[help] Mentor

[RaidenMagmus]

I don't know how else to say this, but it seems like when I ask questions I get some confusing replies that either aren't applicable to what I'm asking, or I never get a reply to my question. What I'd prefer to do is have someone to converse with on icq/msn/aim/yahoo. I do the same thing with some people on php. (If you think it's impossible.) I can't really offer much, other than the fact that I am really a php coder :P

[kendude]

I think that is a great idea. It's like Big Brother/Big Sisters. I can help through email, but I still feel FK is the best. I believe that there are plenty of talented eyes watching FK but many are holding back at times, participation may have dropped also since I am assuming the majority of it's member excluding the extremely talented Aussie bunch are in the Northern hemisphere enjoying their summer. I think this place was humming more during the winter months, perhaps I am wrong. Email me from my site, M-F 8-5 I am at work though and I may not respond with lightening fast reflexes. As long as you are not asking questions that can easily be answered with the search feature or google, I will help you.

[DancingOctopus]

Originally posted by kendude
excluding the extremely talented Aussie bunch are in the Northern hemisphere enjoying their summer.

I never knew us Aussies had such a strong showing..

[RaidenMagmus]

I think that is a great idea. It's like Big Brother/Big Sisters. I can help through email, but I still feel FK is the best.

FK is probably the worst way of solving problems for me, because I'll ask something that sounds sorta complicated, the 3 times I've asked I've gotten mixed replies that did not fit the solution I wanted. Maybe I'm picky, or maybe I'm just powerless now.. because of not being knowledgable about all the code in flash.

I believe that there are plenty of talented eyes watching FK but many are holding back at times[...]

So far the replies I've gotten have either been sparse, or that I'm not doing things the traditional way, if I make a smooth scrolling tile engine, and I'm moving the container for a tile clip, it doesn't get faster by moving each tile. (One _x/_y command as opposed to tile_width * tile_height.)

Email me from my site, M-F 8-5 I am at work though and I may not respond with lightening fast reflexes. As long as you are not asking questions that can easily be answered with the search feature or google, I will help you.

I've tried google, actionscript.org, flashkit.com, macromedia's dictionary & help file, several other resources, as well as indexing google searches. I cannot for the life of me find what I want to do. And it's almost automatic.. I am fustrated, tired of it. This is how I feel.. and it's just a matter of time before I just drop it, and forget about flash all together. I can't take the stress of knowing what I want, but not being able to get to it. And at the same time trying and trying different methods to get there. And it gets more and more difficult, and it's not like just one question, it's several questions. Yes, I'm cranky now. I don't know anymore, maybe I'm trying too hard, maybe I should just go back to my old calling of C++, or python. All this actionscript code is infuriating. I just can't take it, not knowing enough api to write what I want.. but knowing enough so I know what I'm looking for. And I hate it.. when I'm waiting, sometimes 2-3 days, when I know it's simple.. I think it's simple, I just don't know how. I had a similar failure when trying this with Tom Moor, where he claims that my code was bad for some reason. I am very meticulous about my code, and I write very clear comments in it. But for some reason I get ignored for that.. am I bad coder? Am I wasting your time? Because I feel like I've wasted my time here. Trying to understand this code that I do not know.. I don't know what else to say.

[Coolguy225]

First of all I would like to say LEAVE!!!! The people that are trying to help you are doing so for FREE!!! Listen if you don't like the answer you get it is your fault/problem. You can try to rephrase your question or take the answer you get. No one here really cares if you quit flash because you don't like the help we are giving you. If you haven't got a reply to your question TOO BAD!!!! Think about it....just take a second...there are plenty of posts here that do get answered so what are YOU doing wrong so that people don't want to answer your posts. Maybe you aren't being descriptive enough. IT IS YOUR PROBLEM!!! Stop whining and crying this is free help if you want immediate responses that you like BUY BOOKS!!!! So in conclusion IF YOU DON'T LIKE OUR RESPONSES, STOP POSTING AND WASTING OUR TIME ANSWERING YOUR WORTHLESS POSTS!!!!

[RaidenMagmus]

ok

[jonmack]

Raiden, please don't listen to coolguy. He is most definatly not a representation of our community. And that's the great thing - this board really does have a community. It does go through good times and bad times, granted, but do stick around.

The whole point of public debates on flash problems and solutions is so everyone can learn. You have the important characteristic of wanting to learn. Most people come with visions of building "the biggest 3D FPS in the world" flash then are dissapointed when it doesn't happen within a week. So you want to learn - great. But the people who really know what they are doing are doing this as a living, so probably don't have the time to be a "mentor". But even if you did find someone willing, you will learn - but what about others? Having a public board helps in that repect.

