Only A Hobbyist.

I'm not entirely sure that M$ is letting them, but people are doing it because there is freeware written using dot net and people want to be able to use it on other OS'S. If anything, M$ might see this as a way for them to force more of their proprietary software down free OS user's throats.





A quick look around says that the Mono project is actually sponsored by Novell, which could be why they're even allowed to do it in the first place.



http://mono-project.com/Main_Page

Thanks :-)



So is Microsoft letting people write dot net VMs for other OSes? That doesn't sound too Microsoft :-D

Oops, forgot the after #include

I don't think it'd hurt to play around with dot net stuff. With the mono implementation, which runs on both OSX and Linux, but not other unix-like OS's(from what I've heard), C# and other parts of the dot net framework are supposed to work with very few errors.



Also, a bit of an update on my status with programming languages. A friend linked me to cprogramming.com last night and I started going through their C++ tutorials. Also spent some time with 'em today because I had to stay home from school on account of the flu.



And so now I can begin to compare the two languages.



An example program written first in Python 3.0 then translated to C++ that converts Fahrenheit to Celsius could be...



Python:



#!/bin/bash/python



temp = float(input ("Temp to convert? "))



temp = (temp-32)*5/9

print temp



and in C++ would be



#include

using namespace std;



int main()

{

float temp;

cout temp;

cin.ignore();

temp = (temp-32)*5/9;

cout

When I was a kid there was no choice... but now.... these days... Java runs on multi-platforms... Oracle runs on multi-platforms... PHP runs on multi-platforms... ColdFusion runs on multi-platforms... You may know more/better than me... I never thought I'd say this, but I feel I like I'd turned to the darkside if I invested in dot net(?) I didn't use to be this way a few years ago...

I would prefer to avoid anything that can only run on one OS.

I have mixed feelings about playing with anything "specifically Mircrosoft"...

C#... You need .net framework for that, right? If I ever decide to tinker with Mono, I'll be sure to be in touch. Though, Mono isn't a full .net implementation yet, so it may be some time.

If you ever want to learn C#, I might be able to help. I'm taking a C# class at my college. I'm not that good at it, but I'm certainly better than someone who's never seen C# code before!

I guess it's a sign of being too old, or too technically minded, or something.



Yes, it really does sound like you have the coolest job on the world...



A movie prop designer would be another rockin' one...

Right now, I'm given descriptions of game environments and then I draw or paint them, partially for the modelers so they have something visual to work with, but also for public sneak peeks. I've got a lot of freedom in this job, I can't say that I would want to work any other job. It's also probably the best first job that anyone's ever had. There are also people in the art world who just wing everything and have no clue about any of the principals of art or anything and have horrible compositions, but still somehow manage to get/keep their jobs. It's mildly upsetting but, so long as I don't have to work with them or interact with them, it's not too much of a bother.



You shouldn't be too worried about breaking your app, IMO. Just save a back-up and go. You don't learn things without doing them. You should be fearless, sometimes the only way to make progress is to make mistakes.

What does a concept artist do?



I really like programming as a job in that I'd rather do than most jobs, but I'd rather being either an appliance designer, a labeled packaging designer, or do imbedded systems programming (e.g. code for hardware that doesn't look like a PC) instead. Unfortunately I have talent in some things but not others... The last of these requires an EE degree, and if my self-taught electronics was any indication then I'd need one hell of an awesome professor to understand anything related to this... I've bought like those radioshack electronics kits, and I always reached some point where I turn the page and am suddenly lost. Thing is I'm not top of my class at programming either... Just good enough to keep a job at such and not too much more... I used to always get great performance reviews, but when I get to stuff like J2EE I just get terrified that there's some big thing I don't know yet that's gonna break my app. Other programmers go father cause they are fearless about their apps breaking or something... Like all those people who code in C/C++ sometimes even for a living but don't know basic things about the language cause they "wing" everything... and who can blame them? Who has time to read technical docs on a programming language when it's just for a job?

Not sure what we could use as a medium of comparison either. Maybe once I learn C we could have some comparison.



I honestly don't think I could ever program for a living. I enjoy python, but I could not ever give up my current job as a concept artist in favor or programming, it's just too tedious.

I think doing as a hobby gives people a lot of freedom. When you only have time to do for a living, you gotta kinda program in whatever people will pay you to program in...

Cool. I'm in the exact opposite situation. I know C/C++ but don't know 'jack' about Python :-D



I could ask you what Python is like, but what would we use as a frame of reference? About all I know about Python is that is indeed an OOP lang.