As the saying goes, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished." I've offered my services to the local coffee shop I frequent, now realizing just how much of my free time I'm sacrificing when I could be working on more rewarding endeavors. D-Roc will undoubtedly take this as some sort of excuse for why I'm not getting work done, which I will combat right this instant by saying that I need no excuse; I fully admit that I am a slacker and often have a hard time finding motivation, and I never claimed otherwise. He can continue to boast his glossy screen captures with pride, and the straw man he's attacking will continue to tremble in fear.
Anyway, I found myself buried in WPF books and articles just to accomplish a simple customer management app. Don't get me wrong; I intend to continue learning WPF but I'd rather devote my work time for this as opposed to my free time, which is better spent exploring XNA Game Studio.
To this end, I've reduced the scope of my customer management app from a WPF app with databound database, to a Windows Forms app with a DataSet serialized to and from a big-ass XML file (though in fairness, given the size of the coffee shop, it's a relatively small-ass XML file). These are all familiar technologies to me, so I shouldn't have to spend much time in R&D.
On the topic of obligations versus pleasures, as I mentioned before I'm also continuing with XNA Game Studio. I realize that I could reach a broader audience with a web game, but I just don't care. The type of game I'd enjoy making is better suited for XNA GS. And as Jonathan Mak would say, if you're creating a game for someone else, how can you call yourself an indie? (But let's be honest, I always have a mix of the player and myself in mind.) Plus, the new Xbox LIVE Community Games system could, at least in theory, easily offset the lack of PR I'd suffer from if I tried to launch a web game from my own site. Perhaps if a major web portal starts supporting Silverlight, it'd be a different story.
My next post will cover some of the decisions I (or any indie dev) has to make when deciding on a technology. Until then, not to be outdone by D-Roc, allow me to meet the bar by posting a screenshot of an all-but-empty window:
2 comments:
You quit on WPF before you even started. Let's hope SpriteBatch isn't too much for you.
Incorrect. I started with a WPF project, realized how much I had to learn before I even got started with the simplest of tasks, and decided quite readily that it wasn't worth it for a project I didn't even enjoy. 'Course, if I explained any more, I'd just be repeating what I said in my post, but given your history with reading comprehension that may still be necessary.
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