Hi, I'm from Hungary. I do programming for a living but in a completely different area (financial software). I've only seen Robocode a few weeks ago, so far it's great: still computers but not the boring job I do everyday :-)
Since Java is also unknown to me, I have a lot to discover.
Some advice
- Resist the temptation and don't do this at work. You can easily get fired and this is a game after all.
- After fooling around with your first few robots, consider using some form of version control. Sooner or later you will make an "improvement" which will have to be undone somehow; without version control software this can be difficult. I suggest using Subversion.
- Java is deep, but you will only need a small subset of it. So don't start with spending too much time with the Java API.
- Prepare your mind for some math. Nothing really frightening but don't expect to create a decent robot without any math knowledge.
- Decide how you will measure if your robot has improved or not. Putting it into the RoboRumble is a great way to determine progress and in the end it will all come to "and how do you perform in the Rumble?".
- Although this goes directly against WhyCommentsAreBad, I think you need to put comments into your code. It is easier (first) than maintaining a separate documentation.
- Release your bot with the source code. Most probably you will learn a lot from this wiki and from others' bots, so consider giving back something to the community.
Hey, welcome to the wiki! Please tell us a little bit about yourself and feel free to ask questions. =) Cheers, --
Voidious
Thanks Voidious for the warm welcome. So far most of my questions were answered by this wiki or source code - especially yours and those of PEZ !
Releasing your bots with the source code, is a type of version control here. :) --Chase-san
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