I always wonder how many people read these sections. Anyway, let’s get into it.

My name is Sonko around the internet. Come think of it, in real life too. I’m a software developer by day, and even developerer by night. My main focus is the Java/SQL stack, and I have a strong enterprise background – worked in the finance/insurance industry for 10+ years, but no one cares, and this is not LinkedIn.

In October 2018, I had a lot of changes in my personal life. Got my degree, moved to a different country, that sort of thing. I wanted to publish and express myself for a long time at that point, but I did so sporadically before, and across a varying number of topics (I wrote articles about wargaming, medieval castles, tabletop rpgs, technical how-tos, and did some translations. Most of these are not in English). But I felt it was time to pick a focus, a passion that I can and will sustain.

StarCraft: Brood War AI came naturally. As a kid, StarCraft was one of my absolute favorite games, and played it endlessly. Somehow I always enjoyed the PvE battles more, where I can plan and think more, and not in a rush, and not badgered by others. Also, I kinda sucked at competitive play. I encountered the Student Starcraft AI Tournament by chance on some site I don’t even remember. For my thesis, I wrote an AI as well, and I felt it was just the beginning what can be done here, and stopping there would be a wasted effort. So I started working on it a bit more, and decided that hey, I might as well write about it.

So in October 2018 I started this blog. As for the name, it was inspired by a conversation I had with some dumbfuck a not so smart guy, who were adamant that even though he never coded in his life, he could comfortably do what I can, and just “sit in the office all day”. He asked what do I even do (if you imagined a do you even lift bro here, you are not entirely wrong). I started explaining that I work with internal-use enterprise applications, but he cut me off and said I was just using fancy words to confuse him, I should just tell it how it is. So I told him.

I. Make. Computer. Do. Things.

Well, that settled that argument. Anyway, I started blogging about developing my AI, which I named JumpyDoggoBot – following the paradigm that if you can’t find a good name, you should go with the stupidest one possible. I started interact more and more with the SSCAIT Discord community, and I thought – hey, why not do a podcast? All I need is microphone and some free time. So, the Undermind was born. Later, I commissioned the artwork (done by a dear friend of mine), the derpy Overlord, which has become a mascot, and the symbol of the site to some degree.

After that, I felt some momentum building. I wanted to work more and more on this scene, and tried to contact more and more people, work with talented individuals, and generally, bring more spotlight on.

I was honored when I was asked to do the weekly SSCAIT broadcasts. Although I still consider nepeta a better caster than I am, I gladly accepted, and since then, we do it in an alternating fashion. Check them out, I have many terrible jokes hidden there!

After a while, I realized that developing this bot is fun and all, but it’s only interesting to a niche audience, which will not likely to grow. The question was always how to begin, how to setup, where to get help, etc.

So I decided to write a goddamn book about it. At the time of writing this, it’s still in progress – I publish those in the order I write them. So far, my rate of publication has been oookaaayyyy.

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with live coding streams with other bot authors- you can watch those on Twitch, but it’s impossible to keep a schedule, since most of those fantastic fellows have a day job, and they are also scattered across the world. The recordings are on my YouTube channel, however.

I really love doing all of this, but time is always a factor – the stuff I did was mostly done beside my day job. This has changed a bit recently, as I’m working as a freelancer now, and have a bit more time. I would absolutely love to do only this, and make a living out of it, but I have no illusions. But I did start a Patreon, so if you decided to support me for some fucking reason because you’re a nice dude, you can do it here:

Oh, and about the shop: It is just a webshop that I set up for some friends, and I added some MCDT/Undermind merch there as well, because why not.

Contact

If you want to contact me, you can often find me on the SSCAIT Discord, but I respond to e-mails too at sonko (at) makingcomputerdothings dot com.