Introduction to Writing Interactive Fiction

  • When: Wednesday,  January 28, 2009  @ 7:00pm
  • Where: HacDC Space
  • Cost: FREE

HacDC will be hosting an introductory class , January 28, 2009 on writing Interactive Fiction using Inform 7.  The class will show you how to create a simple game world with items, characters, and puzzles. Learn how to write your own interactive fiction without knowing how to program. Create your own game world by writing natural language descriptions without the need to learn complex graphics application programming interfaces (API).

We will be using Inform 7 as the Integrated Development Environment (IDE).  The Inform 7 IDE is an all-in-one editor, compiler, and game interpreter.  Inform 7 runs on OS X, Linux, and Windows.  Download  

To sign up, send an e-mail to: rdegraci _at_ gmail.com with the subject line “Interactive Fiction: Sign me up”. The deadline to sign up is January 21, 2009.

Categories: UncategorizedAuthor RBD

Clojure Study Group Meeting January 3rd at 1pm

ClojureWhen: Saturday, January 3, 2009 @ 1:00 PM
 Where: HacDC (St. Stephen & The Incarnation Church) Auditorium
 Cost: FREE

The recently-organized DC Clojure Study Group will be holding its second meeting at HacDC. With fifteen members attending the last meeting, the group is an energetic community of software developers, math and science professionals, and general programming enthusiasts with varying levels of experience. Everyone is warmly invited to join. Homework and general agenda for the meeting is posted on the group’s wiki.

You are also encouraged to join the group’s mailing list to take part in conversations and follow the group’s blog for news and updates.

Stuart Halloway has described Clojure; this way: “Clojure feels like a general-purpose language beamed back from the near future.” Clojure is a Lisp built on top of the Java Virtual Machine. It is built to support concurrent programming, with a sophisticated transactional model behind agent and reference abstractions. It is a functional language, but it is also designed to make Java interoperation easy. In other words, it’s a best-of-both-worlds tool. With the upcoming publication of Programming Clojure by the Pragmatic Programmers and a lot of industry buzz, Clojure is quickly progressing from an intriguing curiosity to the Next Big Thing.

Categories: UncategorizedAuthor serge

Hacker hangouts- Boston revisited!

The interior of the Enormous Room (CC) davidesign
The interior of the Enormous Room (CC) davidesign

As promised, yet another entry on cool places for hackers to hang out in Cambridge.  This time, the incomparable “Enormous Room” in Central Square, on Massachusetts Avenue about halfway between Harvard and MIT.  Given the location, it is not surprising that a wide range of folks can be found at this cool and friendly place.  You have to be clever to find it- it is on the second floor, and reached through a door marked only by an etched glass elephant.  The low tables, and upholstered, “bleacher-style” seats make it a very comfortable place to chat with your friends, and later on, becomes home to live and DJ music.  Once again, a place where you can overhear anything from MIT Media Lab conversations to discussions about quantitative finance…

Next stop, San Francisco!

Movie Night 12/19: Star Trek New Voyages: World Enough in Time

When: Friday, 19 December 2008 @ 8:30 PM
Where: HacDC (St. Stephen & The Incarnation Church) Sanctuary 
Cost: FREE

If being a hacker is a mixture of engineering and art, James Cawley and the team at New Voyages are an inspiring model of hackerdom. They’ve taken their love of the classic 60s sci-fi television show and turned it into an Internet phenonomenon.

The show has done so well that original cast members such as Walter Koenig (Checkov) and George Takei (Sulu) as well as Majel Barrett (Nurse Chappel) as well as writers from the show and even Larry Niven of Ringworld fame have contributed to the project.

Come see World Enough in Time, staring George Takei playing Sulu once more at HaDC!

Afterwards, if there’s interest, we’ll be showing another episode from the series and we’ll possibly have a phone appearance from a special guest!

Categories: UncategorizedAuthor serge