Matt, this is your 18 year old self. It is spring break of your senior year and you are about to go to college and major in computer science. Do you know what you are getting into? As you get older and older and priorities change, don't forget your passion for God and Technology. Remember when you were in elementary school and thought it was the coolest thing to draw pictures of video games? You used to love playing Jak and Dexter and the career modes on sports games! Of course this was on the good ole PS2 (wonder what version Sony has out now)! You were obsessed with online games and couldn't get enough of them. The Sims 3 and Civilization 3! Remember when you would create entire neighborhoods in The Sims and design your own maps in Civ 3? You would create an island in the middle of the ocean and give yourself all the resources. You would create a maze of mountains surrounding the mainland and block off the only water entrance with a ton of ships. Then, Steve Jobs and the iPhone took over the world. You and your friend, Scott, had the crazy idea of creating a game for the iPhone. It had to be an RPG with lots of upgrades and realistic open-ended content, of course. You were clueless about programming and just wanted to plan out all the details of an amazing game. Somewhere along the development process, you realized the game would never happen unless you could program a computer. Whoops. Instead of giving up, you searched the internet. A new youtube channel called thenewboston came up, https://www.youtube.com/user/thenewboston. As you realized you could program simple things, your excitement grew and grew. You did some research and found out that to program for iPhone, you needed an Apple computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor. When in doubt, go to craigslist. Eventually, you found a decent Macbook and purchased it (you mowed lawns, pet sat, watered plants, and saved everything), with help from your parents, from an 18 year old kid going to college. The specs on this bad boy were:
MacBook (Late 2007)
2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 667Mhz DDR2
120 GB 5400rpm Hard Drive
8x SuperDrive (DVD-r/rw)
Intel GMA X3100 144MB DDR2 shared
Front-Facing Camera
mini-DVI port (buy adapter for VGA, DVI, HDMI)
13 Inch 1280 x 800 Display
2 USB 2.0 Ports
With your new Macbook, you felt you could take on the world! Then, you realized that an iPhone game would require graphics to be functional. Once again, instead of quitting, you went to the internet. Scott, your faithful friend, became an expert at using multiple free software to create graphics (Tinkered with programs like Gimp, Blender, Paint, Word, Powerpoint, Photoshop, and even Apple's Color Sync Utility). Needless to say, you guys came up with some pretty legit graphics.
Great! So, now you had the graphics and a moderate understanding of code, did you finally create your awesome game? What happened next? Of course, I started programming the game and it was coming along GREAT! It had a username that would scroll across the top of the screen when you logged in, it could save your progress of upgrades you had bought from the store, and it kept track of wins and losses. The only thing left to perfect was the combat system. And maybe making the game multiplayer (you were starting to understand and use apples help source)! At this point, you had started high school and even had a girlfriend. Somehow time kept escaping from you and as time passed, your ambition for programming lessened. Sure along the way you had some revivals, but it never returned as strong as it was. Your freshman year you made a GINORMOUS excel spreadsheet that analyzed high school dropouts. It had a ton of formulas and organization! This project actually got you to the State Science Fair. At the State Fair, not only did you get to beat your science teacher, Ms. Fentress, at laser tag, but also won 1st place in your division! You finished out your freshman year and began your sophomore year without any desire to finish the iPhone game project. The next revival came with the science fair of your sophomore year. This year you decided to develop an app for the iPhone! You were going to create a significant figure calculator (wonder if you still even know what a sig fig is?) that all your friends could use in class. You mistakenly thought it would take like an afternoon, because "it's just a calculator". In the end, the code had DEEP nested If statements (to account for every possible user input and find out what type of sig fig rule to apply to it) and was reasonably long. Since that point, you have made simple mini programs to keep track of ping pong scores with friends and randomly choose teams for pickup basketball games, but never returned to the same dedication as you had in middle school. Now, I am sitting here. I still have that Macbook. It has served me well. English Videos, those two research papers (What is the next Great American Novel?, The Hunger Games / "To Know or Not to Know", analysis of the modern interpretations of the theme experience vs. innocence through various forms of communications), exposure to programming, and even creating music! Although, the screen no longer works, the battery holds its charge for 25 minutes, the fan constantly runs on high, and the hard drive is basically full, I still use it. I have realized that I still have the passion for programming and never really lost it; I just couldn't find time for it during high school. Note to future self: Don't become so caught up in school or work to forget your passions in life. Your passions will bring out the true you. Who knows, maybe someday you will create an ultimate RPG with realistic open-ended content and lots of upgrades that tweens all around the world will play and be inspired to imagine the possibilities.
Your 18 year old self,
Matt Hixon
