1. JetBrains' IntelliJ IDEA: An awesome IDE for Java. So great, I don't mind spending the $249 (US) and using it over the free Eclipse. The Ruby plugin is not too shabby either, the license for your copy is good for your OSX and Windows installations, and you can try it free for 30 days. Martin Fowler thinks IntelliJ changed the IDE landscape. If you work in .NET, they also have ReSharper, which I plan to purchase very soon. Now if only we could get a ColdFusion plugin for IntelliJ, I'd love it even more.
   
   
2. Programming Ruby, Second Edition: What many in the Ruby community consider to be Ruby's Bible. You can lower the barrier of entry for your favorite programmer to using Ruby, certainly one of the funner languages a lot of people are loving to program in lately. Sometimes, I sit and think about things to program just so I can do it in Ruby.
   
   If they've already got that, I always like books as gifts. Some of my favorites from this year have been: Code Complete 2, Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices which has a great section on object oriented design principles, and of course, My Job Went to India. I have a slew of books I've yet to read this year that I got from last Christmas (and birthday), so I'll have to list those next year.
   
   
3. Xbox 360 and a subscription to XNA Creator's Club (through Xbox Live Marketplace - $99 anually) so they can deploy their games to their new Xbox. This is without a doubt the thing I'd want most, since I got into this whole programming thing because I was interested in making games. You can point them to the getting started page, and they could make games for the PC for free, using XNA (they'll need that page to get started anyway, even if you get them the 360 and Creator's Club membership to deploy to the Xbox).
   
   
4. MacBook Pro and pay for the extra pixels. I love mine - so much so, that I intend to marry it. (Ok, not that much, but I have been enjoying it.) The extra pixels make the screen almost as wide as two, and if you can get them an extra monitor I'd do that too. I've moved over to using this as my sole computer for development, and don't bother with the desktops at work or home anymore, except on rare occasions. You can run Windows on it, and the virtual machines are getting really good so that you ought not have to even reboot to use either operating system.
   
   Even if you don't want to get them the MacBook, a second or third monitor should be met with enthusiasm.
   
   
5. A Vacation: Programmers are notoriously working long hours and suffering burnout, so we often need to take a little break from the computer screen. I like SkyAuction because all the vacations are package deals, there's often a good variety to choose from (many different countries), most of the time you can find a very good price, and usually the dates are flexible within a certain time frame, so you don't have to commit right away to a certain date.

Happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating it, and thanks to all you who read and comment and set me straight when I'm wrong - not just here but in the community at large. I do appreciate it.

Do you have any ideas you'd like to share (or ones you'd like to strike from this list)?

It seems you need an army of programmers to make even a decent game now.

But then people started releasing game-development frameworks that could help you get past the technical hurdles. However, by the time I thought about something like that (or had the capacity to think it) I had almost long forgotten about my dream to make games.

And even if you're using a framework, what do you do about the monetary hurdles? A computer to program on is one thing, but where would you find the cash for a good 3D modeling studio? What if you wanted to deploy to a console? That license is in the tens of thousands of dollars (or so I've heard).

But as some of you have known for a while, and I only found out as recently as August, Microsoft is helping to solve those problems. They've released the XNA framework, which lets you deploy to XBOX 360 or PC (Developer Center, Creators Club, XNA Team Blog).

I'm only three weeks in and I've got quite a decent start for a game. It's cartoon-like, so it doesn't require the type of art you'd find in Gears of War (though I could still use the help of a 3d modeler if you're offering). It works mostly how I want it to, and I need only a few tweeks. Most importantly, I've got a nice framework written that allows me to add levels and new game objects with relative ease (not WYSIWYG just yet, but that might happen at some point in the distant future).

So that only leaves the soundtrack. Unless you don't plan to distribute your game, licensing songs may still be an prohibitive issue (barring that you're good at making your own on the computer, and have a good sound-editor to do it). For that, I'm trying to get the band back together over the winter to record an impromptu soundtrack. Getting back in the studio with those guys would be reward enough, but I'll have a game to go with it. Thanks XNA!

As always, thoughts are appreciated. I'd especially like to hear from you if you know or are a member of any community where free(ish) 3D models and textures are available.

Fast forward a few years to when I had a computer of my own. As I recall, it had a blazing fast 80368 processor running at 33 MHz. With 4 MB of RAM and a 20MB hard drive. I was set.

I spent a lot of time rummaging through the QBasic source code of Nibbles, attempting to figure out how it worked, and modifying it in places to see what happened. Eventually, I got sick of looking at other people's code and decided to write my own. Once I figured out how to PRINT and INPUT, I was ready to program my first text-based adventure game (I think I was 12 or 13 at the time).

Since then (in the last 15 years or so), I've kept the dream alive, but haven't done much to pursue it. Some friends and I spent a night trying to figure out how to program a MUD, I spent some time working with OpenGL (but found it too tedious for what I wanted to do), and started a couple of web based games that never got far off the ground except for fleshing out concepts and plots for the games.

Anyway, recently on Ruby-Talk there was a question about programming a game and a couple of good responses that gave me some resources I'd like to share (and record for my future inspection). Here they go:

• Gosu - a "2D game development library for the Ruby and C++ programming languages."
  
  
• RRobots - a "simulation environment for robots" whose source code I'd like to peruse.
  
  
• Game Programming Wiki
  
  
• Novashell - a "high-level 2D game maker that tries to handle all the hard work behind the scenes" from Seth Robinson, creator of one of my all-time favorite games, Legend Of the Red Dragon. (Incidentally, one of my friends and fellow ANSI artists from the BBS days, Zippy, did some art for Part II. Unfortunately, I couldn't find him online.)
  
  Seth also has some source code available for several games he created. By happenstance, I stumbled across him while searching for domain names for the UH Code Dojo.
  
  
• RPG Maker XP - A graphical game engine that "is equipped with the Ruby Game Scripting System (RGSS), based on the Ruby language and customized especially for this program."
  
  
• Gamebryo - the granddaddy of them all, this engine has been used by Civilization IV and The Elder Scrolls IV. No telling how much it costs though.

Do you have any others to share?