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A Field Guide to Genetic Programming
Introduction to Evolutionary Computing
Genetic Programming by John Koza
Good Explanations of General CS Topics:
http://cslibrary.stanford.edu/ - Pointers, Binary Trees, etc.
Object-Oriented Programming:
- Life of Danie (blog) - Simple Object-oriented programming (OOP) explanation
- C++ For Dummies - he uses an analogy of a microwave instead of a house.
REST (Representational state transfer):
- http://tomayko.com/writings/rest-to-my-wife
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A Stanford CS PhD's advice on learning to program games (he does it in his spare time):
http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/gameprog.html
a pixel-art tutorial:
http://mossmouth.tumblr.com/post/42652506486/pixel-art-tutorial
GameMaker:Studio seems like a good way to learn how to program. I was reading some advice on making games when I saw that an indie artist-turned game-programmer had made the first version of a game called "Spelunky" with GameMaker, and after seeing some success he was able to make a much nicer version for the XBox.
http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/studio
Ants AI Challenge -
http://aichallenge.org/index.php
http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272180383
http://www.quora.com/Charlie-Cheever/answers
http://www.quora.com/Adam-DAngelo/answers
Misc Thoughts:
- thought: a friend had posted a link to the memoirs of a CS PhD at Stanford, and someone else had posted, "Only halfway through but it's amazing how much of his experience mirrors my own". This made me think about my zombie infection simulator and how any of those individual people could have told a story that would ring true for many of the other humans in the simulation: "I was minding my own business when suddenly everyone around me started panicking, I wasn't sure what was going on, and then a minute or two later these zombies came into view and started killing everyone". So my question is, under what circumstances does this happen in general? I'd like to have a nice clean description of the characteristics that define situations where this phenomenon may appear. For example, in the PhD example, it seems to be a result of the incentives that exist in academia among professors, journals, students, etc.
Very Important: I'm noticing that as I make progress on the Ruby on Rails tutorial and Elenco 130-in-1 guide, I'm becoming more excited. Seeing my progress and thinking about the future things I'll be able to accomplish is really motivating me in an incredible way. I'd known what Schwarzenegger said about the importance of keeping records, but I didn't expect it to happen in this situation.
- It's extremely important to have a compiler set up so that you can quickly compile your code and see what happens. You should NOT try to figure out how to create the program without ever running your code. This held me up for literally 10 months with the USACO puzzles: I was having trouble learning all the C / C++ code necessary to do certain things so that I could create an entire program and hand it to the USACO website to compile, when I should have just been typing shit up, handing it to my own compiler, and seeing what happened. I should have been starting with the most simple part of the puzzle and incrementally getting more complicated, just like that Stanford professor recommended in his Python class at Google.
- I should try to make "blinders": glasses w/ holes cut in the center so you can focus on what you're working on and not get distracted by stuff going on in your peripheral vision.
- just as with the LSAT, it seems the #1 concern a person should have is remaining motivated:
Quote:[my friend] (9:04:17 PM): I don't try to use it to get rich because it's very boring
[my friend] (9:04:26 PM): and I'd rather be trying to self-improve than to make money
[my friend] (9:04:47 PM): any type of problem solving and learning
[my friend] (9:04:53 PM): I think is more constructive
[my friend] (9:04:59 PM): then repeatedly solving things out of my toolbox
[my friend] (9:05:06 PM): acquiring the toolbox was useful but
[my friend] (9:05:12 PM): coding @ industry standards is not
[my friend] (9:05:29 PM): unless you're very very lucky and they have you fix what no one else can figure out or something
[my friend] (9:05:33 PM): or let you do whatever you want
[...]
[my friend] (9:05:53 PM): I got very bored doing coding projects at MIT because it was very
[my friend] (9:05:57 PM): "do this design document"
[my friend] (9:06:49 PM): it's also more motivating hacking together your own project
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