Look Ma, I'm on the internet!

In this inaugural post, I’ll be delving into the long awaited sequel to Alex Comfort's The Joy of—, let me check my notes here. Actually, this one is JOY OF PROGRAMMING - Software Engineering Simulator. A Steam game that instead teaches you about Python. Cool.

This post is all setup and background. Part 2 will be me actually loading up the game, so probably just skip to that one.

Background

According to the Steam page, this game is designed primarily as a learning tool in game form. They recommend having prior programming knowledge and that you have an actual interest in learning python or at least programming. As it's designed by a computer science professor, so far this all sounds like edutainment. So...low expectations.

With that said, I think I fit into that product description pretty well. I have a few years of web development experience, and a solid foundation in javascript and computer science fundamentals. I've also taken a youtube crash course in python, but really, I don't know anything past the absolute basics. Side note, if you're a hiring manager that unfortunately dug this deep into my work, I definitely probably have 1-3 years of python experience, love it, and would absolutely love to work for your company doing very important python workflows and business related keyboard noises.

Lifelong Learning

My goal here is to learn python to a point that 1) allows me to explore different projects that I've been using for years, like reprogramming my custom macropad or messing with the occasional raspberry pi project. 2) Depending how confident I become with it, I'd like to explore data analysis and get python on my resume. 3) Expand my coding knowledge and add another tool to the ole tool belt.

Anki

Anytime I learn anything I actually care to remember, I use Anki as my study tool, even as a grown adult outside of a school setting. Hard to believe, I get it. It's basically a flash card tool that uses an algorithm to show you the next card depending on how confident you are with each one. My goal in these posts is to include any segments from this game that I'll use in building out these cards.

Go Time!

Let's explore python, see if this game is fun or useful, and hopefully at least learn something. Then probably squeeze in a little more Baldur's Gate.