Issue 141

Lori M Olson Lori M Olson Follow Oct 04, 2023 · 4 mins read
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DRD141: Soft launch or hard?
![](https://dragonrubydispatch.com/assets/images/soft-launch-800x603.png)
A Red and White Rocket Ship Flying through the Sky by Andy Hermawan on Unsplash.
And Now for Something Completely Familiar

This newsletter — DragonRuby Dispatch — is continuing to focus on specifics of developing apps and games. Which is to say, specifically, coding. If you find this isn’t for you, you can easily unsubscribe using the big blue button right down there. ⬇️

This newsletter wouldn’t exist without the backing of the WNDX School. If you are just embarking on your coding journey, you might find Programming Fundamentals with Ruby to be useful. Based on the popular live workshops from Canada Learning Code, this online course carries on a bit further, so you can start applying your new coding skills to something useful right away!

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TALK — Talk of the Tech

While it’s not quite Gran Turismo, it’s possible to rough out the basics of a driving game with just two things: Sprites and Bezier curves. This was from a while back on the Discord channel, but there was a bunch of other stuff happening at that time. It’s still cool though! Thanks to DragonRider jujule for this one.

Yes, that beloved/reviled red dot should be showing up on a Settings icon near you shortly, if it hasn’t already. That’s right, Sonoma has arrived. But put that mouse/pad/trackball down and back slowly away — no Sonoma for you quite yet. Or so was the conclusion of a Motioneers thread.

GAME — All Things Gaming

You’d think that we might be reluctant to recommend a ‘competing’ newsletter. Actually, we’re more than happy to pass along the particulars of Graphics Programming Weekly edited by Jendrik Illner. Well worth your time and attention.

SPOT — Spotlight On …

This is so, y’know … 2022 … but we stumbled across the link again and remembered why we saved it way back when. 👴🏻 It’s a crisp little game called Shadows. It was our good friend Amir Rajan’s submission to the Global Game Jam. Perhaps you’ll be inspired to submit your game to the GGJ which is coming up in January of 2024. That’s sooner than you think.

APP — All Things App

Because we have a borderline unnatural addiction to collecting pretty — and open-source! — design elements, here are the Phosphor icons. If you can’t find that for which you’re looking in the 7000+ in the set, well you’re not likely of this world. 🪐 Thanks to Viktor Nagornyy for this tip.

Remember, too, that nothing says ‘put together’ more than having a clean, simple and consistent icon language for your app.

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TWIL — This Week [We] Learned …

If you’re thinking Cmd-C/Cmd-V versus drag-n-drop is a ‘Coke versus Pepsi, what’s the difference’ type deal, you may want to re-evaluate that position based on this recent toot 💨 from Hachyderm on Mastodon. Spoiler alert: it’s not what the cool kids do.

HAHA — And They All Laughed

It was National Coffee Day ☕️ this past Sunday, so we’re dunking this biscotti from Juozas Kaziukėnas in our java. Anybody out there have first-hand experience with what this is like? Asking for a friend.

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“One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned as an entrepreneur is that it’s okay to fail.” — Sheila Johnson