The difficulties are, which you have found, is that it's sometimes hard to say in text what you're having trouble with. I know I tried to help you the other day, but without actually sitting there seeing your code, and knowing exactly what you're trying to do, and the way you think, it's hard to help. Boards also have the advantage of multiple minds. No-one knows all the answers, but people who might can join in and add to the threads. The down side to that is not everyone does things the same way. You ask about scrolling tile-based engines, you'll get a dozen different methods.

Anyway, enough of this rant. Sorry if it seems a bit patronising in places, not meant. Kudos to anyone with the strength to finish one of my ramblings [EDIT: hmm, felt longer typing it /]

Good luck in whatever you do. But if you don't get a satisfactory answer, ask again. Or try to ask it in a different way. But I do think it's better to learn together, and share knowledge, than to have private mentors. But each to his own...

[kendude]

It is best to keep the learning process a public event so that everyone benefits, especially when folks search for that same subject matter. For a while I kept pestering Squize about this and that, and then I realized: A. He's a busy guy, B. Other people may have the same questions, so I eased off his inbox.

In regards to CoolGuy, he seems to always live up to his name (from the posts I've seen).

Be patient with learning all this stuff, its worth the wait at times. Good luck.

JonMack, well stated.

[japangreg]

CoolGuy225, check you PM.

RaidenMagmus, jonmack and Kendude have really said it all; one of the best features of the FK boards is that they are open to the public, a vast library of problems and solutions that anyone can search and learn from. By taking all of our questions (even the most basic) off of the board to private exchanges we lose this benefit. I hope you'll keep the questions coming, even if you don't feel that you are getting the best responses.

Do not give up on learning Flash; I know there are frustrating moments when you want to, but please do not do so. I promise you it will come in time, and practice. Remember to take it one step at a time, resist the temptation to complicate things too quickly.

[Coolguy225]

Ok let me ******** what I ment because obviously you saw me getting angry at what he said but you never got the point. You can't come in here complaining about how wyou don't get the help you expect. You do not pay anyone here to help you, so you must take what you are given. If you don't like it you need to either ask for something more indepth or ******** what you ment. Everyone (encluding me contrary to popular belief) is here to help. The reason I got angry is because you are whining (and yes I do see your post as whining) about people trying to help you.

"FK is probably the worst way of solving problems for me, because I'll ask something that sounds sorta complicated, the 3 times I've asked I've gotten mixed replies that did not fit the solution I wanted. Maybe I'm picky, or maybe I'm just powerless now.. because of not being knowledgable about all the code in flash."

By the way, that is the paragraph that pretty much set off my whole post. If you don't get the reply you want, you need to find a way to rephrase what you are saying.

PS. JAPANGREG check your PM.

[RaidenMagmus]

*sighs*

The problem is, and always will be the way I code, I can sit down, and write hundreads of lines of code. I am very meticulous about how I write my code. And I see that emphasise on code is not particularly reinforced either by macromedia (I can write a loop with hundreads of results in php, and still get it to parse in milliseconds.) and also by individuals that use it personally. I get confused easily because this is not my own background. I am not particularly a whiner, I was just fustrated, not because it wasn't the answer I wanted, but because normally it wasn't a answer, just a view on what I wrote.

It really confused me, I put alot of effort into my code, trying to make it as easy as possible to read. And yet people don't understand what my code does? I write a comment on practically every time, indent my code, write design notes on the lines that I write in. I even go so far as debugging before I ask questions, because I feel I can solve that myself. The first question I was was on Flash XML Sockets, I wanted to know more about them because I was hasy on how to use them. I've used sockets before in flash to create intelligent detection systems for cross-site product information. I also at one time wrote a website indexer, before quiting on that because I found the socket approach to be "slow". (20 or so hits on one site would take 2-3 seconds - to me that is unacceptable.)

After asking that I asked more intensive questions because that is my style, I never just end when something works, I am afraid, afraid for other users, afraid of my own coding limitations that I have in a flash program I've now spent about a month learning in. I acknowledge that I do not have alot of wisdom in flash design, so I tried working with 3 flash programmers directly. The first one was intimidated, or angry with me and blocked me on aim. The second one replied to my pm, then never responded after my question on optimizations. The third one said that my code was somehow wrong because it was not like tutorials.

I have spent alot of time researching both tonypa's tutorials, and moxiecode. Moxiecode used functions, and tonypa used objects. Not being completely certain objects are a good idea in flash, I used moxiecode's first tutorial. From there I wrote my own tile scroller not much different than his own. Then from that point I wrote a more advanced "smooth" scrolling one. Again.. without looking at his interpretation of it. Now I have even more issues, and I don't know. I go so far as sharing the code I write, and explaining the ideas that I usually hide, and I still don't get any sort of spark telling me what I should be doing.

