Introduction

For a while now, I've been meaning to create a website that I can use both as an on-line portfolio and as a “learning diary” for my experiences in the world of programming. I originally tried to do this with a variety of pure HTML sites but these were cumbersome to update and maintain - although I learned a lot about HTML by creating them, so I suppose that it was a worthwhile endeavour overall (it is worth noting that, due to a no-PHP restriction with my freely-provided University web-space, my site there is still written entirely in pure HTML).

My next thought was to create a PHP-based site, using an SQL database to store articles. I therefore installed Apache, PHP and MySQL and set about learning how to use them all. I think that I learned a great deal on this brief project but I eventually decided that a Blogger account would be a better idea. This was mainly because creating a Blogger account costs nothing, whereas a decent amount of web-space and bandwidth with PHP and MySQL support can be costly, especially if you want to buy a domain name as well. The Blogger system would also allow features such as user comments, which I had not originally thought about but which would undoubtedly be useful in getting feedback and advice from visitors with more experience than I in whatever field I decided to research next.

What can you expect to see on this site? The majority of my postings here will be programming related, relating either to basic coding topics such as successful encapsulation with object-orientated techniques and programming correctness or to higher-level, theoretical concepts such as flexible-yet-secure game engine design and AI techniques. For anyone who is not so very interested in the raw work that makes games and applications operate, I shall be posting images of rendering experiments and possibly even the occasional downloadable demonstration program every now and again.

For anyone wondering where the title of this Blog comes from (no, it is not my real name), you might like to know that I've always been interested in the work of id Software – including two of it's founding members, both of whom have now left.