NaGaProMo

I humbly present an idea and an experiment:

National Game Programming Month (NaGaProMo)

Based on the idea of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), NaGaProMo instead focuses on programming a game from start to finish in one month.  You shouldn't try to create the next blockbuster title. Instead, NaGaProMo is a fun way to get some extra programming in while creating a new video game.  Get together with your friends to share tips and bounce ideas around throughout the month.

Rules:

1)  The game must be created entirely during the month of November.

2)  All programming must be done by you, the sole author.  (You can still use other libraries and APIs created by other programmers.)

3)  At the end of the month, you should have a reasonably stable game that can be run on your target device (PC, Android, etc.).

Next year, there may be some sort of length requirement, but I'm working through this for the first time myself this year.  You'll notice I called this whole thing an experiment at the start of this entry.

I'll be blogging about my progress throughout the month of November and hope to have a finished game in about a month.

Code Smiles - Refuctoring

Programmers often spend time talking about ways to avoid code "smells" but very little time is spent dealing with code "smiles".  Fortunately, I found a presentation that deals with the latter: http://www.waterfall2006.com/gorman.html

Sample quote: "Over time code "smiles" build up to create what is sometimes called maintainable code, more specifically, code that can be maintained by somebody other than the person that wrote it, and that means YOU!"