Peace And Tranquility

sorry for this super late post..i have had laptop problems since the day of my presentation.

i was planning to write this the evening of the presentation day. 12/3, but that evening after i had restarted my computer, i had gotten some weird error and windows wouldnt boot..

after sonys customer service and a whole thing of procedures..they couldnt figure out what was wrong so next week they are sending me a new harddrive, while they do that i went to the tech store down the road from here and managed to take couple of files that werent messed up off of the harddrive directly. and luckily one of them was the completed file of my code.

i will post the complete code as one seperate post after this post.

Okay, my project had started as sort of wanting to be a comic strip on an infinite canvas, where the reader can choose his/her own way around and lead to many different endings. if the reader wanted to, they could keep going in circles forever. but that could not happen. for to use C++ to program that, would have been a super long code, and very complicated.. an example of that could be found in the New Media Studies book on page 723.

Scanned Picture from Page 723

what really happened to the code after i realized my original idea would have taken a VERY long time to complete. i had changed it into a time line where it has one start, and multiple ends. the best way to describe it is seen in this picture using  Microsoft Word. this new version of my idea doesnt have the twists and turns as seen in the previous, but im pretty sure with some more work and understanding of C++, it is possible for it to occur.  This picture is slightly off from what the program really reads as. the actual code reads using terminolgy from the picture, there is three different fourth events branching off of each individual third event. then the results from each individual fourth event. so instead of having 9 different results, the code that will be on the next post has 30 different results.

The current version of the code

So enough about all that, lets go to the history of C++ and what it is. C++ is a computer programming language. it’s simple. the history behind C++ is a bit more extensive though. in 1979 and early 1980s, a guy named Bjarne Stroustrup started devolping what was then called C with Classes. It was complete in 1983. Also in 1983, the name was changed to what we know it as, C++. in 1985 the first book was released about C++ for public use. now since the creation of C++ it has continously evolved, and now in the near future of one to three years, a new version of C++ is supposed to come out. the original year of release was 2009, and the rumored name of this new version was: C++09. now since the year 2009 is almost over, most people think it will be another year or two before the language is completed, and at most three years before the language is released for public use. the new rumored name is: C++0x. here are two links that give more indepth information about C++ and C++0x/C++09.

at first i wasnt sure how i could incorporate the readings into this final project, but then it hit me that i could use this as an educational tool when this code is thought of as a game. there already has been proof of games having an impact in saving a life. such as this one story i remembered. this guy in the story saw an accident occur while he was driving, and saved a guys life by performing emergency firstaid on the injured person that he learned by playing a game. the army and air force also use games to train the newest soldiers in using equipment and the airforce uses it to train pilots in flying UAV-unmanned aerial vehicles.  after remembering about this, i came to the conclusion that if video games can help save people like that, then couldnt simple text based games be used to change people?

i came to this conclusion based on what i had saw at my high school, which as much as i hate to say anything bad about it, my high school is not the best high school. while i was there, my school was filled with drugs, alcohol, sex, and pregnant teenage girls. the story i used in the code for the presentation was about someones first semester of college. and it can be easily changed. this got me thinking, if i could expand the code past just three individual events, and make it into 12 events, or even more, then the story line could be used to show what can happen to most people if they, for example, decide to get pregnant at the age of 15 or 16, if they decide to get addicted to drugs, if they decide to fail and drop out.. if the right story was given with more detail than what i had used, i could take this back to my school to have it implemented in the course loads of the students showing them the right path and hopefully get them to go to college with a decent job with a steady income of money to sustain life.

this code can also be used as a teaching tool in many classes too. in geometry it  can be used to teach students how to do proofs. in history, it can be used to show the correct timeline of anybody or anythings history. again with the right story line used with code, it can be made into anything. Illich even said in Deschooling Society that we want to learn more all the time, but what is limiting us is our current educational system. we can change it and it is very possible that this code can be used.

and that is exactly what i plan to do with this code. i already talked it over with my friend Jonathan Reyes, who helped greatly in writing the code. and he said that he would most likely help me finish this and take it back to my high school and present it to whoever we need to, to try to get it implemented. that is one possible outcome of what i can do for the code. after i thought of this, i realized it could be implemented with the story almost anywhere in society. just this one relatively simple, but long and confusing code, can potentially aid in helping lots of students, children and adults learn of what they have been doing wrong their entire lives and maybe get on the right path.

that is it. after this post and the next post, i will come back and edit it to add the link to the post of the code, and on the post of the code, i will add the link to this post, linking the two together.

*Edit*

as promised, the code that links to this post can be found here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 6th, 2009 at 22:03 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.