The book "Coding4Fun: we program for pleasure"

"The publication is intended for those developers who want to escape from solving commercial business problems and do several projects for the soul." This is how the introduction to the book Coding4Fun / “Programming for Fun” by Dan Fernandez and Brian Peak begins. I would add: it is intended for those who do it for good, who scratch their hands before programming, but here’s the problem with ideas when “I want something and I don’t know something” :) I myself sometimes suffer from a similar self-realization crisis - I want do something, learn something new, but lack some push, hints. And this is where the book can come to the rescue.



In the book of 10 chapters - 10 independent projects that the authors offer the reader for implementation. Each project is a simple, completed task, but with great potential for further development. The material covers a variety of areas: games, network applications, video processing, office utilities, and even work with hardware! I will give a couple of examples (forgive me for spoilers).



Chapter One: "Attack from Space" is a description of a simple computer game creation algorithm using the Microsoft XNA framework. Step by step, the authors consistently talk about how to actually write your own working game like a classic arkanoid from scratch. “But who needs this now?”, You ask, and perhaps you will be right - to no one, or rather to no one except yourself. This is just a start, a tear-off point for those who may have dreamed of writing a toy from childhood, but didn’t really know where to start and somehow didn’t have enough time to study this issue (well, you understand me). And here it is! They waited) Here, Dan and Brown presented us everything on a platter, and yes even chewed. We learn that we no longer need to worry about programming low-level things like the game engine, graphics handler, event interceptor ... everything is ready, the main toolkit is created by Microsoft's bright minds based on XNA Game Studio and now all we have to do is create directly only the game world itself. After the implementation of the option proposed by the authors, or even at least after a cursory review, you can immediately start creating on your own, creating something of your own. We take a fresh idea, draw textures, run Visual Studio (yes, by the way, all the examples in the book are based on it) and go ahead, sculpt a masterpiece!



Or another example: Chapter 8 - "The machine, controlled from the Wiimote remote." Here we are waited not only by programming, but also by working directly with hardware. Here, the guys are organizing an interface for communication between the one who has once caused a stir in the gaming industry, a joystick with an accelerometer from Nintendo and the usual radio-controlled machine, which is now in almost any large store of children's goods. The soldering iron will have to work with the “fjjet” - an adapter between the digit (your computer) and the analog console of the typewriter console. The following scheme is proposed: Wiimote (via Bluetooth) -> PC (via USB) -> Phidget (via wires) -> remote control (via radio signal) -> machine. You will have to program the logic of the interface board's behavior depending on the input signals of the joystick (using the ready API of both) in order to close and open the necessary radio control circuits. All actions that need to be performed with iron are described in detail. The source code used in VB and C # is also documented here. Everything is explained really very accessible, albeit briefly, without any excess water, and after all such curious things are being mastered that, from ideas about the application of which, dizzy. With all the necessary devices and knowledge of at least the basics of programming, even your grandmother will cope with the task;)

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The remaining chapters are no less interesting. Here, not the most trivial tasks are solved quickly, easily and with healthy excitement. Plus, what personally seemed to me in this book is especially valuable - it’s not even the ideas themselves that the authors suggest, and not even the potential that can be developed by reaching the point in any of the chapters, but not putting an end to the project itself, which it describes, and impressed me with all sorts of arsenal, which is demonstrated from the pages of the publication. I really learned a lot of new and interesting things. Each task has been proposed to be solved in a certain way, using a certain set of software, and somewhere, and iron, and this set should be given special attention. As I wrote at the very beginning, you often want to learn something new, but you really don't know what it is. Coding4Fun gives in this plan the broadest expanse. First of all, this is a pleasant surprise: Microsoft doesn’t need a fee for everything - you can get Visual Studio (necessary for the implementation of the ideas presented here) for free (and officially) in the form of Express versions (for C #, VB and WebDeveloper). Further, you can get acquainted with such things as, for example: XNA Game Studio for writing games (discussed above), learn the basics of the Lua programming language, take a look at the methodology of working with YouTub's API, familiarize yourself with the principles of how Popfly works for creating mashup applications , the most useful ffmpeg utility will be reviewed and the WCF framework's operation principle will be briefly studied, it will cover hardware such as wiimote, interface cards, an infrared pen, and how these things can interact with each other directly and at the software level, as well as survey software porting from Windows to Xbox 360 and other platforms. In short, the richest material for study, which will be a great impetus or even more likely a kick for further self-development and the subsequent realization of everything new, kind, bright ...



In conclusion, a couple of reservations. Yes, the tasks collected in the book, although diverse, are focused more on the average level of knowledge; they can show uninteresting pros to uninteresting, but, as I already wrote, the whole point is not in this, but in the charge that this book carries, how it encourages the study of something new and the creation of something unique, and here it copes with it perfectly well. And yes, most of the described tools are somehow related to Microsoft products, which may scare away the malicious people of this company and ardent supporters of open_source, but personally it didn’t hurt me, but rather the opposite - all tools are easily accessible, easy to install and learn. for beginners, which only promotes the introduction into the league of true-programmers of new adherents — creative individuals who are looking for ways to express their potential. This book is for you. This book is for us. This book is for all fans of programming. Programming for fun :-)



PS Publisher: Symbol-Plus. ISBN 978-5-93286-166-0