Hey Hackers! I’m DoubleX and I’m currently a contract staff in the customer service industry.
First of all, a huge thank you to the HackerNoon community and staff for nominating me for a 2021 Noonies award! I’ve been nominated in the following categories please do check out these award pages and vote:
HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - architecture
As someone currently outside of the IT industry but still interested in game development, I believe that one of the technologies that’ll change the future of gaming is my hybrid model of multiplayer games because it can redefine the game industry once it becomes the trend. Learn more about my thoughts and opinions on game development and my journey in the tech industry via the interview below.
1. What do you do and why do you do it?
Before I go outside of the IT industry, I was an android, iOS, web, and sometimes, database programmer(I touched both front-end and back-end and even some driver codes), focusing on making apps and sites for my company’s own use and its customers’ projects, and those customers are mainly in the retail industry. As one of my main interests has been programming since I was a teenager, I thought I could be well-adapted and even love at least some programming jobs, so I worked as a full-time professional programmers in 2 different companies for around 2.5 years in total. But the reality taught me that, even as an entry-level programmer working for entry-level jobs, I’m still far from ready to work effectively and efficiently enough in the real world as my competence can only manifest in ideal environments, so I decided to work outside the IT industry and keep programming as my most passionate hobby, all after I failed to properly sustain myself in those 2 programming jobs.
2. Tell us more about the things you create / write / manage / build!
Most of my programming works are RPG Maker VX Ace, RPG Maker MV and RPG Maker MZ scripts/plugins, but I also have some pet projects like HTML5 Chess, HTML5 Minesweeper, HTML5 Sudoku and HTML5 Tic-Tac-Toe, which are all just little toys for me to experiment with ways of organizing and structuring codes that are new to me. My most complicated and convoluted project until now is an ATB system plugin of RPG Maker MV, and it aims to be the most advanced and sophisticated ATB system ever, even though it’s still far from being finished. I haven’t personally built any commercial projects on a professional level yet, but I’m content with those projects I’ve already made for my learning progress, and maybe one day I’ll build something that can solve some important real world problems 😃
3. How did you end up on your current career path? Do you like it?
I ended up being outside of the IT industry to ensure I won’t become hating programming altogether by keeping programming as a hobby rather than a profession, so I explored some other industries and I’m fortunate enough for my current employer, whose company is about front-line customer services, to employ me as an officer. I not only never regretted my choice, but actually still like it because it opened my eyes by broadening my horizons, and more importantly, by forcing me to develop some parts of myself that are almost dormant for nearly 30 years, so now I felt like a much more complete person than before.
4. What tech are you most excited or passionate about right now and why?
So far, the only tech(if it can be called so) that I’ve researched deep enough to be truly passionate about is ATB systems in games, even though I don’t think I’m an expert in this yet(and I wonder if it needs an expert at all). I’m so interested in this not only because I find this system exciting and fun, but also because it has so much potential that aren’t realized by perhaps all ATB systems implemented in published games around the world. So I want to push the limits of this system by implementing it myself, and that implementation(which is far from being finished) aims to have all the features, freedom and control that can be provided by such a system.
5. What tech are you most worried about right now and why?
Fortunately, I’m not really worried about any particular tech right now, maybe because I don’t have a thorough comprehension of any of them yet. But sometimes I do have some very far-fetched dark fantasies about AI due to my lack of mastery in this field, as I feel that after several decades, it’s possible for AI to become advanced and sophisticated enough to replace just about all people in the job market, especially when AI can have genuine emotions, rewrite itself and even produce some other new AIs(meaning that AI becomes capable of reproduction all by itself).
While I believe that AI itself is good for the humanity and will never be intended to do any evil to humans by itself, those 1% of the population who can control the AI will have great incentives to use it to eliminate the other 99%, because to the former the latter are no longer useful assets, but just mere liabilities that must be disposed as soon as possible. On the flip side, those remaining 1% will feel like living in the heaven, because they don’t have to do most jobs in the world anymore, due to those AI doing all these for them, so maybe my dark fantasies about AI, even if they were to be realized, isn’t really 100% bad(but still very bad) for the mankind, especially when the world is obviously so over-populated. However, I still think that it’s better not to have such dark fantasies realized, because the sacrifices of those 99% would be far too great just to benefit those 1%, and I do sincerely hope that those of my dark fantasies are all but impossible.
6. If we gave you 10 million dollars to invest in something today, what would you invest in and why?
I think I’m going to invest it(at least partially) into the professional e-Sports in my city, because I believe that it had quite some talents that could have been shone in the world, but the lack of consistent financial supports and reliable future after retirement were what primarily drove them off from the e-Sport stages. While there are already quite some companies investing millions on that, I think some extra money can further help developing e-Sports in my city, because it just has so much potential that it’s better not to be just wasted. Also, one of my past dreams was to become a professional e-Sport athlete myself(in my case it was Counter-Strike 1.6), and although I didn’t pursue that dream mainly due to my serious lack of aptitude, it was also partially due to the sheer risk of abandoning my academics, which would almost take all my time if I were to have good academic results, so I’d be glad if those millions I invested can help some talents to have enough courage to pursue their e-Sports dreams.
7. What are you currently learning?
Currently my interest is psychology used on my personal growth, and I learn such knowledge not only from books and internet articles, but also from my personal real world experience, mainly through my daily front-end customer service jobs. For instance, I’ve learnt personality systems like Enneagram and MBTI for years, and combined with the wisdom I learnt through my life first hand, they helped me a lot on finding my own blind spots and ways to foster my personal growth. Other than that, I’ve no specific focus on learning, and that means I’ll sometimes learn something useful from some random internet articles, sometimes learn some others through my personal observations of events around me, and sometimes learn some new stuffs from those I interact directly with.
8. What’s the best advice you’ve ever given someone?
As I don’t recall giving advice to anyone(I prefer helping the others to find their own advice rather than giving mine to them directly), and it seems to me that I’ve been the one who’s constantly receiving advice, I’m afraid that I don’t have much to talk about on this one 😃
9. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
I think it’s that, I should be more aware of my thought process, bodily feelings and the states of my emotions(and thus be more present on the moment), with ways to increase such awareness, because to me it’s the foundation to apply many other good advice on myself. If those other good advice are like very useful apps on an OS, then the increased awareness is like a much needed upgrade of the OS itself from the faulty, outdated counterpart that is waiting to collapse. Since I’m a teenager, I’ve been exposed to psychology with the advice of increasing awareness, and thorough the years I felt that I’ve become much, much healthier psychologically than before, mainly thanks to this advice and my persistence on practicing it myself.
About HackerNoon’s 2021 Noonie Awards
The annual Noonie Awards celebrate the best and brightest of the tech industry, bringing together all who are making the Internet and the world of tech what it is today. Please be sure to check out our award categories, nominate, and vote for the people and companies who you think are making the biggest impact on the tech industry today.
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