--------- John Klima: p2p.edu ---------

-What kind of media do you use for your work?   >  
Anything that gets the job done; computers, model trains, electronic circuits, weather balloons, paint, plaster and clay. The medium is determined by the piece, rather than the piece by the medium.

-Could you please write the tech specs of each technology? (java, >   c...)   >  
"Jack and Jill" is written in BASIC. I've been programming in BASIC   since I was 12, it is my native language, and there is nothing I can't do   with it. "jack and jill" is interesting technically because rather than   using contemporary methods to draw an image to the screen, I decided to   write my own simple renderer, and handle drawing very much the way it was   done 20 years ago - there are no .jpgs or image files in "jack and jill"   each pixel is individually set programmatically from alpha-numeric patterns   I cook into the source code. In a sense, I describe the picture and the   computer draws it, rather than simply giving it a picture to draw.   "The Great Game" is written in Java, which is a good language in many   ways, but a really bad one in others. Java claims to be cross-platform,   meaning it can run on a mac, a windows PC, or a linux box, which is true to   the point that it runs equally poorly on all these machines. Java has   problems with this browser, that pluggin, this version of an operating   system, and on and on, so that the advantages of being cross-platform are   hardly worth the trouble. The nice thing about "Jack and Jill" is that I   know that it will run great on 100% of the windows machines in the world, I   never know what is going to happen with great game on any given computer.

- Could you please tell us why you chose to use that particular >   language or software for that particular work?   >  
BASIC reads the most like English, and for "Jack and Jill" I wanted   to create something that the lay-person could actually read and understand   without any knowledge of programming, also if I am allowed the choice, I   always program in BASIC. "The Great Game" being a political piece,   required the political stance offered by cross-platform access, and "in the   browser" security. You have to download and install "Jack and Jill," its   only 26K, but installing .exes makes people nervous, and browsers pop up all   kinds of heinous warnings about viruses and security, so it seemed that   great game had to be in java.

-Are some languages better than others for specific works? (I mean: >   java is better for ....... while C is better for ..... and html for....)   > Java makes networking and web tasks very easy. It takes a few hours to   build a multi-user environment in java. It handles image and content   transfer better than any language. However, it has horrible troubles with   memory and system resource management, and its performance can be glacial.   it turns every computer, regardless of the processor, into an old 386.

BASIC to me is the all-around best language. It is quick to work in,   runs fast, and has complete access to the hardware. C is also great,   probably the best language to work in provided you have plenty of time to   get the job done. C/C++ development cycles are long, code tends to be buggy,   but once properly tested, C/C++ can do things no other language can. I use   it when for one reason or another; I can't do it in BASIC.

-Do you think it is possible to understand your work without any kind   of computer schooling?   >  
Absolutely. Of course a little knowledge of the computer, its history   and mythology, is helpful. But "the Great Game" is not about computers, it   is about our society, and the effect technology is having. "Jack and Jill"   is simply about language and behavior, anyone interested in these topics   will find "Jack and Jill" interesting. But I do like to draw upon the   mythology of computing - "Jack and Jill" appropriates the characters   from Donkey Kong, which are by now true cultural icons, and "The Great Game"   among other things, questions notions of truth and accuracy in computer data   and visualization.