M8

And I looked and saw a legion of M, and I counted the number therof, and found them to be a dozen less a third thereof.

At a glance

M8 is

A research and development (R&D) project undertaked by Keinall "K31" Caddle, also know as Granitor .
Written in C++, which I'm learning on my own, with help from a few sources that I tracked down on the 'net.
Currently has surpassed M1 and VTEST in features
the koolest megaproject i have ever worked on, especially now that it is taking new (to me) directions.

At leisure

The following paragraphs are speckled with ranting and a mild amount of raving.

What is a "M"?

A long time ago, there was a man who tried to kode on the PC.

Previously, he had been coding on the C64 in BASIC and 6502 Assmebly Language.

It is no surprise, therefore, that in 1996, when he got his first PC, and beheld Windows, and realised that the only freely availabe programming tools were the obsolete QBASIC and DOS32-based DJGPP, that he said:

I overflow with contempt this platform displeases me!

Yet, clearly he had outgrown his C64, so he decided to make his PC work like a C64... He began his project with Militance, and to emphasise this, called the first one, M1, the Militant One.

Over 18 months later, the Militant One has had several related projects which built on the knowledge gleamed from it, and now there are a set of projects which are collectively called M8.

What is C99?

C99 is the ultimate goal... loosely based on the koding philosophy and tools that I found and developed while working on the C64... but I haven't begun work on this yet because I am still learning C++, and the various PC software which I would need to use (e.g. Allegro, Linux, GCC, DJGPP... it's unclear what will eventually reap fruits).

When will C99 be started?

Everything I learn in the M series of projects will help me to do C99, and also to do related things and create better tools, etc.

Mostly, though, I haven't been koding, but learning more about myself, about people, society, friendship (and "friend-enemies"), marketing, production, et al.

Life, social stuff, business stuff... all these I've been learning about, and enjoying.

Can I get a screenshot?

There's nothing much to see, yet... and even then, I'm making tools to help in programming, so screenshots wouldn't put over how kool they were (um, that is, if they were kool... they're not all that kool yet as I'm still doing R&D).

However, I like videogames and multimedia production and editing so there is a possibility that it might actually be fun to watch a future tool of mine, in action and maybe even still, but I won't make any promises at this point...

When will the next release be out?

Well, the thing is that I got tired of producing useless releases... the most fun part was the text files that I wrote to accompany them... but I realise that there's not much you can do without things like a fully functional, stable IDE, and parser.

Oh, sorry, the answer is that I don't know, but when it is out, I'll update both my news page and my index page.

Now, back to my idle rambling... I got bored with everything and realised that M1 was more fun than, say, M7:r, because I really enjoyed at least some parts of the M1 development, and I put some "flair" into it even though it was throw-away kode.

For M8, I have been thinking at an abstract system level that nearly drove me insane, especially as for a while I was stuck on how to implement anything... but I refocused and cleared out unsmooth parts of my personal life and now... the work is orders of magnitude times as hard as what I did for M1 but I have learnt a lot since then and can enjoy the project a bit more now that I'm not also learning the basics of C... although I have much to do before I master C++.

Anyhow, I realise that balancing the project between kode and non-kode.. like, this webpage.. or something totally unrelated to the project like going to the beach... is the key to keeping up consistent development.

So, that's the sort of stuff I'm working on... having fun, and doing it right, and not going insane in the process (not having fun is a good way to go insane, especially when you're not being paid and hardly anyone believes in what you're doing... you know how many people have told me to get a job so since I quit my old one? And the thing is, most of them don't have jobs, but are at the mercy of schools of classical learning which won't help them to thrive in the real world, speaking from my experience as a Computer Technician, Network Admistrator, Software Developer, and heck, just as a 20 year old guy with a few gifts, like perception and wisdom).

Things like deadlines... don't matter to me... this is about me developing, not just a set of kode, but something that I want to use... and use a lot to develop yet more stuff, and to relate to my hardware, that I paid a lot of my hard-earned money for, in a way that pleases me, and not in a Unix or Windows metaphor.

Ultimately, I think the time I took off to deal with personal issues before I went more seriously into the programming aspects of it helped me to be able to handle the programming aspects... my mind is clearer and I have a lot more self-confidence, and I can understand things now that I just couldn't before.

Nonetheless, there is no time to gaze, so I'm out.

Secret link: a screenshot (zipped windows bitmap) of one of Chip's things running on Dearth in 9x.

Other place on the pages of K31:

The S+ Page, featuring my very own silly little scripting engine.

My low-content index page . My often updated news page .

This has been a production of K31. All mites create dust.