a design question

[Twey]

I have no formal training on anything to do with computers.

Nor do I

I only realize there is a problem when something doesn't work

That, for me, is why the Internet is such a great learning resource. Books and experimentation are all very well, but on the Internet, if one does something that's technically right, but just not "nice" (usually meaning it's going to have problems later on), people correct you -- I owe a lot of my knowledge of JS to people like jscheuer1 and mwinter here on the forums, which isn't to say that they've taught me everything, but that they point out where things are "not nice" and make me curious about the "pretty" way of doing it That, for me, is the only way to achieve a sense of what's "beautiful" in programming. Like mathematical beauty, beauty in programming is very hard to define, although people have tried (terseness, clarity, lack of repetition, efficiency, adaptability, flexibility, portability...) but the only way to get a real feel for what it is is to learn by example what's right and what's wrong, like a colour (it's impossible to explain what yellow is so that someone, when presented with yellow, could recognise it; all one can do is to point out examples of what is and isn't yellow, and the person can then distinguish yellow for themselves, even if the yellow isn't the precise shades of yellow that the instructor has pointed out for them). As such, there's a kind of art in non-graphical languages too, and one can get the same kind of rapport with the code that you achieve by looking at pictures of what the code is doing. You just have to get a sense for it.

I don't have a "practical" use for it (as far as game design, etc) and therefore have no real basis to test scripts and code snippets on.

The obvious response is to find a use That's another thing forums and chatrooms are good for: people have problems, and problems require a solution. Sometimes the solution becomes very popular, sometimes it doesn't, but the hardest part of designing anything (on- or offline, I'm sure you'll agree) is finding inspiration, and that's what people's problems provide.

[BLiZZaRD]

That I try to do. Graphical things just come easier/faster for me. With the myriad of other things in my life right now I just can't find the time to sit down with a book and try things.

Ever wish you could just quit work and stay at home to play on the computer all day?

[Twey]

I suppose I'm lucky here in that my work, when I get it, tends to consist of doing just that

[BLiZZaRD]

Well, if I can sell this script my agent is shopping around I might be able to do just that as well