The beauty of coding and the open source community.

I find myself looking at my code. It is not perfect, it is not as advanced compared to other projects build with the similar technology.

But I built it, and it works. I find it to be beautiful.

Code editor software and their syntax highlighting probably play a role in it.

I hope other developers share the same feeling about their own creations. The passion you put into your code to successfully create whatever you wish for.
It is not only what developers should thrive for, but love.

Znote AAC is quite special to me, it is my migration from game development to web development. (While still making it relevant to the gaming community). The intention of Znote AAC was to learn how to code PHP, a backend programming language to create web pages. This was to prep me for 2nd year of my Bachelor's degree in IT which contains class as web development subject. I intentionally avoided any frameworks within PHP so I could learn the real language better. Thus Znote AAC is coded procedurally using only raw PHP. No proper controllers, very few classes, no templating engine beside standard break out to HTML - break in to PHP. It is coded a bit similar to how I would code LUA back in the days.

Today I work as a professional web developer in a financially stable company. I have a salary well above the average, and still a massive potential for further growth.

And it is all thanks to the OT community. 11-12 years ago I began playing with my first OT server. Without any experience at anything, I began tweaking lua and xml files, taugh myself basics of hosting and managing a server. Meeting new friends who share the same interest. Learning together with and from the community.

It all started with a buggy crappy "download and run" server, with no prior knowledge beside how to use otservlist, find a server and connect to it with an IP changer. Much spoonfeeding, poor English. I was the perfect representation of a wannabe developer kid. "I want to make my own OT server!".

But I found people who were willing to help. People who shared their code, who contributed to the community without asking for a reward. People who spent much time and effort teaching me how this all works.

This community enabled me to learn lots of things, and to shape my future plans. When I went to Junior high(When I started playing around with OT), I realized that I wanted to become a professional developer when I grow old. (a game developer). Although the genre was a bit wrong, it didnt matter. The technology you learn to become a game developer can be adapted to almost anything. It is a beautiful symphony of technologies and languages working together. And the most important thing you learn is not the language, but the mindset of a developer.

Please be kind and contribute to the community if you can. Don't get too angry at the noobs who just started. Things isn't quite the same today as it was years ago (which is not neccesarily a bad thing), the players expectations is greater and harder to satisfy. But then again the resources available is better than ever before. Lead newcomers in the right direction and forgive their mistakes.

Thanks for reading.

I'm glad for you mate! I'm glad you evolved that much!
And I hope you will continue to evolve for an infinitive amount of time! Great work pal!

About OT community, it used to be better, hopefully it turns around when people stop seeing each other as threads instead of trying to be friends.

But this code is ugly as hell.

I bet my color scheme is more beautifull

Cool that you shared your story.

EvulMastah said:

But this code is ugly as hell.

Click to expand...

matter of opinion
He enjoy the dark theme, I enjoy the Notepad++ white theme

Loved reading this, and that feeling you talk about is something I hope we all share. I think that's why we are all here. Congratz at fulfilling your dreams Znote!

@Znote You taught me more about OT's than anyone has, it was thanks to you I got my first opportunity to host a small project back in 2011. You gave me the first chance and explained to me far more than I deserved, you had so much patience throughout that process it didn't do it for a penny. I appreciate everything you have done for this community and myself

That was beautiful @Znote

Well done @Znote Happy you feel that way!

dude, same (except the web development and getting a job part)
glad to see you there

I've always felt the same! Thank you for sharing this.

Very good job done!

Znote said:

But I built it, and it works. I find it to be beautiful.

Click to expand...

A-Fucking-men!

[WARNING! A "tl:dr" comment!]
Unbelievable and amazing story! You just taught me something new about this whole community which I have never really taken in consideration, yet, I've been a memeber here for quiet a while now. What's more is that it's really sad I haven't contributed anything properly aside from just a big maybe, helped 1 or 2 over PM.
There was a time though when I was very interested in learning how to map and also script/code some, but sadly had no real patience for it. I uploaded a screenshot of something I had done so fast in map editor, and it was a complete failure, because I hadn't really given it much thought and nor did I understand the concept of mapping. But nowadays I have pretty much all the "tools" (like patience) for such things, sadly not as much interested for mapping, though...For a while ago, I started learning Python 3 for the sake of learning how to do my own bots for games and chatting programs, but instead some personal problems have crossed my path and made it quiet pointless for now to continue on learning. But as soon as my personal problems are resolved, I'll get right back into it AND I will make sure that one day, I can contribute properly in one way or another to this community!

I've been something of a leecher for all these years, though, it's been only for local play, never had my own OT up and running online (except once over Hamachi for a few minutes together with 2 friends, haha! So therefore I never have seen myself as a real leecher considering I couldn't use the files I found or got from people for putting an OTS online, which I most likely had done if I could at the time.

But as I said, I will make sure I'll contribute to this community in one way or another, and at least once! Cause I've learned a lot about OT, lua and other things all mostly thanks to this website, THANK YOU otland community for your hospitality in so many ways!

Sorry for making a mess out of this, but I would also like to explain my love for bots! Most people think "oooh omg fkng cheater bla bla" when you say that you love bots or that you want or are going to create one, and in some way I absolutely do understand that. But haters also got to understand why some of us have such a love for bots.
And for me, it's all about its functionality, what it can do, how it does it and all. See, I actually find it fun and fascinating just sitting and watching how a program (which you've configured after your liking) controls a character in a game for like hunting, buying/selling supplies, crushing objects in its path or even can x-close the game client because one specific creature shows up on your screen. Or how about shutting your computer off after reaching a specific amount of item or shutting off the pc because there are insufficient amount of an item? Just something like that is amazing!
And as if that's not enough, there are so many programs you can create or even find which are completely different but automated too all aside from bots for games.

Cheaters/botters aren't all these "lazy" people or even the kind that simply just wants to destroy the fun for others, but there are people like me, who loves the creation for what it actually is!
I saw a brilliant quote on this just recently somewhere, it was something like "bots aren't there to make the life hard for others, but they exist to make the life easy for you."

Alright, time to end this, I just actually wanted to share my not-too-long-ago found passion for programming and thanks to the inspiration I got from Znote's amazing story, I couldn't keep myself away from posting one myself!

Peace and love all!