HAPPY FATHERS DAY

My Dad is said to know the ending of a horror movie, before it has even started. He is said to have discovered the secrets to any iPhone game, before it has even been released. A man of many talents, he once survived on nothing more than chocolate cake and wine for over two years. But where are the spoils of these conquests? The worlds greatest horror movie, the worlds most addicting app! Lost from the realms of men, trapped inside his head!

When you texted me, adamant on learning Javascript, I became very excited, oh the wonders we will build, the apps we will scale! But I worry of the hill. The hill that has kept your potential in the shadows. You push the rock up and up and up, only to find that when you finally get there, you spend a year enjoying the spot, until you turn around and realize someone has just built an even larger hill. This is of course a cheesy metaphor on how learning is truly the hardest thing that we can do, and for every hour conquering, there are 10 hours spent saying “what the fuck is going on here”, then, once you finally feel that you have mastered assembly, some asshole comes along with C, then C++, etc. etc.

But let us focus on this year in the sun, the time when you are on top of the hill. I think we can both agree that knowing a language so well that you can just let your mind go and have your fingers obey is one of the most exhilarating experiences. This is what I hope you can achieve with Javascript. But why Javascript?! Why not Unity? I shall not let you go into this thinking that you chose Javascript purely for me.

I now hope to convince you why you should follow this path, and I hope that the reasons are great enough to cross the hurdles

1. Javascript is the worlds most popular and growing language
2. Games are moving to the web, the browser is eating the world
3. Javascript is a language that basically said, “fuck it, let’s be OOP, lets’ be functional, let’s be imperative, …. It has grown to such a size that you can program in the style of your choosing
4. You only have to learn one language for both the server side and the client side
5. All the popular AI frameworks, originally python based, now support Javascript

Now, you are already a great programmer. The difficult part to switching is figuring out where to start and how to gain momentum. Once you can simply translate from what you know, you will be in a great spot. But oh how annoying it is to search for tutorials. There are too many resources. What if you spend time on the wrong one?!?? Luckily for you, your son has made it through these slums.

1. Some of these are really well done starters
2. Games are moving to the web, the browser is eating the world
3. This is a great tutorial you bought for me, it was over $100 if I remember and if you want to start looking at how the server stuff works first then I would start here