Pixels and Floats

Hello interwebs!  I'm Anthony, a Computer Science major who has semi-recently had an interest in graphic design and developing more graphically motivated programs.  I have started many blogs in the past - I have left all of them to their own devices to decay in that grand mass that is the internet.  My goal is to not let another piece of cyber-literature go by the wayside unattended and all alone.

My real goals of this blog are to remain accountable of my time and efforts and to show my progress in trying to develop my computer graphical skills as well as trying to develop programs that are concerned with the visual realm.  Right now, my current project is basically reading through a resource on developing games for the Android OS (operating system).

You probably already know what pixels are, but just in case, they are usually denoted by x- and y-coordinates (although you can have 3-dimensional coordinates as well - not to mention 4-dimensional, 5, etc. in mathematics, but we will mostly deal with 2-dimensional representations of 2D and 3D coordinates on computer screens) and denote a coordinate on a computer screen where something visual could potentially be happening.  A float, with how I will be dealing with them, is just a name for a primitive type (primitive type  meaning a simple way for a computer to store information be it for numbers, strings of characters, characters, true/false variables, etc.) which is used to store numbers that can have fractional values, like 2.5, 3.1, or 5.0. Basically, I wanted this blog to be named Pixels and Floats because I will be using floats (and ints and other representations of numbers) to interact with pixels.

I do not, by any means, claim to be an expert on any topic.  I am a jack of all trades, and a master of none.  As such, I will treat this blog as a beginner's guide, as I find myself as much a beginner as anyone else.  I will try to define terms as they arise, like OS for operating system as I mentioned above.  In the world of computer science knowledge, as in any other technical or non-technical field I'm sure, there's a slew of acronyms and jargon and I will try to explain any that arise as it is applicable.

**NOTE**
Once more, I want to highlight that I am by no means an expert on any topic in computer science.  I am technically a sophomore in my program and had no prior exposure to computer programming before college.  That noted, I also want to mention that this is actually my second undergraduate major.  I graduated in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in Music Education, and now am pursuing something totally different because I realized very early that teaching was not for me - that said, I would not be opposed to writing a music education application for mobile devices.  Eventually, I would definitely like to combine my passion for music and my new-found passion for computer programming, but for now I am still "learning-the-ropes", so to speak, of more advanced computer programming.

I will conclude this first not-so-informative post with a link to a resource that has been helping me greatly as far as understanding game development for mobile devices, and that's Mario Zechner's Beginning Android Games published by Apress.  It has helped me immensely, and I will be referring to it and small snippets within it occasionally (without violating copyright!).

http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Android-Games-Mario-Zechner/dp/1430230428

Well, thanks for reading, assuming you are.  Which, if you are, then you just read that.
I hope you learn as much as I hope to learn; see you soon!