User:Yaro

Programming is my passion, even more than roleplay. (My other passion.) So when I came onto MUCKs in mid-2006 (By that point I'd been Rping for two years, and programming for nine.) I was in absolute heaven. Especially when I was taught Multi-User Forth. Up to that point I had just been a C/C++/BASIC/Visual Basic programmer. (This was before my Linux days.)

To be able to take programming and combine it with one of the most pure forms of creative storytelling (Telling stories with others and by being your characters.) is one of the greatest things one can do. At least, one who is as enthusiastic about programming as I am.

Since I have learned new things, just because I was active with other RPers or programmers: Like CSS. Pure HTML can be fun, but CSS can make a web page wonderful. Enough about that. Another thing was, by coming to MUCKs, I learned a superior method of RP. I came from a place where all the RP was script-style, non-descriptive, and frankly, my partners were usually childish. (With exceptions.) Then when I came to MUCKs, well...

Anyway, I got my start in Programming in 1997, when my uncle (An English Professor-turned Software Engineer.) gave me a Kaypro 10. I was eleven years old, already adept at computers. (I would even dare suggest I was a power user by the age of eight or nine. But of Windows and DOS. The Kaypro was older than both, if memory serves.) With the Kaypro, I had the chance to learn something new. First, of course, was learning an archaic operating system. CP/M 2.2. This was back in the day where ten mebibyte hard disk drives were considered massive. The other thing I learned was my first language: BASIC. (BASIC is a good language all around. It is no coincidence it has survived all the way from 1964. 43 years, ladies and gentlemen, and it is still a great language to start programming on, even with descendants like Visual Basic.) I taught myself from an old *way* out of print book, entitled "The Secret Guide to Computers." This was a guide that even outdated my Kaypro by at least a decade.

In this guide, I learned a lot of the basics of BASIC. By the time I was twelve, I was hungry for more. Things that tSGtC never even covered, like arrays! So, I started taking out books on BASIC. Then I moved on to more advanced languages, like Pascal or Fortran. Both were fun. When I was thirteen, I took on HTML. Personally, I don't care for markup languages. Not as beautiful or versatile as bona fide programming languages.

By the time I was fifteen, I was an adept of BASIC, Pascal, Turbo Pascal, HTML, and Fortran. The problem with these languages is that they were often just interpretors (With a few exceptions.), which meant that sharing my work around was difficult at best, trying to instruct people how to run the software. Hence, during high school, I had an opportunity to learn Visual Basic. This was in 2001 - 2002. Visual Basic was at its best: 6.0. Before .net came around and ruined the language.

Visual Basic allowed me to quickly assemble windows interfaces, program them, and actually compile them into something I could hand to people without having to say things like: "Please be sure to load main.bas in the interpretor, dur-hay!" Instead, I could just hand them a floppy with an installer and an actually binary executable! Now some of you may think I was a dork for being happy about this, but this was before I discovered Linux or even heard of free compilers like GCC.

For a while, I wrote loads of Visual Basic applications, but was disappointed that with Visual Basic, I could only write for Windows. Period. Finally, in 2004, I took computer science in high school, where they taught me exactly one year of C++. (Actually, this was Visual C++, which meant I was still pretty much stuck on Microsoft-controlled platforms.) Unfortunately, this was a limited class of C and C++, where one was only taught the basics of making *console* applications. MS-DOS all the way!

So, by the time I graduated in 2004 with a GED, I knew BASIC, Visual Basic, C, C++, Pascal, Turbo Pascal, Fortran, and HTML, and many variations of most of those languages. I even devised my own language, called LIDEL: LIne DEfinition Language. It operated a lot like LOGO does, a turtle that draws based off of symbolic input. Except in my case it was just that... symbols!

I was in the Army for two years, discharged for my back, and spent more time building up skill in C and C++, they being among the more difficult languages I learned. By this point I had been an RPer of one year. It was soon after getting out of the military that I discovered a few things. First was MUCKs... a rediscovery. I had been on MUDs on and off since I was eleven, not really keeping interest in hack-and-slash style of RP.

Then I discovered that MUCKs had just the flavor of RP I liked and was used to. I got in deep, learned two more languages: MUF and MPI, and just went insane with RP. I still am. It was during this time I discovered myself as a fan of furry. I suddenly became engrossed in projects of my own. The failed 0-Singularity first, and then the yet-to-be opened Whispers of the Galaxy... now.

