Code, Games, and Anger

Before I begin, I just want to say that last week’s lesson was intensely helpful to me in a number of ways: GitHub, p5.js, objecty stuff, what have you.

I also want to say (not trying to make excuses but eh) that last week was one of the worst I’ve had stress-wise in quite a while and that, as such, I’ve been slacking on the dailies, which isn’t good. But as of recently I’ve been making up for lost time (trying to do the most recent stuff first because that makes sense to me).

So p5.js is coming along relatively ok, with the exception of our new variant on Ball, which I can’t exactly seem to get the hang of yet. And…I’ve found myself getting angry at the code, in much the same way that I find myself getting angry at video games that I don’t all the way understand yet; the anger of a disappointment in non-perfection, in my semi-ability.

This says a few things about how I’m taking to code, I think. In much the same way that I like proofs, critical thinking problems, puzzle games, etc. code continually surprises me and moves, beyond my control, to a point where I usually feel kind of outside of my comfort zone, and while this motion is necessary for me to actually learn shit, it’s often really frustrating. As in Todd’s post from last week, I’m kind of feeling the sting of being away from the familiar embrace of analysis, as opposed to 1) math and 2) creation (limited experience in the second part and almost none in the first, outside of the basics).

But, like Kelly, I find myself rapidly learning that I can deal with it, and we can all hope that by the next time you see me I will have finally gotten that damn ball to work write (probably gonna be in tomorrow’s 4:30 lab, see some of you there maybe).