RinkWorks: Stupid Emails: Smash Typing

554. Smash Typing

To:  rinkworks@rinkworks.com
Subject:  Smash Typing
Date:  Sun, 15 Jun 2008, at 12:26:44

I don't know what program to use to type in. Word Perfect doesn't save them
right, notepad and wordpad are not organized (boundary-wise).

So, what program should I use to type it in? And do I just save it as .sma,
and that's it?

It's interesting to me how often the first question people ask when they become interested in writing Smash code is where to type the code in. I wouldn't have thought it necessary to say. I would have thought that if you don't know how to create a text file -- if you don't know what a text editor is and what it's for -- if you think boundaries (page margins, I believe he meant) have anything to do with text files -- then the learning curve between that and learning to write code in a programming language would simply be too steep to climb. Amazingly to me, this is not the case. I haven't seen any Smash code from this particular person yet, but a number of accomplished authors of Smash games started with this question and ended with a wonderful game.