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Rivers Cuomo is an active developer on GitHub

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Re: Rivers Cuomo is an active developer on GitHub

#91

Post by dharmab »

wiseowise wrote: post #87
lexlash wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I teach software engineering to grad students. Discord bots specifically have been fantastic: 1) auth/identity is built in 2) the UX is highly constrained (having students lose a month to CSS issues is perhaps good prep for the real world but feels awful) 3) all of the tooling is free* *With the restrictions on free Heroku and the removal of free orgs on fly (it seems) I’ve had to retool a bit but codespaces cover a…

How is that different from writing command-line apps?

1. Networking, multiplayer and multimedia are built in.

2. The social component is fun. Students can easily show their work to each other. Don't underestimate the power of memes.

3. The Discord server provides shared history/some persistance without the students needing to implement their own servers.

Re: Rivers Cuomo is an active developer on GitHub

#92

Post by Zecc »

wiseowise wrote: post #87
lexlash wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I teach software engineering to grad students. Discord bots specifically have been fantastic: 1) auth/identity is built in 2) the UX is highly constrained (having students lose a month to CSS issues is perhaps good prep for the real world but feels awful) 3) all of the tooling is free* *With the restrictions on free Heroku and the removal of free orgs on fly (it seems) I’ve had to retool a bit but codespaces cover a…

How is that different from writing command-line apps?

The two pieces of software I'm most proud of having written in college were a simple NFS driver and a simple GET-only HTTP server. There's just something magical about seeing your software not only working, but also integrating with something else that's "real". (In this case, being able to mount a network drive in the OS and opening a page in a real browser)

Re: Rivers Cuomo is an active developer on GitHub

#93

Post by GrygrFlzr »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #41
freedomben wrote: post #30

Interesting, he seems to primarily work on a Discord Bot. This is at heavy risk for confirmation bias, but I believe that writing chat bots is one of the best ways for people to get into and enjoy coding, because it's fun and rewarding, and simple enough (with an existing framework to use) that just uses strings. For a large generation it was MySpace and the ability to customize your page heavily with HTML. I know a…

Definitely agree—Discord bots got me into JavaScript! (For better or worse, lol.) To anyone who wants to build and host a hobby bot, I've had a good experience with using fly.io to host mine. They don't charge you for any monthly billing periods whose total cost would be less than five dollars (USD), so for small projects that would never get close to meeting that threshold, it's free ninety nine. Hard to beat that!

I didn't realize they had a (effectively) scale-to-zero option! Is it possible to store a bit of state, or is the bot entirely for ephemeral responses? I wasn't clear on what storage would be available from their pricing page.

Re: Rivers Cuomo is an active developer on GitHub

#94

Post by Karliss »

wiseowise wrote: post #87
lexlash wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I teach software engineering to grad students. Discord bots specifically have been fantastic: 1) auth/identity is built in 2) the UX is highly constrained (having students lose a month to CSS issues is perhaps good prep for the real world but feels awful) 3) all of the tooling is free* *With the restrictions on free Heroku and the removal of free orgs on fly (it seems) I’ve had to retool a bit but codespaces cover a…

How is that different from writing command-line apps?

It is more engaging to do something related to the software students (might) be using daily or at least have some experience. It's easier to show of the final result to (non programming) friends, or get some ideas for potentially useful tools or at least fun toys.

Sure for experienced developers command line tools are used daily (at least for some developers), but for many students it can be alien world that they don't use outside the lessons.

Also overall usefulness. Simple terminal program that responds with a fixed message, is just an exerciser but otherwise useless. You need to get a lot more complicated to make useful tool. But a chatbot which responds with fixed messages (usually FAQ type stuff) is a commonly used tool for the purpose of community management.

Re: Rivers Cuomo is an active developer on GitHub

#95

Post by theodric »

romanovcode wrote: post #88
bdcravens wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I'm not really a Weezer fan, I didn't recognize the name, but just looking at his profile tells you right away who he his. His employer is literally listed as Weezer.

Yes, and who is Weezer? This says nothing.

A famous rock band

Re: Rivers Cuomo is an active developer on GitHub

#96

Post by ndr »

freedomben wrote: post #30

Interesting, he seems to primarily work on a Discord Bot. This is at heavy risk for confirmation bias, but I believe that writing chat bots is one of the best ways for people to get into and enjoy coding, because it's fun and rewarding, and simple enough (with an existing framework to use) that just uses strings. For a large generation it was MySpace and the ability to customize your page heavily with HTML. I know a…

There's a whole generation of us who started coding on mIRC-scripting exactly for that reason.

Re: Rivers Cuomo is an active developer on GitHub

#98

Post by Duanemclemore »

happytiger wrote: post #47
amagitakayosi wrote: post #35

Wait, no one remembers now? He once released a mobile app to stream Weezer songs, all written by himself. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/weezify/id1598140531 I'm glad he's still writing code so hard.

It’s so great that musicians can have a backup plan that works lol. :)

"I mean, you just never know if this rock and roll thing is going to work out, son."

Re: Rivers Cuomo is an active developer on GitHub

#99

Post by anArbitraryOne »

freedomben wrote: post #30

Interesting, he seems to primarily work on a Discord Bot. This is at heavy risk for confirmation bias, but I believe that writing chat bots is one of the best ways for people to get into and enjoy coding, because it's fun and rewarding, and simple enough (with an existing framework to use) that just uses strings. For a large generation it was MySpace and the ability to customize your page heavily with HTML. I know a…

What kind of person acknowledges there might be confirmation bias?

Re: Rivers Cuomo is an active developer on GitHub

#100

Post by madeofpalk »

wiseowise wrote: post #87
lexlash wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I teach software engineering to grad students. Discord bots specifically have been fantastic: 1) auth/identity is built in 2) the UX is highly constrained (having students lose a month to CSS issues is perhaps good prep for the real world but feels awful) 3) all of the tooling is free* *With the restrictions on free Heroku and the removal of free orgs on fly (it seems) I’ve had to retool a bit but codespaces cover a…

How is that different from writing command-line apps?

"Normal" people don't use command-line apps. Making 'real' things that other people use can be a huge motivator for early learners.
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