The Journey… Day 2
Day two…. what a rush. As a chef, I’m no stranger to having long work days. Days spent running station to station putting out salads, running back over and dropping fries for a burger that is working it’s way to perfection on the grill. Flipping said burger because the person that was supposed to help out for the day called out sick and now, as the owner, you are working lunch on your own. Table after table the lunch rush clicks on until it’s graceful end. You’re tired. You’re spent. Taking a walk outside with some ice water becomes a lovely reward for your efforts. You calm and collect yourself. Breathe…. walk back in and get ready for dinner service.
“Have you ever been in in a real life version of Space Invaders?” I remember the question clearly. I turned and chuckled at the disheveled dishwasher who helped make it happen that day. “I don’t think so.” I replied with a chuckle. “Not until today.” He appended as we shared a laugh over it. Hard days can be many things but one thing they always are is a challenge. Overcoming challenges is a daily part of the cooking biz. I find the same holds true in development.
Today was a challenge. After getting a quick start into the GameDevHQ program, while running my Lambda classes, it was go time starting at 8am when I got out of bed. After clicking on my Mac I saw my player motion code and Unity window brighten up on the screens like a cheerful digital “Good Morning!” After spending some time getting lined up I began to tackle what looked like a pretty heavy day.
Morning meetings came with the notification that I had been chosen as a Team Lead for my group. I began to set the numerous alarms that i would need to keep track of my meeting schedules, lecture schedules, coding times, helping cohorts understand using functions and setting variables, etc. In the kitchen proper execution involves precision timing. I find coding no different. In the kitchen, cooking can sometimes be the easy part. The place where you find zen. Your temple. Again, I find parallel. Today the easy part was the code.
I racked up lines of code like a burgeoning scoreboard. It was oddly zen. With all of the new syntax of C# and learning how to manipulate it with Unity can be cumbersome but it didn’t feel so today. I took to making the code work before the examples were given by searching Google, and MDN after hearing the theme of what the challenge was. This supplied me with a working model to check my code against that both challenged me ahead of the actual challenge, and gave me a higher level of fluency in the code that I was producing.
Today was all about laser fire and shooting down targets. As I got all of the code working on on my laser fire I turned to making my enemy prefab and getting it to respawn at the top of the screen in a random location if it wasn’t destroyed before hitting the bottom of the screen. I stopped the video just short if the code example and took to Google and MDN to solve it at this point. Task after varied task began to fall as the day continued on.
I knew from javascript that Math.random is a thing and there is Mathf in C so I looked for math.random in C# with Unity. Random.range was what came up. Immediately I saw the syntax for what I needed to get my enemy prefab to randomize it’s re-entry onto the battlefield. I coded it out, got it working and then stepped away for a few minutes to grab a bite of food. Did I mention that it was by this time 4pm and it had been a long day of instruction?
With a now satisfied belly and working code I sat back down to start the next lesson…. only to find that I hadn’t even watch this lesson yet. Gratitude. A smile. Sometimes you have to stop and be thankful for those times where everything is clicking… just like a great dinner service. I watched the rest of the video to make sure there were now areas of optimization in the code that I produced and it was textbook. Air high fives around the room. As I was the only one actually IN the room… I may have seemed to be a little off had a casual observer happened by in that moment.
Being a developer is about grittiness and testing yourself every day. From classwork to extra coding challenges , and workload to retention. It can test you every bit as much as in the kitchen. It can seem overwhelming. It can seem frustrating and hard as you search for hours to find the error of 5 lines of code only to realize you missed a semi-colon. But at the end of the day you can sit back and be grateful to see your project growing day by day. In the growth of this project, however, is reflected the picture of self. As this project grows, so to do I.
If there’s anything that i learned in the kitchen it’s that life can be hard, but life can be hard all over. What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. I also learned that having a love and passion for what you do in life really helps to keep a bright perspective and ensures that you do everything to the best of your ability. Cooking and development have very similar underpinnings. I’m grateful everyday for a life that prepared me to grit through the toughest of times with a smile on my face.
I can’t wait to see the finished product of this game. From the controls, to the look and game feel it just feels…. so right. This part of the journey is going to be trying. It’s going to be a test but it’s also going to be executed with love and passion. It will also be executed to the highest of standards because what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. This person survived 20 years a chef and that spirit was never killed. Some habits never die.
