LS Implementation Deluxe

On Saturday night I went down to the Jack Cole Building, which unusually still had a working door at the weekend. I stayed there from about eight until midnight writing pieces of the ls program and being distracted by my laptop and the Internet. Despite those, though, I managed to competently all but finish the entire program off, which certainly restored the confidence in my ability I had been lacking ever since I realised I'd completely forgotten how to program (which happens at the start of every semester).

In fact, things went so well that I went back there on Sunday afternoon and wrote a MIDI player/beat counter for the project. I had been panicked in to doing this by an email from Kirby which said that we needed to start handing in CVS versions of our code, which necessitated me not only learning CVS but also actually writing some code. While I was there Ishbel came round leading a tour of the labs, so I felt I looked quite impressive swivelling between the reams of computer-speak on my laptop and desktop screens. I was actually trying to write a better installer for Micro Machines 2 at the time, but that's not the point.

During that weekend I also rediscovered the greatness of Transport Tycoon Deluxe. It's quite ideal to have on next to you while you code, as it provides a bit of a distraction from the dullness. Not only is the music fantastic, but it basically runs itself and only needs attention occasionally, like when a UFO lands next to your railway and explodes. Microprose were a bit funny like that.