lacar1601
Well-Known Member
Bonjour T9k,
Today, I entertained myself by reading comedic flowcharts on teh interwebz. As an engineer in training, I take great pleasure in viewing visual representations of numbers and ideas (also known as graphs). One of my favorites is a flowchart because it can outline a process, such as the melding of materials on an assembly line towards a final product, or an organizational structure, like the chain of command of a corporation.
As gamers, we are probably more familiar with flowcharts in their use in programming. At least from my perspective, having a visual outline of my code helps immensely when organizing my variously nested conditional statements. At its simplest, coding a yes or no question (a boolean for you programmers) leads to different response (return value) depending on which answer you choose. For more complexity, we add layers of choice; making one choice would lead to a new set of choices, and had we answered the first choice differently, there would be a different set of choices to make. Boolean-ception (or even swith-case-ception for you C++ programmers)! As it probably happened to you in the movie, keeping track of all those layers of code can get really confusing, which is why we have flowcharts. They are essentially a map of where you are going with your code.
Anyway, that's my two-cents on my enthusiasm for flowcharts. I'm sure some of you waiting for me to get to the point. "Yeah ok, lacar, so funny little graphs with boxes and arrows are important. Where are you going with this?"
Getting back to my first sentence. I was looking at some rather creative flowcharts where people applied them outside of their usual place in business and into the everyday. My favorites are usually the ones which outline a decision process, such as what to do when you acquire a fresh copy of Battlefield 3. Creativity goes with complexity; the more situations that one can think of doing when playing BF3, the more fun it is to follow through their flowchart. The enjoyment is multiplied if the decision process is something we can relate to, or if some decisions outcomes are outrageously exaggerated.
Drawing inspiration from this, I decided to draw a Minecraft scenario flowchart. Compared to the potentially limitless decision path that a Minecrafter can follow, my chart is a far-cry from any individual experience. Still, my hope is that the chart is generalized enough for most of us to relate to, while also being detailed enough that it would remind you of an embarrassing experience.
I adopted a chronological organizational structure for my chart, wherein I take you through the moment you probably first heard about Minecraft, through your first generated world (classic or survival), and ending up at a multiplayer server. I particularly hope that you would catch the point where an inexperienced player would right away join a multiplayer server (I found it amusing myself).
Anyways, I attached my flowchart below. Some of you geezers may need to break out the reading glasses; the font is size 8.
Enjoy
Oh, and first blog ftw
Today, I entertained myself by reading comedic flowcharts on teh interwebz. As an engineer in training, I take great pleasure in viewing visual representations of numbers and ideas (also known as graphs). One of my favorites is a flowchart because it can outline a process, such as the melding of materials on an assembly line towards a final product, or an organizational structure, like the chain of command of a corporation.
As gamers, we are probably more familiar with flowcharts in their use in programming. At least from my perspective, having a visual outline of my code helps immensely when organizing my variously nested conditional statements. At its simplest, coding a yes or no question (a boolean for you programmers) leads to different response (return value) depending on which answer you choose. For more complexity, we add layers of choice; making one choice would lead to a new set of choices, and had we answered the first choice differently, there would be a different set of choices to make. Boolean-ception (or even swith-case-ception for you C++ programmers)! As it probably happened to you in the movie, keeping track of all those layers of code can get really confusing, which is why we have flowcharts. They are essentially a map of where you are going with your code.
Anyway, that's my two-cents on my enthusiasm for flowcharts. I'm sure some of you waiting for me to get to the point. "Yeah ok, lacar, so funny little graphs with boxes and arrows are important. Where are you going with this?"
Getting back to my first sentence. I was looking at some rather creative flowcharts where people applied them outside of their usual place in business and into the everyday. My favorites are usually the ones which outline a decision process, such as what to do when you acquire a fresh copy of Battlefield 3. Creativity goes with complexity; the more situations that one can think of doing when playing BF3, the more fun it is to follow through their flowchart. The enjoyment is multiplied if the decision process is something we can relate to, or if some decisions outcomes are outrageously exaggerated.
Drawing inspiration from this, I decided to draw a Minecraft scenario flowchart. Compared to the potentially limitless decision path that a Minecrafter can follow, my chart is a far-cry from any individual experience. Still, my hope is that the chart is generalized enough for most of us to relate to, while also being detailed enough that it would remind you of an embarrassing experience.
I adopted a chronological organizational structure for my chart, wherein I take you through the moment you probably first heard about Minecraft, through your first generated world (classic or survival), and ending up at a multiplayer server. I particularly hope that you would catch the point where an inexperienced player would right away join a multiplayer server (I found it amusing myself).
Anyways, I attached my flowchart below. Some of you geezers may need to break out the reading glasses; the font is size 8.
Enjoy
Oh, and first blog ftw
