Beginners Luck

I've been thinking of that BASIC for a console again, and the more I think on it, the more I think its a good idea. I think I'd probably have to drop the idea about doing inline assembly, but the rest of it sounds good fun. I love the idea of giving Kids a simple toy to play with and learn at the same time. I also like the idea of writing a simple version of BASIC; never done one before so it could be fun!

I was looking though some code and have come back to the conclusion that I don't like the way C++ programers are heading. Theres too much use of the lanugage just for the sake of it. My view is that if I can do something simpler, smaller and faster than a fancy C++ templated STL'ed version then thats what I'll do. But the more I look at others code, the more I think they use all these features and extensions just for the sake of it. Russells usually fairly good with these things, so I hope that his usage won't pee me off when he finally gets around to writing it. If it does...that could be my signal to leave now. Its funny, Dave says he lets his team leaders manage the teams however they want as long as they produce the goods. In a way I think thats good, but in another... I don't like it. I can't put my finger on exactly why either...I'm sure its something to do with having at least a "basic" standard thought a company though, where as it looks like we're heading for at least 3 just now.

I've asked Russell to go over some code with Andrew to try and give him some pointers. He's doing fairly well but still has a bit too much "University boy" in him for my liking. All juniors start out like this, but it's a bit irritating that universities still can't teach "nice" code, although I probably shouldn't be too surprised since these places are usually around 5-10 years behind an industry. I'm not sure where he went to school, I know Abertay is fairly good with its games course, but Dundee University is fairly pants at its programming courses. I remember interviewing a guy from there that didn't know how many bits were in a normal "int", or how sign (+/-) was done. Thats just scary. But whats probably worse, is that these people actually pass!!