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The plan is to mod a silver Lian Li PC-7 Plus around an ice theme, though unfortunately I can’t afford the sub-zero cooling to match. The case itself will be white both internally and externally, with a large window covering one side. On both and side panels and the front of the case, I will screw flames cut from blue tinted acrylic. The computer is going to be liquid cooled so I’m also going to have to squeeze a 2*120 rad into the top of the case, rendering the top drive bay useless.

Here are some sketches of what I’m aiming for:

What do you think? Any changes you can suggest before I begin?

It’s now about a month into the new term. Time to finalise my plans for my coursework. And everything was going so well, until a few days ago.

One of my pieces of coursework is set, I have a fairly solid idea of where I want it to go. The other however, is becoming slightly more problematic. I’ve been brainstorming ideas for a while now, and I had several potential games to decide between. All the while however, at the back of my mind, there was “The Idea”. “The Idea” is a crazy and insane plan for my project. One I’m not sure I’m technically able to complete. One which will deprive me of sleep from now until April. One which will most likely eat me up or leave me sitting in a corner rocking backwards and forwards. And yet… it’s so tempting.

Challenges always seem like a great idea until it comes to a fortnight before the deadline. Right now, I’m enthusiastic – making plans, drawing diagrams. I know I’ll hate myself if I choose to go along with this but deep down, I also know there’s little chance of me changing my mind now. So, you best wish me luck.

What is this project, you ask?
You’ll just have to wait and see

I’ve messed with UML (Unified Modeling Language) briefly in the past, but this week was the first time I’ve tried to make diagrams for a project I actually intend to work through. This time, I’m also taking the sensible route of using Umbrello, rather than making some pretty dodgy looking sketches on paper.

I decided to take a rough plan for the structure of one of my pieces of coursework that I had on paper and create a class diagram from it. After a few minutes of playing around in Umbrello my first thoughts were: This is really fun! It’s much easier to correct mistakes and make changes than working on paper, meaning I could focus on my plan.

It was a while before I noticed how much more making the diagram was forcing me to think about how I was going to organise everything, and build a much better picture in my mind of what was going on. Even if the diagram itself doesn’t prove useful later on, I’m sure the way it made me consider the structure of my program will make a difference.

So whilst I can’t say for sure whether this will help my project, it’s going well so far and I’d recommend other people who’ve avoided it so far aslo try it out. I’ll keep you updated on this as my coursework progresses, of course.

Over to you…

So far I’ve looked at a few tutorials online, but none of them have proven particularly helpful. Is there anything you would recommend?
Do you use UML and have you found it useful? Do you have any advice?
Can anyone recommend any software for Windows or Mac users?

It’s three weeks into this term, meaning it’s time to start thinking about coursework again. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been completing tutorials for the modules that will contribute to the coursework, and I’ve been thinking about what to do for each piece, but it’s time to get things together and actually decide what I’m going to do. This term I have two projects to complete, one a scene in OpenGL, the other a pseudo 3D game using 2D sprites on the PS2.

I’m hoping to keep updating on these projects, at least weekly, throughout the term – it will make sure I make progress on them, if nothing else.

Right now though, I don’t even know what I’m going to do, although I have some vague ideas. Over the next few days I guess I’ll be doing a lot of brainstorming and doodling until I find something practical I can actually work on. Then I’ll try and plan the program itself, and most likely change everything entirely. Probably not the best way of doing things, but I prefer working when I have a fair idea of where things are going. It doesn’t necessarily make things easier, but it makes them more fun at least.

I quite enjoy this (short) amount of creative time designing a game, until I have to try and create some sprites or draw a background and I get a sharp reminder of my poor artistic skills. I’m thinking of looking for some free sprites for the PS2 coursework, depending on what I decide to work on. Hopefully just get the artwork out of the way so I can focus on programming.

So, any advice for getting started on a new project? How do you start off your plans?

New Mexico by Wolfgang Staudt

Yesterday I wrote about how getting a notepad has made a huge difference to my programming. This post will follow on by looking at various ways of improving your plans and programs, without even touching a computer. These are all techniques which have helped me in the past, or I intend to try in the future. If you have another method to add, drop me an email or leave a comment and I’ll add a follow-up post next week to share everyone’s ideas.

1. A Sketchbook.

As I discussed yesterday, I’ve found having a sketchbook can be a great way to gather my notes and thoughts, and work through both rough and detailed plans.

2. Flashcards or Notecards

Great for learning a programming language. By writing examples of difference constructs on each card (for example a card with a for loop, another with a switch block) you can easily check back on how to implement them (without needing to fire up a web browser or search through a huge programming reference). You can add more cards as you learn, and scribble notes about things which might catch you out otherwise on the back.

