The blog begins...

Six months into a project that started as a quick script to help me parse some NPCs, it isn't so much the program that has development creep as my brain. So far in this journey I have had to learn a programming language, learn about objects, learn how little I understood of all of this at first, learn XML, learn Fantasy Grounds' language, and most recently struggle with RTF. RTF can GTF frankly... I have no idea how anyone came up with this as a good idea, or how their workmates at Microsoft never slapped them. No doubt I'll rant about RTF more as the project progresses.

Anyway, 6 months in I decide a website would be a great idea. Thankfully I manage to avoid the "it can't be that hard; let's try doing it myself" route and instead went for the Blogger platform I had already used and enjoyed. It'll be easy, I said to myself. You can use the design you have already for another blog, I said to myself. Yeah, right - that never works.

So now I have taken a break from programming to design a website to host my programming. I'm empire building. This would all feel like less of a timesink if I was going to make my first million out of it, but I keep pretending to myself that I'm learning valuable skills I may be able to leverage in the future. Then I go back to the programming Discord and see what guys half my age are doing whilst watching Anime and I realise that I'm not going to be a rich software engineer!

Still, people are using NPC Engineer and enjoying it. My main goal - something usable for myself - was met long ago, and in the process I found a hobby (or set of hobbies) that I absolutely love. I might even be inspiring my own children to attempt some coding - that's more valuable than financial riches (I keep telling myself).

RTF is still a pain in the arse, though.

Maasq