Now I have new issues, and I don't want to ask because I know that they won't be answered because they are not simple questions, they are always hard ones that I ask.. And that is why I want a mentor. I am a mentor myself in some fashion to others learning php. I agree, there is a line between people that want to treat you like a dictionary, and others that want to make creative solutions. I don't think any of my questions are stupid. Is it wrong to want to know how your code may be slower than it has to be? Is it wrong to ask the methods for a scrollbar when macromedia itself touts that this knowledge is "complicated".

I ask these questions because I want to assuimulate as much as possible, yet it leads me to a dead end when nobody can understand it. And that is why I prefer using instant messages, I don't have to write several times over to make a algorithm believable. At the same time I haven't just whined for help either I've helped others as well. I don't see myself as a whiner, just a little fustrated with how to get flash to work steamlined. I'm don't have issues with using fk, if people would ask, or at least respond with some of the things I talk about, but as I get better at using actionscript, the questions are going to get more and more complicated, and thus.. more likely to be either ignored, or misinterpreted.

[Frag]

I'm being honest-to-God here, I only read the short posts. Or if they are long, only click on the link

I've found it easiest to get answers when you keep it short, simple, and specific.

[Squize]

Firstly, "cool"guy. Calm it down. It's getting a bit much your constant put downs of peoples posts.
You haven't really given a lot ( If anything ) to the community yourself. Perhaps if you did you'd be in more of a position to be critical.

RaidenMagmus, your first / second posts weren't whiney, but your third one is getting there.
I know it's frustrating being a coder and then coming to actionscript and _nothing_ works like you'd expect it too. I've been there as well.
But keep in mind, you're attempting pretty complex things ( I did the same, it was a case of "I've written a scroller in 68020, in actionscript it must be laughably simple". How wrong I was ).
There aren't a great deal of people who are even capable of writing a tile based scroller here. Even fewer who have experience of xml socket servers.

Out of those people, not all of them have the time to debug a fairly complex fla. I can honestly tell you now I never, ever d/load a fla.

You're just hitting the new language wall. Most people do it. I admire you for sticking with it, the majority of people don't.
I don't admire you bitc'hing about Random in a public thread, or complaining in general about the lack of quality answers here, or that people aren't willing to help you one on one ( although in some of those examples it does sound like you've been treated a bit shabbily, but in saying that you should see some of the pm's I get asking for help )
Stick with it, it gets easier.

Squize.

[Ed Mack]

CoolGuy, please check your pm box. You don't need to be hostile.

To the reportees, I got your mails but my SMTP server is currently playing games with me

[Phlook]

I'm being honest-to-God here, I only read the short posts. Or if they are long, only click on the link

Same here

Raiden, if you use MSN, you could add me, i'd be happy to dispense my knowledge

My email address can be found on my site under contact (i'm not putting it up because i'm starting to get spam again ugh

[random10122]

Hey Raiden,

Just checked in on this thread to find im being talked about - full name and all!

Im going to have to correct you on a few points though as i do feel that you have cast me in a bad light when i went to the effort of writing big chunks of of pseudo-code and tips for you via email...

I never said that the way you are doing things was

wrong because it was not like tutorials.

and i never

[claimed] that my code was bad for some reason

I really think that you should be more carefull about how you word your posts, especially when talking about other people.

You contacted me about optimizing your tile engine, fair enough i do have a popular page on flash optimizations.
My first reply explained to you the most likely reason it was running slow (redrawing of the entire map everytime a tiles width or height was moved) and pointed you in the direction of Jail*****'s tutorials.

My second email began like this:

Ok, unfortunatly i have only ever worked with one 'style' of tile engine... i have used this format in all my games successfully, as such i think the best way to increase your speed would be too completly rethink the way you have gone about the problem. This is how i suggest you go about the problem...

The email then goes on to explain in some detail the functions that are required to produce a speedy tile engine...


Sorry for the long post, once you pop you just can't stop.

[DELETED_jtnw]

Raiden, if you need to, feel free to contact me via aim (handle is in profile), but recently I've been kinda busy writing offline flash programs. I've been trying to get myself to learn php recently, so if I have any questions, I'll keep you in mind.

jtnw

[lesli_felix]

Originally posted by RaidenMagmus
I am very meticulous about my code, and I write very clear comments in it. But for some reason I get ignored for that.. am I bad coder?

I've found that sometimes the most efficient code in flash doesn't always mix well with good programming habits.

Flash is slow, and sometimes you have to throw structure, method and OOP out of the window just to get something working quickly enough.

Your coding is probably too meticulous. If you come from a C++ background, then you're used to programming a very fast language with very strict structuring rules. Actionscript, whilst it's improving, is still very much the other way around.

This could explain why you might have taken the wrong approach in implementing a tile engine.