Welcome to my website, stranger! I am Keheck, aspiring computer engineer and part of the infamous furry community. I was born in early 2004 and live in Germany. On this site, I write about my endeavors into all kinds of coding projects, be it silly things, experiments or actually useful code.
Anyone has a story of how they found their passion for whatever profession they are pursuing or practicing. Sadly, my memory is very shoddy, and it's hard to construct a clear timeline from what I do remember. A lot of projects, especially the early ones, haven't survived either. I also tend to ramble on instead of putting everything into a coherent story, so brace yourself.
As all great stories, mine began with Minecraft. My first arguable beginnings in software development were the command blocks in Minecraft. For the uninitiated, Minecraft is a block-based sandbox survival game, and command blocks are special blocks available only in Creative Mode. They are often used in Adventure Maps, which are user created worlds that guide the player along a predetermined path. Command blocks are very ubiqutous in these maps, adding functionality to the game and ensuring the player stays on the path.
The one map that really unlocked my passion for programming was undeniably the The Code series of adventure maps. I highly advise any Minecraft player who likes adventures and puzzles to play The Code. It's a 3 part series without a real story, but they are fun and use command blocks like nothing else that I've seen.
Long story short, these maps wanted me to dabble with command blocks as well, as I used them for inspiration and just to figure out how command blocks worked in detail. They eventually led me to find SethBling, who sparked the interest in hardware programming in me by hacking Super Mario World to upload and execute arbitrary code to play snake or pong.
The initial fix of command blocks wasn't enough eventually and I needed harder stuff. Naturally, modding the game itself was the next step. Modding Minecraft taught me a few things about how computers worked in general. Modding was the real gateway into programming, initially in Java, later adding C# and then Python to the list of languages I was working with. While I rarely ever really finished a project, the most important thing was that I learned something, and that I did in spades.
Eventually I got a starter kit for programming with an Arduino, a small microcontroller, and a few components like LEDs, a buzzer, LCD display and other bibs and bobs. The kit came with a manual containing 10 projects, explaining each component and showing what you can do with them, starting with an LED that blinks, to making a traffic light and eventually programming an LCD together with a buzzer and array of buttons to create a keyboard which can play music. Sadly, the company seems to have shut down silently, as the website is longer available.
I also found my way to the Unity Game Engine, where I got to experiment with shaders. As per usual, I haven't many finished projects with it, but I have taken part in two GameJams, and anything I've done with Unity has taught me little things about game creation.
As of writing this, I am 20 years old now. I'm going to college to study computer engineering, which combines the two practices of hardware creation and software development. A computer engineer would for example design the circuit boards for a new GPU and develop the driver so your operating system can talk to it.
I am skilled in most languages, including Java, C#, C and Python. I know about a lot of software development concepts like APIs, libraries, compilers, OOP and all that jazz. The learning process is far from over though! Software development is a vast field. I wonder where my next project will lead me...