Episode: 208
Title: HPR0208: Expressive Programming Part 3
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0208/hpr0208.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 13:52:32

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Who, what, where, when, and why?
The five questions, all reporters are supposed to ask themselves.
But as programmers, how often do we ask ourselves these questions?
To express their programming, episode three, October 17th, Friday, 2008.
Welcome to this episode of Expressive Programming, an exploration into programming as an art.
Here our focus on programming, design, and development has an art form, especially as a form of self-expression.
We'll look at open-source projects, the projects that I'm working on, the code that others have written,
and focus on how that reflects what we feel, what we intend, and how we impact the world.
Special thanks for all episodes go to heck of how the radio probably we get this podcast after ground, especially in Nigma,
and also special thanks to HotBitchArson.
The band's website can be found at HotBitchArson.com for other wonderful, inspiring, and moving creative comments,
which is the paper that we use.
They're the cure for the uncommon non-cali.
Now onto today's episode of Expressive Programming.
Enjoy!
The motivation, inspiration, creativity,
tell them to play an art form, but what about programming?
What got you started?
What keeps you going?
Did you go to school for it?
Did you want to do this job?
Is it how you see your 401k being filled out?
If so, you probably don't like my podcast too much, and you probably don't agree with a lot of what I talk about.
If you even understand it.
But you probably don't.
But for those of us that do,
program has an art form.
Those of us that express ourselves in our programs, and how we program,
are often faced with problems of inspiration and motivation.
I've gone through an excessively long draft, where I was unmotivated, and I'm inspired to program.
I saw that I pushed myself forward and created a few things,
which I've contributed to several open-source projects.
Another of the most impressive codes that I've ever written.
But certainly nothing to get excited about.
And to me, that's something I've learned recently is that it comes down to excitement,
the passion I have for the project I'm working on.
That's the single biggest thing.
The most important thing when I need motivation is to be excited about the project I'm working on.
Excited about the people I'm working with.
Excited about what it'll be when it's done.
The most importantly, actually excited about creating it.
So I'm wondering what kinds of motivation do you find?
The times I've been motivated to create certain programs, because I knew it would benefit someone.
I knew it would help an unprofessional organization accomplish something in a way they haven't been able to before.
Other programs I'd added features to or created, because I was being paid to,
but that wasn't what motivated me.
What motivated me was because they wanted something that they didn't have a way of doing before.
They now wanted a way of doing it.
That's a programmer.
I'm able to use my art to bring something into the world that would someone do something that they couldn't before.
In a way that's easier, or in some cases, the truly exciting times when it's original.
When it's truly creating something that hasn't been done before.
That brings me to my current two major projects.
I'm working on an STL, which is simple, direct, media, layer, or library.
And that's at libstll.org.
I'm using it to power an online media browser.
It's the only way I can describe it.
The intent of the project is to provide an interface so that it can have your cable provider,
mid-TV, perhaps satellite provider, the channel chooser.
And as you go through there and browse through the channels, pick what you want to watch.
That is to allow the same type of interface, including integration with LIRC to allow for infrared control with a remote.
I'm also using STL because it will allow for the interface to be truly beautiful.
But I'm also going to integrate it with PHP, GTK, UVAVE, and Cairo to make a beautiful program.
The aesthetics are very important to the applications I create, whether they're web-based or not.
My website is currently running on one of the clones of a web application platform.
But I'm creating using Git to create and for separate websites and overall application platform that will allow for a central system to be put in place
that can access repositories of online applications.
I've been working on that for over two years.
That application hasn't excited me.
But excited me recently has begun work with the many OpenGL libraries.
I'm working with an engine called CrystalSpace3D.
That allows for programming using CRC++.
It also has Python and Pro bindings, as well as a complete XML-based development environment.
Right now, I'm looking for other women programmers to join me to create the first all-female created video game.
And yes, of course, it'll be open source.
I'm planning on going with CrystalSpace because of the XML that allow us to allow as many people to contribute and join the project as possible.
