Comment Virtual World (Score 1) 90
I credit the majority of my skills to the fine folks at M*U*S*H ( http://mush.pennmush.org/ ). While the test and launch site for PennMUSH, a MUD game server, it *is* a social mush, and has a large community of players connected at most of the hours I'm on, and still plenty when I'm not. PennMUSH, a MUD in that it has a virtual world, with a programming language diku derivatives could only dream of, online creation and programming that allows anything from scrabble games to a casino with fully playable crap parlors, roulette, even poker of all types. From my own experience and others, if a quick googling can't find it, then asking a question on one of the channels will. This covers not only programming and software, but anything from cooking to mathematics, from writing novels to being an administrator for large projects.
Over the past month alone: I've taught some newer coders how to do pathfinding and searching. I've written sudoku solvers, held discussions (and eventually did a solution) on writing puzzle solvers in a language based on string interpolation (MUSHcode). I've laughed, I've cried, I've learned things I never guessed I'd learn. I've seen people grow in their skills - In English, computer languages, and more. It's a text based medium where neither profanity, poor English or general meanness is tolerated. Founded and headed by a psychology professor who dabbles in CS. Staffed by computer scientists, teachers, actresses, even EMTs and book authors. Almost half European. And active daily.
When I first joined, in 1998, I thought Visual Basic was all that. They introduced me to linux. To vi, regular expressions. AI, deeper CS, ocaml, python, perl, and more. Now I know a number of programming languages and paradigms. I could go on, but this thread's just on geekery and coding. Nevermind knitting, cooking, even public speaking, project management, raising kids (I'm still single, but there's a number of parents on there.) and more.
M*U*S*H: http://mush.pennmush.org/ - Or point your favorite text mu* client (I recommend tinyfugue) at mush.pennmush.org 4201
Over the past month alone: I've taught some newer coders how to do pathfinding and searching. I've written sudoku solvers, held discussions (and eventually did a solution) on writing puzzle solvers in a language based on string interpolation (MUSHcode). I've laughed, I've cried, I've learned things I never guessed I'd learn. I've seen people grow in their skills - In English, computer languages, and more. It's a text based medium where neither profanity, poor English or general meanness is tolerated. Founded and headed by a psychology professor who dabbles in CS. Staffed by computer scientists, teachers, actresses, even EMTs and book authors. Almost half European. And active daily.
When I first joined, in 1998, I thought Visual Basic was all that. They introduced me to linux. To vi, regular expressions. AI, deeper CS, ocaml, python, perl, and more. Now I know a number of programming languages and paradigms. I could go on, but this thread's just on geekery and coding. Nevermind knitting, cooking, even public speaking, project management, raising kids (I'm still single, but there's a number of parents on there.) and more.
M*U*S*H: http://mush.pennmush.org/ - Or point your favorite text mu* client (I recommend tinyfugue) at mush.pennmush.org 4201
