Welcome to “Tech Talk Thursday” (Woo!).

I’ve been using the free Grasshopper App to learn Java, I’m not a computer major, not a “computer person” but it’s very accessible.

I find myself relying on a lot of math knowledge and some extremely amateur Rimworld coding experience, I wonder if I can make it even easier for anyone else interested in trying?

So far I’ve covered the first three sections:

1. Drawing Shapes

2. Variables

3. Arrays

Part 1: Drawing shapes, the point was drawBox(blue); makes a blue square. The squares move in order from left to right across a line until newLine(); is typed. Command 1 = drawBox(color);, Command 2 = newLine(); In the fictional world of Flat Land you could make an army of workers.

If the stripe is the same on top the code is different because it doesn’t need to change lines after each square. It’s still the box code drawBox(color) but it can be drawBox(‘ggg yyy bbb’); the ” matter, the spaces matter, the () matter, they are important to the computer, the spaces indicate new lines (like hitting enter on a keyboard), the ” are saying the inside is the inside, like a cell membrane separates the blood from the cell contents, the ; is closing that command, giving closure to what the command started.

Command 3 = drawBox(pickRandom(color)); this is a little fun, the computer will pick a color for you…

Part 2: Instead of painting the color directly another way is to set a variable as a color and then use it. Like var LivesThatMatter = Black, would attach that color when you type “Lives that Matter” so drawbox(LivesThatMatter) would give you a black box.

Command 4 = print. It displays text that is defined with your variable.

Without typing print, the information stored is there, but won’t show. The title of the variables can not have spaces so capitals are used to make reading easier, ItHelpsSeperateTheWordsVisually.

3. Arrays, the new term “array” means choices that will show up for a random choice.

Ex: var answer = pickRandom([  ‘choice 1’,  ‘choice 2’,  ‘choice 3’,  ]);

I laughed and laughed at baking a hypothetical cake with a penis… not that I would ever do that. But I did go to my husband’s friend’s birthday party, who had a cake decorated with a penis cake topper, the guys started throwing it around after cutting the cake and then I got hit with it. So… it’s just fond memories perhaps, not necessarily pro-cannibalism or extreme feminism by the way.

Not sure if I’ll cover coding next week vs another app or program, but I really wanted to expose people who hadn’t tried the app to what it would be like. I had no idea before hand how easy it would be to start learning, and I think most likely many people wouldn’t have known either.

So, there’s a fun game, a job skill, or a brain exerciser that you can do for free from home, maybe it’s not your jam, but perhaps now you know you could probably learn to handle that if you cared to learn.

I find it an ironic topic to post about, because I’m a recovering technophobe, I’m the last one in my family to get the newest form of technology and I only reluctantly learn how to use it once I get it… but just like math, society uses technology and if you don’t know about it, it’s just to your own detriment… so slowly getting on board with being more open minded and building skill to improve my blog, or my job skills, or my world with more tech skills.