The first is always the hardest...

     I've wanted to do a blog for quite some time now, but I've just never seem to get around to doing it. Its not that I'm too busy to do it, I just haven't done it. I've tried a couple times. Actually did write a couple of blog posts, but they never made it off of my computer and onto the internet. I could just upload those posts I suppose, but I'm a bit unsure of them, so instead I decided to write a another new blog that probably has a high chance of not making it onto the internet either. The question now is, what do I blog about? I have a good list of ideas, but I don't know which idea to start with. I want to do them all. I guess I could..but that's a daunting task, as the list is about 20 or some topics long, and deciding to do them all still doesn't answer which one to do first. So for the past couple of weeks, I'd sit myself down to finally start a blog post, put on music (usually Five Finger Death Punch or Celldweller), and then play Zuma Blitz for about 2 hours or so. I've gotten pretty good at the game, as I consistently score over 1.5 million (when using all power-ups) in the game. At least, I feel that is good. There is only one other person on my list of Facebook friends who plays as well. He beat me once.

     I think the reason why I haven't started a blog even though its something I've wanted to do is because I'm just not in the habit of writing yet. Thinking about something is different than actually doing it, and I was spending a lot of time thinking of blogging, but not actually blogging. So today, I've decided to change that. I've decided to do blogging instead of thinking about blogging. Maybe then I'lll get in the habit of it and will be able to do more than just think up topics I want to blog about. Yep, thats right, all this is just off the cuff. No planning, just typing. Ok, maybe a little planning and possibly a little editing when I finish, but I need to hit that publish button, and I need to do it before dinner time.

     What kind of topics do I want to blog about? Hmm...probably programming and software development/design topics. I don't want to never venture out from that area though, so I'm not committing to software only topics. I wouldn't consider myself a master programmer or anything, or at least not announce to the internet that I am..there are way better programmers located here in cyberspace than I could probably ever hope to be. Doing this blog is really for my own benefit and amusement. I'll do everything I can to not give out bad information or advice, but no promises.

     Who am I? If your one of the few people who end up reading this who don't actually know me, I'm Charlie. I'm about to graduate from the University of Central Florida, majoring in Digital Media and minoring in Computer Science. I used to be a Computer Science major, but then I took an arrow to the knee decided to switch to Digital Media for the Game Design courses they had. I was a programmer surrounded by students who hated programming. Not everyone in the program hated programming, just the ones I associated on a regular basis with did. I kinda wish that I could switch back to the computer science program, but I've been in college long enough, and now its time to leave.
   
     Why start blogging? Going into my final year at college, I felt that I was learning enough about programming or software development, and all the textbooks I've had to read for class just seemed to endlessly repeat what I've already known. I wanted to read something that, while not requiring me to be a master in the field, wasn't for beginners either. I turned to google to find what I was looking for, and ended up on Coding Horror, looking at a list of recommended reading for software developers. I decided to read them all, but I'm still undecided to which book to start with (noticing a pattern yet?). I looked around the site and found my way to Joel On Software, and then I looked for more blogs. I have a list of blogs I check on a regular basis now. What does this have to do with WRITING a blog. One of Jeff Atwood's posts on Coding Horror was How to Write Without Writing. That post includes a quote from Joel Spolsky about the difference between a tolerable programmer and a great programming.

The difference between a tolerable programmer and a great programmer is not how many programming languages they know, and its not whether they prefer Python or Java. It's whether they can communicate their ideas. By persuading other people, they get leverage. By writing clear comments and technical specs, they let other programmers understand their code instead of rewriting it. Absent this, their code is worthless.

     Well, I aim to be a great programmer. If the quote is true, then I need to be able to communicate well. I need to practice communicating. How to do this? Then the light bulb turned on. I'll do a blog as well. I'm usually the person that someone turns to when they need help with a programming problem among my friends anyways. I'm a smart guy, this is something I can do. Then I started doing a LOT of reading, and it seemed like the more I read, the less I knew about things. I've been told that happens though. You learn and learn and learn and then you think you know everything there is to know about a subject, and then you learn a little more and bam! You discover that you've barely scratched the surface. I don't really feel like I'm qualified to be blogging, but what the heck. I'll let those unfortunate enough to be reading this decided.

     I'm not exactly sure how long each of my posts should be. I feel like this has gone on quite a while with no real information for the reader. That was kinda the point of this first blog post of mine. It was really more for myself than anything. I was trapped in a gridlock decision of how to start this process. Starting is always the hardest part. This is especially true in programming. Once you get started and in the zone though, you can really start trucking along without thinking about it. Which is what just happened here. This post was completely unplanned, and its whole purpose was just to get me started with something. If I had tried to come up with the perfect first post, I would still be playing Zuma Blitz on Facebook probably. Hopefully, publishing this first post will be enough to get me going on this, and I won't have to do another "no subject" post. Thanks for sticking with me through the entirety of the post. I feel pretty productive right now, maybe I'll start my next post, or do that pesky Spanish homework. Right after I beat my high score in Zuma...