Since then I've learnt others obviously, though I haven't touched a BASIC variant for more than five seconds in awhile (not exactly complaining).

I can also work with Databases and Websites, but I don't tend to enjoy it.

Socially, well I like drinking and dancing and it turns out there are these buildings called "Night Clubs" which permit you to do both of those in a relatively socially acceptable manner.

Fashion Sense: Ranging from the usual to the odd. I have a not-so-secret love for the waistcoat, and have been known to don a trilby from time to time ^^ (I believe I am wearing both in my profile picture xD)

Relationship status: I'm single, but that's more through choice than ineptitude.

Dream job? Programmer for an indie game developer or even founding my own company, though really I'll accept anything that presents me with enough problems to keep my interest ^^ "So long as it's not boring" is basically my mantra xD