5 Reason to Switch to Bun

Stuyk — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 17:15:47 +0000

I recently started testing out bun to see where I could save myself some time. I can without a doubt say that bun is going to flip the entire Node ecosystem on its head. Here are 5 reasons why I'm switching to Bun for good.

You can run TSX, TS out of the box without Transpiling. You've already saved seconds by just using #bun.
bun has a built in test framework, no more installing jest, mocha, chai, whatever to start testing your code. It's there. It's ready. You can write tests immediately and even has a built in watch mode. No more nodemon, or tsc --watch or whatever other flavor of file watcher you're using.
bun has a built in HTTP API that will let you construct new REST APIs with minimal code. I can have a working REST API up and running in less than 3 minutes and get it deployed within the hour.
bun has a built in bundling system that makes all code whether it's ESM (import), or CommonJS (require) Transpile down into a fully browser compatible format. This is huge because now nobody needs to trudge through why imports might be acting funny in a module based package. Everything just works. Period.
bun is compatible with 99% of npm packages out-of-the-box which means that switching over existing projects to bun is probably already compatible.

Bonus:

FFI isn't anything new to Node.js but in bun it's very easy. FFI allows for us to write function calls to lower level languages such as C, C++, Rust, etc. Which in turn increases the performance of our applications when it makes sense.

Don't sleep on bun, do your due diligence and build something with it. It's an incredible runtime and LOWERS the overall complexity of your project by 10 fold.

https://bun.sh/

Writing Game Mods Changed My Life

Stuyk — Mon, 08 May 2023 16:50:41 +0000

Modifying a game can be as simple as using existing tools that are supported by a game developer; to utilizing reverse engineered libraries. Being exposed to certain games and letting your creativity drive your learning can be a very rewarding experience. I went from working a part time job at a restaurant to becoming a full-stack developer that works as a blockchain engineer fulltime.

I was learning about all of these games, and teaching myself while working part time and keeping my monthly needs at a minimum. There was a time in my life where I was only eating a single meal a day and renting out a room just so I could continue focusing on what I loved to do.

I spent a single semester in College before I decided that it was not the path for me, and wanted to focus on more fundamental parts of game design, programming, etc.

What happened?

Around 16 years ago is when I really started dabbling in game development but I would only go as far as modifying game files or the game itself. I never thought I would be able to program because I could not get my brain to understand the concepts. I was young and around 14~ years old when I started teaching myself.

Alien Swarm

Alien Swarm was a game released by Valve in 2010 that exposed me to the hammer editor and I was able to build a handful of maps utilizing this one tool.

Using this tool let me explore other tools such as Photoshop that would teach me about texturing objects, and brushes.

Building some maps actually got a handful of them featured in PC Gamer Magazine in 2011. Here's a horrible video of one of those maps.

Papyrus Scripting

This game was a gateway drug to getting exposed to other game communities with more complex mods. Games such as Skyrim, Fallout, San Andreas Multiplayer, etc. These communities gave me exposure to my first programming language which was Papyrus. This language was utilized in Creation Kit which was supported by Bethesda.

This one programming language allowed me to do very simple things such as pressing a button and triggering various game components based on that one button press.

A simple cause and effect.

3DS Max

While learning these tools I got interested in programs such as 3DS Max which taught me more game development concepts and the 3D side of game development.

Here's a few things I learned just from 3DS Max:

Rigging
UV Mapping
3D Design
Utilizing Game Model Files

GTA:V

Then GTA:V came along with third-party clients such as alt:V, GTA:Network, FiveM, etc.

GTA:V itself exposed me to a plethora of new concepts and new programming languages. It was at this time when I started taking programming more seriously. It took me about a year to understand the basics of programming and actually write scripts that did something inside of GTA:V itself.

I was able to learn the following languages:

C#
TypeScript
JavaScript
HTML
CSS

I was able to learn the following frontend frameworks:

Preact
Vue
React

I was able to learn both NoSQL and SQL based databases at a minimum level. Everything from these simple GTA:V mods were some of the best teachers I have ever had. A little bit of documentation allowed me to create all sorts of fun scripts and game modes.

Where Everything Exploded

At some point during my career I started mixing knowledge with real world usage. I mixed my love of game modding with a blockchain and suddenly I was someone who could be hired. I made an inventory system hooked into an EOS smart contract that would allow players to transact inside of GTA:V to buy / sell items. It was pretty much a non-fungible token smart contract. I just didn't know the term at the time.

This is where I picked up C++ since Smart Contracts on the EOS Blockchain are done with this programming language.

Where I Headed

Posting some videos on Reddit of my work actually landed me a job out of pure luck. However, the work that I did before was not discounted as I was able to continue building off what I learned by doing game modifications.

I was working fulltime as a blockchain engineer while learning from my peers but also still learning more things through GTA:V's third-party game mods.

I started learning frontend frameworks and actually learning the systems that are utilized for creating backends. I was able to dig into oAuth2, create Discord Bots, build documentation websites, build tools and utilities.

Mixing my hobbies with my work actually proved to be a massive gain for my knowledge and ability to write anything that I could ever dream of.

Tips for a Younger Me

If I could go back to the early years I wish I could have told my younger self that if you bang your head against a wall enough times you will eventually break ground.

Don't give up so easily and keep pushing until it makes sense.

You will try a lot and you will fail a lot but when it does work it's almost like a switch has been turned on.

Nothing happens without putting yourself out there in a vulnerable position and trying to swim in a sea of problems.

Do something every day and you will get better at it, even if it you are not entirely sure what you are doing.

Work hard and you might just be a bit more successful tomorrow.

DEV Community: Stuyk