About Me

I figured that I would follow up my first post by writing a little bit about me. I wrote before that I am a gamer and programmer. I figured I would elaborate on those points.

Video gaming is my favorite hobby. Not a day goes by when I don't engage in some video game related activity. Lately, however, I find myself playing games less and discussing them more. Nowadays, my game related activities mostly involve reading about and talking about the technical details of games on certain discussion boards. Not to say that I don't play at all; I most certainly load up a game from time to time.

Due to several factors including rising game development costs, video games have lately become more cinematic, story driven, and generally more like movies. However, a game's story and cinematics aren't important to me. Instead, I prefer strong gameplay. The one company I can usually trust to deliver that is Nintendo, and it's no coincidence that they are my favorite video game developer. A few other developers who I feel prioritize gameplay above all else are Valve, Platinum, and Treasure. This is not to say that I dislike all story-based games, though. For instance, Funcom's The Longest Journey games, part of a series of adventure games, are very dear to me. That said, if you show me a trailer for the next big FPS game and it features lots of cinematics and little gameplay, don't be surprised if I don't express any interest.

My second favorite hobby is programming. My love for programming largely came from my love of video gaming, so it's no surprise that 95% of what I code are games. Writing a game (or any program, really) is really exhilarating, especially when you see your code run. I've been programming solely as a hobby for around 15 years now, since I was 9 or 10, and it still energizes me when I write even a simple piece of code. Coding a very simple server and watching it communicate with a client should be standard for many programmers, but it still fascinates me every time I write code like that.

For several reasons, my current language of choice is Java. It is widely used in the real world. Java programs are cross platform, so there's little worry for compatibility. It's an "easy" language because of its runtime checks and garbage collection. The Android SDK's main language is Java. Java's language and its APIs are heavily documented, and IDEs integrate this documentation very nicely. Hard-to-debug mistakes are more difficult to come by because it's not too low level (no memory leaks or misplaced pointers) and not too high level (no accidental variable declarations due to typos). It's just right. That's Java for you!

I think that's enough about me. My next posts will for the most part not just be opinions and whatnot, but I figured I should write a little about me page.

Hello, World! Redux

Hello, everyone!

I am devmas, a college student, programmer, and gamer. I look forward to posting many interesting blog posts about programming, video games, and technology. I don't promise to be as intelligent as Carmack or Miyamoto, nor do I promise to write as well as William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, or Stephanie Meyer, but I do think it will be fun to write and good to share my thoughts and feelings.

Previously, I had three nearly 10-year-old posts up here way back from my High School days, but I removed them from view. Here is my original first post in its entirety:

This is the start of my blog. I never really had a blog before, so I am slightly worried about how it will turn out. Here is a little bit about me: I am a male kid in high school. I live in the Big Apple. That is all I'll say about me for now. As you read my blogs, you will get to know me better. I never really looked at anyone else's blog before, so I will probably look at others to give me a few ideas of what I can post.
That is all I really have to say now.

Immediately, I was unhappy with the stiff language. "I never had a blog. I am slightly worried. I am a kid from High School. That's all I'll say now." It's unnatural and robotic. However, the most unfortunate part to me was that I clearly had plans to keep updating the blog, yet, as usual for me at the time, I didn't stick with it.

Therefore, I am going to promise myself that I will update this blog more often than once every eight years.

Will I keep this promise? Let's hope so! I mean, eight years is a long time...