And I got deeper in the furry fandom, reading what I could, understanding some things, utterly baffled by others.

Tragically, for a long time, my off-MUCK programming had actually stopped! This went on until one day, in October of 2007, I tried Linux again. (I say "again" because I made a few half-hearted attempts to install it before, not really caring if it worked and thus never got it to work.) I burned Linux Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn onto a DVD, installed it after a short trial stint, and loved it, and still love it.

Linux Ubuntu is my primary operating system to this day. And I taught myself the intricacies of Linux, including reteaching myself standard C and C++. The rest is history.

Characters: Past and Present


 * Endless Round (Defunct)
 * Yaro (Meerkat)
 * Tosca (Spotted Hyena)
 * Uzuri (Lioness)
 * Musoke (Lion)
 * Kiros (Meerkat) (Dead)
 * Mavidi (Meerkat)
 * Kalo (Martial Eagle)


 * Kings and Vagabonds (Defunct)
 * Yaro (Builder and @Group Leader - Min'men Meerkat Colony) (Meerkat)
 * Tosca (Spotted Hyena)
 * Uzuri (Lioness)
 * Kiros (Meerkat) (Dead)
 * Seran (Cheetah)
 * Musoke (Lion) (Dead)
 * Mavidi (Meerkat) (Dead)
 * Morowa (Meerkat)
 * Mwovu (Leopard)
 * Abidemi (Lion)


 * Great Circle (Defunct)
 * Morowa (Meerkat)
 * Uzuri (Lioness)


 * Bleaker MUCK(Defunct)
 * James "Hack" Murray (Archwizard - Lead Programmer) (Mutant)
 * Braxton (Red Fox Shifter)


 * 0-Singularity (Defunct)
 * Yaro (Man - Head Wizard) (Suricate/Meerkat)
 * Uzuri (Lioness)
 * Abidemi (Lion)
 * Blood (Tiger)
 * Simba (Lion)
 * Morowa (Suricate/Meerkat)


 * Meadows
 * Kaya (Cougar)
 * Braxton (Red Fox, Roleplay Staff)
 * Chesmu (Cougar, @Group Leader - Amaranth Cougar Tribe) (Dead)
 * Hinto (Wolf)
 * Poe (Raven)
 * Satin (Otter)


 * Materia Magica
 * Magnus (Draconis) (Inactive)


 * Tapestries
 * Pixi (Red Fox) (Inactive)


 * Cabaret Twilight
 * Hito (Wizard - Lead Programmer) (Human) (Inactive)


 * Red Sun Rising
 * Yaro (Archwizard - Lead Programmer) (Inactive)


 * Whispers of the Galaxy
 * Ravis (Man - Head Wizard, Emergency Backup Site Administrator) (Suricate)
 * Blood (Tiger)


 * Lion King MUCK
 * Yaro (Meerkat)
 * Musoke (Lion) (Dead)
 * Nyeki (Lioness)


 * Sunrise
 * Morowa (Meerkat) (Inactive)


 * Cry of the Kalahari: Red Sun Rising
 * Duna (Boy - Assistant Programmer, Emergency Backup Site Administrator) (Meerkat Spirit)
 * Alake (Meerkat)
 * Tilifika (Brown Hyena)


 * Tena Maisha
 * Morowa (Archwizard - Lead Programmer) (Meerkat) (Dead)
 * Uzuri (Lioness) (Inactive)
 * Yaro (Meerkat) (Archwizard - Lead Programmer)
 * Mavidi (Meerkat)


 * Age of Evolution
 * Hito (Boy - Lead Programmer, Emergency Backup Site Administrator) (Human)


 * Devil's Orchard
 * Acedia (Archwizard - Lead Programmer, Emergency Backup Site Administrator) (Sin)
 * Braxton (Red Fox Therian) (Limbo)
 * Nathan (Unclassified Touched) (Limbo)
 * Maria (Trueblood)


 * Chimaera MUCK
 * Blood (Paratiger)
 * Ravis (Meerkat) (Inactive)


 * Pangaea
 * Yaro (Boy - Lead Programmer) (Meerkat)


 * The Pridelands Chronicles
 * Yaro (Boy - Lead Programmer) (Meerkat)
 * Timon (FC)