3. Bookmarks

I often find myself referring to the same programming reference books when I come to a problem, and then spending time scouring the web when they’re missing the information I’m looking for. By writing it down on a bookmark and sticking it in the appropriate section of the book, it saves you or someone else having to search the web over again for the same information.

4. Postit Notes

Alright, so Postit notes are good for just about anything. Make quick reminders for yourself or someone else. Brainstorm ideas on Postit notes so you can easily work through and remove ones which wont work. Make a flexible plan where you can move all your notes around as it comes together. I love Postits.

5. Cover Your Desk In Paper

At the end of high school, I had a roll of wallpaper attached over my desk. It means you’re never short of somewhere to make notes or scribble down an idea, and you wont have to worry about losing them. When the paper is covered, you can just rip it off and start over.

6. Poster or Flipchart Paper

When I try and make rough plans and mindmaps, I often end up making everything tiny, wasting time trying to keep them neat and orderly, or running out of paper entirely. The answer? Use a bigger sheet of paper of course. You don’t have to worry about running out of space or exactly where you’re writing, making planning much faster and effective, and you can always refine the design in a more organised way afterwards.

Do you do any of these suggestions, and do they work for you?

Don’t forget to let me know if you have any more ideas, or if you’ve written about something similar before. I’ll share everyone’s suggestions and links next week.

“When you fail to prepare you prepare to fail” –Every guidance teacher in the world ever.

Whilst the importance of planning out a program before beginning to write it has been stressed to me over and over again, it wasn’t until I struggled through a project last year without any prior design work that I actually took this seriously. So this university term I’ve made a huge change to the way I work, and all it took was to buy a notepad.

My Sketchbook

Now, absolutely everything I need to think about goes into this one book. Plans for the structure of a program. Working out coordinates for drawing a cube. Listing alternatives for collision detection. I always have the book on me, so ideas can be jotted down in it, and all my thoughts are kept together – if I need to look back at a solution I’ve worked out before, I’ll have no difficulty finding it. The work in it can be rough a lot of the time, like when I’m brainstorming ideas, neat and organized like when I plan out database structure, or highly illustrated like when I design my next game or website.

Keeping Me Away From The Computer

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I didn’t try to plan before now. It’s just that plans tended to be a few lines in a notepad before I decided I had a fair idea in my head and plunged into programming. Since each project I work on is bigger and more complex than the last, that’s no longer an alternative for me. Having a piece of paper rather than a computer screen means I can move away from my desk, and refuse to go back and program until I’ve laid out what I intend to do. That doesn’t mean I won’t make changes later, but so far at least I haven’t hit any walls where I’ve found a huge design flaw or had to rip my code apart completely.

Linking Ideas

An unexpected benefit of this was that by using the same notebook for all of my programming work, I’ve been able to tie the work from different modules together far better. What I’ve already written for PS2 programming is also relevant to Windows, which in turn can even affect my web development. It’s made it much easier to avoid doing the same work twice, and to learn from my mistakes in each piece of coursework.

Taking It Further

I was surprised at how much of a difference something as simple as a notepad has made to my programming work, and it’s certainly not something I intend to give up any time soon. I already tend to reflect on each task I have to complete mentally, but in future I intend to use my notepad to keep track of exactly what went well, and what could be done better. My goals and lists of tasks which are normally still written in a text document will probably also be written on paper from now on. I just have to hope I don’t lose the notebook!

Some Questions

As ever, I’d love to hear everyone else’s experiences and thoughts on this. Do you make plans before you begin a project and if not, have you had any problems because of it? Do you like keeping track of things on a computer, or do you prefer good old-fashioned pen and paper? Do you have any tips or advice to help with planning and organization?

Empty Pages Waiting To Be Filled by Drew Wilson Photography

So I spent most of my Christmas holidays programming a blogging engine and community site. It was going alright, and with a little more work I could have had it usable, and yet, I’m now sitting with a WordPress blog and no intention of going back.
Why?
First of all I admit there were several flaws with my system. Big flaws. Flaws which I opted to ignore and work around as I continued to build the project. But that isn’t really the point here – I recognised that the structure of the project was terrible and I could have rebuilt it.The real issue here was, “Why did I feel the need to be different?”. There are huge numbers of high quality blogging engines out there, all customisable to do what I wanted. And yet I was sitting working from the ground up, on a low quality piece of software writing PHP I was already comfortable with, just so I could have the satisfaction of saying “Yes, I wrote this slow, insecure, feature lacking site by myself”. It all seems a little ridiculous now.

Not only ridiculous, in fact, but selfish. I could easily have spent that same time contributing to one of many open source blogging projects, learning to create new plugins or themes. Instead however, I was trying to reinvent the wheel.

So, in the end I hope I learned my lesson here – don’t be afraid to benefit from other people’s work, because in turn you can give back to the community. And perhaps you’ll be downloading some of my efforts in the near future.