Interview with DVB
Can you introduce yourself?
I'm Esa Holopainen, a 17-year-old coder from Finland. I live in a city called Paimio, which is located near Turku in Southern Finland. No biiig mountains etc. Flat, flat, flat.
Do you live far away from school? Do you go to school by ski? Excuse me for my silly questions, but when I hear Finland I only see snow, snow, and snow! :)
No problem. :) I live about 30km from school, so instead of skiing I use bus until I'll get my driver's license and a car. :)
Wow... 30km, that's pretty much! I just have to go 10km to school, but that is in a big city and lasts quite some time, too. :) Are there also elks and such animals?
Elks... Yes, but you don't usually see those around here and when you do it's usually before a car accident. :I
What are you doing in your leisure time, actually?
Coding, coding, coding, boozing, coding, coding, boozing... Did I miss something?-) Oh... going to a gym also. :)
That reminds me of a discussion in a newsgroup (csipd) where the Finns argued whether vodka is Finnish or Polish. :)
Oh. :) Well... I don't care whether it's Finnish or Polish... I just drink it. :D
How long do you have to stay at school every day?
Normal day is 6 to 8 hours... and days usually start at 8. X( I have to leave at 7:00am and get home at 5:00pm.
Is your school well equipped with computers, or do you code at home?
I spend 80% of my coding time at home... for 20%, I code at work, and I don't code at school... except that stupid Visual Basic course I had a couple of weeks ago. :)
Well, now we've got to coding. When did you get into contact with computers the first time?
Um... I think I was like 4 when my father taught me how to load and play games with c64... rocks. Well, if you can call that playing when you're 4. ;)
I still have my two c64s... I loved playing Cock-in and Giana Sisters. Do you know these games?
I had Giana Sisters, totally awesome. :) All those hours with my friends competing who is the best at Giana...
What finally made you really deal with the computer, i.e. do more than just playing?
At some age I found a book about Basic on c64. Then after we got our 386 I bought a DOS-book from which I learned all kind of things about DOS. I think I was around 10 when we bought that 386. After that came Turbo C 1.0 and an old C-programming book. Rest is history. ;)
Here it was common that the parents distracted their kids from computers so that they get out and breathe some fresh air. Why did your parents tolerate your hobby?
Erm... They didn't. :)
No? Tell us!
After I had used the computer 16h/day for a couple of months they set up time limits... like 30min/day... horrible. :I But as both of them were at work most of the day it wasn't hard to use more than 30min/day. :) So at the beginning I used about 3h/day, and day after day that time just grew, until it was near 16h again. Then I got that time limit again... but again, day after day it grew back to that 16h. :)
And what were the things you did with the computer?
Mostly gaming at the beginning and learning to program from C- and Pascal-books... I had this Turbo Pascal 2.0 or something like that, too. At the beginning it wasn't related to graphics, except filling the screen with my name. :) The programs counted numbers, etc. Later on I got a newer version of Turbo Pascal and BGI-stuff. I think I made my first "demo" back then: Circles connected with lines and text bouncing around the screen. :) Sloooooooowly... Yuck... Fortunately we got a modem quite soon, which threw me to the world of BBS'. I downloaded graphics-docs to learn about mode 13h and related stuff.
Well... The old Turbo Pascal didn't have Inline-ASM and I was wondering why those example starfield proggies didn't work. I asked about that at one BBS. One person told me why and gave me Turbo Pascal 7.0 + TASM 4.0. Then I downloaded docs about Assembler programming. Well... that's about it actually.
What have you coded so far?
Lame Basic programs on c64, lame Pascal and C Programs on PC :), couple of BBS addys, couple of unfinished demos/intros and many effects at an experimental stage... Oh, I've also attended Hugi Size-Coding Compo :) though that wasn't a success for me. :I
That you attended it, is already a success. :)
Well. :)
What are your future plans?
Mainly to get to a university at Helsinki...
And when will you be ready to study?
In 2-4 years, depending on military service and a couple of other tiny things... including laziness. :)
I think you will be successful at studying.
Hopefully... Laziness is actually the only thing that could prevent me from studying. But that isn't a big problem.
You have to study pursuing a consistent strategy. Just focus on studying, do nothing else.
Yeah.
Then you have more time to write for Hugi during your studies. :)
:)
What do you think one should do for all the people who are interested in computers? What could Hugi do? (Start tutorials etc.)
Well, the first thing to do is to start "training" young people... all those gamers to fun-loving sceners. :) And to get links to Hugi at all major ISPs... That would be a good start. :) A newbie guide to graphics programming would be a good thing too, not like Denthor's or Vulture's tutorials... more like 3dica.
How should one train the young people? What do you think should this training look like? Hugi is openminded towards these ideas.
Well, we should get young people to really love coding, composing, pixeling... Teach them the right way... Not to rip, but to learn themselves how to do something... IRC-sessions, where 1-4 persons would teach others... I think that would lead to a better quality of productions.
It would also be good to publish a demo with extensively commented sources in Hugi. If you want you can even do that. :)
:D Hmm... a demo which is explained by the coder(s)... not just normal comments... That would be good imho. Also discussions about algorithms in a diskmag would be a good thing imho, and I don't mean that newsgroup stuff...
Yes, that have to be articles for Hugi. Well commented, so that even beginners gradually learn it.
Yes... Hmm... I might do that one day. :)
That would be a cool thing for you :) and make you famous at once! You have as much space in Hugi for this as possible!
:)
Do you have any advice for the readers or want to greet anybody?
Let's teach and help others. Greets to you :), delffu, sind and everyone at #coders.
- adok^hugi