I bit of a personal digression on StarBase and how working on it has affected my life.
The first database I ever created was on a CP/M machine in dBase II and it was to store Traveller world data. My first proper programme was in MBasic to generate worlds for Traveller. For me, programming and SF roleplaying go back a long way together.
About 8 years ago I decided to learn object oriented programming. I tried Java and C# but they were too complex and 'heavyweight' for me, bearing in mind I mainly used Bash and Perl at the time. Then I came across the Python language and fell in love with it. It's been my go-to language for anything above bash scripts since.
In order to learn Python I decided to write a simple programme to draw maps for SF roleplaying games. It became StarBase. Though I do use Python at work occasionally to generate reports, system activity graphs, etc StarBase at around 10,000 lines of code is far bigger than anything else I've ever written and writing it has meant diving deep into many areas of the Python language and libraries.
I recently applied for a job at a big organisation to support an internally developed application framework written in Python. They wanted someone who really knows the language. It looks like a fantastic group to work with, and is a significant bump up in salary over what I'm on now.
If I hadn't spent so much time and effort on StarBase there is no way I'd have got through that interview; time and again technical question came up and I was able to draw on my experiences developing StarBase to answer them. Anyway I just got offered the job and thought it was funny that tinkering with what's basically a toy has made such a significant difference to my life.
The first database I ever created was on a CP/M machine in dBase II and it was to store Traveller world data. My first proper programme was in MBasic to generate worlds for Traveller. For me, programming and SF roleplaying go back a long way together.
About 8 years ago I decided to learn object oriented programming. I tried Java and C# but they were too complex and 'heavyweight' for me, bearing in mind I mainly used Bash and Perl at the time. Then I came across the Python language and fell in love with it. It's been my go-to language for anything above bash scripts since.
In order to learn Python I decided to write a simple programme to draw maps for SF roleplaying games. It became StarBase. Though I do use Python at work occasionally to generate reports, system activity graphs, etc StarBase at around 10,000 lines of code is far bigger than anything else I've ever written and writing it has meant diving deep into many areas of the Python language and libraries.
I recently applied for a job at a big organisation to support an internally developed application framework written in Python. They wanted someone who really knows the language. It looks like a fantastic group to work with, and is a significant bump up in salary over what I'm on now.
If I hadn't spent so much time and effort on StarBase there is no way I'd have got through that interview; time and again technical question came up and I was able to draw on my experiences developing StarBase to answer them. Anyway I just got offered the job and thought it was funny that tinkering with what's basically a toy has made such a significant difference to my life.