But the other engine that I'm looking at is called Open Scene Graph, which is an Open Source OpenGL library.
Everyone's trying to openGL, but you may not know that OpenGL is actually a specification.
I'm not itself a library.
The most common library I'm running for OpenGL is probably Messer.
Do you want to play? No, play?
It's probably Messer, but there are many other implementations of the OpenGL spec.
Open Scene Graph is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful.
And definitely, the one that on Linux allows for the highest rendering and the most powerful of the specs to be implemented.
Messer doesn't exactly implement OpenGL. It implements an OpenGL-like API.
Doing this research, playing with Open Scene Graph and CrystalSpace 3D, which also has integration with Blender.
As a matter of fact, it's being used CrystalSpace 3D that is being used to create the Apricot Open game, which you may or may not have heard of, which is being developed by the Blender team.
Similar to Elephant's Dreams, or Big Black Bunny, that they created to show off Blender's capabilities when it came to being an animation and movie creation platform.
Blender is a very powerful tool when it comes to developing games. It has a game development engine, but also integrates with Crystal.
CrystalSpace 3D is currently working to become Blender's game development engine.
These are exciting to me because a game is a way for me not only to be able to tell my story, which I have many stories to tell, but I'm not a mother.
The most important aspect of game development is that it allows me to create a world, pull people into the world, and have them feel emotions.
Like video in the World War. There's a TED Talk, which I will include in the show notes. That exemplifies this very well, and how this is going to have unknown implications on our society.
But any of us that have played any game, and I mean from the newest Windows-based games, which I haven't played, but back to Mario, and the excitement, the emotions, or role-playing games where the story would grip you, and at parts make you cry, parts make you wonder, parts make you excited.
There's emotions, those are what I want to enlist it out of the player, and that is what truly excites me about programming games again.
They're what I started programming, but then the.com boom came along, and it was a lot more profitable to be a contractor or a web developer, and so that's what I did professionally.
The open source projects I've worked on have been basically surrounding the social media, including online desktop, g-patter, and various other projects.
They're now the main open source projects I work on on my own, and the open source project, which I'm very proud to be a member of that community.
One more of the implementations of my web application.
One of the residual effects of having gotten so excited and found a way to, given my current state, be able to enlist those emotions from individuals again by being a game programmer.
A completely unexpected result or side effect on most is that I've become excited and motivated about my other projects.
I've made more progress, implemented more features, and just fought programs more since giving back into game development than I have in the last several years, which wasn't something I was expecting.
I've been spending most of my time working with game engines and libraries and development, but I also find myself excited even more to work on my other projects.
I find myself more motivated to email, more motivated to blog, and just more engaged in life.
Of course, that's the plight of an artist of any creative regardless of the canvas on which we create.
So I'm interested in hearing from anyone what motivates you.
What is it that motivated you to get into programming? What keeps you programming?
What inspires you to create new things? Most importantly, what excites you? What are you doing now if that's exciting?
And then how do you keep that back alive?
Until next time.
Smile when you code. Is that just a closing parenthesis?
I hope that you've enjoyed this episode of Expressive Programming. If you'd like more information about me, my projects, my podcasts, or anything else, please feel free to visit my website at ubersheetgeekcheck.com.
If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please feel free to email me at feedback at ubersheetgeekcheck.com,
I'm Flaky and I suck at email. I'm also a member of the phpwomen.org community.
It's a wonderful place. Any woman involved in development, please join us there.
Also another wonderful community that I'm involved in is devchicks.com. All the development principles are welcome. Please come along.
And lastly, I'm a proud member of both linuxchick.com. That's chchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchchch
I'm so free to hop in, say hi, find me in a room, pee on me, and I'll probably block you.
Other than that, until next time, express yourself.
Thank you for listening to Haftler Public Radio.
HBR is sponsored by Carol.net. She'll head on over to C-A-R-O.N-E-T for all of her team.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
