111–120 of 177 posts
Now here's an interesting bit: "Question: can we trade the programs we create? How will you stop malicious viruses etc?" "yes. And I won't stop viruses, the players will have to do that themselves." ~ https://twitter.com/#!/notch/status/187474819980328962
Well, actually that sounds like a recurring theme, now only taken to a more complex extent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nice. With a bit of fiddling one could perhaps invert an enemy's shield polarity. That always seems to work miracles in any sci-fi show.
This opens a whole stream of electronic warfare, however, the problem is that this will be writing programs that have no real-world usage. Except... These programs will be a great way to introduce both kids and adults to programming as learning it will give an edge to people. Question: Will we need to program an OS? And does it run Linux?
This would be a tremendous way to do that.
Programming on normal computers is always kind of disconnected from the real world. So, your program can add two and two. Great. Now what?
Microcontrollers alleviate that issue to some extent. Now your program can walk and talk, and push real-world objects. But you kind of need to learn a bit of electronics too.
Notch's Universe solves this issue neatly. It's a mock real world, with programmable computers. Now your software can do some interesting mock-real-world stuff, like fly spaceships. That's pretty neat.
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It's 128KB of RAM, that's the same as the original Macintosh in 1984. I would be surprised if it ran at more than about 10MHz. And nevermind the constrained resources for implementing any of this hypothetical infrastructure, unless Notch adds an MMU, you can't enforce permissions You can't think about this in modern terms. It's not a modern computer. It's a 1980s computer, and it's supposed to run a spaceship. Think…
Couldn't the permission system exist outside of the constraints of the in-game computer (as just some game mechanism)? If each of the ship's discrete components were accessible at some address, couldn't the game enforce the permissions at a level above the simulated CPU? A rough static analysis of the code might reveal where those components are accessed, and as long as you enforce permissions while the software runs…
[1] I have no idea what the correct terminology is here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nice. With a bit of fiddling one could perhaps invert an enemy's shield polarity. That always seems to work miracles in any sci-fi show.
This opens a whole stream of electronic warfare, however, the problem is that this will be writing programs that have no real-world usage. Except... These programs will be a great way to introduce both kids and adults to programming as learning it will give an edge to people. Question: Will we need to program an OS? And does it run Linux?
This is why most people advocate learning python or ruby. You don't have to deal with the underlying manipulation of the computer until you've decided you actually like programming.
I guess we'll be able to write our own malware to take over other peoples' ships, then? Pretty awesome, just call me Locutus :)
Now here's an interesting bit: "Question: can we trade the programs we create? How will you stop malicious viruses etc?" "yes. And I won't stop viruses, the players will have to do that themselves." ~ https://twitter.com/#!/notch/status/187474819980328962
Nice. With a bit of fiddling one could perhaps invert an enemy's shield polarity. That always seems to work miracles in any sci-fi show.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This opens a whole stream of electronic warfare, however, the problem is that this will be writing programs that have no real-world usage. Except... These programs will be a great way to introduce both kids and adults to programming as learning it will give an edge to people. Question: Will we need to program an OS? And does it run Linux?
Learning about assembly/to-the-metal coding is probably not the best way to learn programming. "OP? LOAD? REGISTER? PC LOAD LETTER? What's a word? There's only 8 registers? Does that mean I can only save 8 things? What do you mean I have to push things into a stack?" This is why most people advocate learning python or ruby. You don't have to deal with the underlying manipulation of the computer until you've decided y…
Personally, I think Python is a great way to teach programming, because it allows us to get to concepts quickly. Accidental complexity is at a minimum, and the inherent complexities of programming become the focus. But, even thought that's my personal preference (based on some experience; I've used Java and C++ to teach programmers and had to explain away accidental complexities), I hesitate to say it's best because I have no evidence backing up that claim.
What's important is learning certain concepts, perhaps the most important of which is algorithmic thinking. That is, knowing what result you want, knowing how you start, and being able to reason through how to get from the start condition to your desired result, step-by-step. What helps is when the result you get is something you care about. I can easily see that for some people, getting something to behave a certain way in a videogame will be a more compelling result than others.
Now here's an interesting bit: "Question: can we trade the programs we create? How will you stop malicious viruses etc?" "yes. And I won't stop viruses, the players will have to do that themselves." ~ https://twitter.com/#!/notch/status/187474819980328962
I worry about the griefing potential here. I can imagine nothing pissing off a noob more than getting a virus within 10 minutes of play and having no idea how to stop his ship from self destructing. Perhaps this will need some sort of firewall system built in where ships cannot communicate unless ports have been explicitly opened. Perhaps some sort of communications proxy that can serve for safe communications. It co…
So not everybody needs to actually know how to program, they can just buy stuff from NPCs or from the market off other players. But obviously, the ones who do know the system inside out will have an advantage.
I will admit, I used to think Notch was just a regular-joe programmer who had gotten extremely lucky with his strain of adventure game. Now I know I was dead wrong.
Emulating a very simple computer like this isn't hard at all; it's basically just a big array for memory, a few variables for registers, and a switch statement for instruction handling.