About

About Me

M  y name is Matthew Jolly. I am a software developer and video game enthusiast. I’ve been programming a number of years, and have worked on everything from games to ticket management systems to GIS mapping applications. I’ve wanted to program ever since I was a kid, and have never wanted to do anything else.

I picked up my first programming book at the tender age of 10. At the time I had no idea that it would set me on a path that I would follow the rest of my life, or at least thus far. Like any beginner, I started with writing various simple console applications, though it wasn’t long before I dove into the wonderful world of UI programming. I had only one end goal in mind, however–to make games.

It wasn’t until I entered high-school that I started to seriously devote my time to game development. I started off using various libraries and engines, and eventually settled on Torque. After getting my feet wet writing some 3D games in Torque, I tried my hand at writing my own engines. I taught myself DirectX and OpenGL, I experimented with shaders, and most imporatantly, I wrote code. Lots and lots of code.

By the time I finished high-school I had a firm grasp on C++, having written my own 2D and 3D games as well as my own engines and various other tools and libraries. I landed a job programming within a year after graduation, and there I began to use .NET and C#.

C# was an eye-opener, and it streamlined the development process a ton for me. It enabled me to rapidly prototype ideas and quickly throw together extensive UI applications that would have taken me quite a bit longer with something like MFC. I had finally found a language that I began to use in place of C++, save for the most performance intensive applications.

Now, six years later, I am very proficient with the C# language and .NET in general, and can use my skills as a programmer to accomplish almost anything I need to do. I’ve written code for microcontrollers to run my small electrical inventions, I’ve written games that run on multiple platforms, I’ve even written ticket management and GIS applications currently in use by million dollar companies.
Programming has shown me that anything is possible; you just have to create it.