I suppose I'm simultaneously complaining and asking for some advice, so I'm not sure I should put it here or in another thread. But this shit really ruined my day yesterday, and I will likely continue to feel like shit until I get this shit working as I'm pretty sure I'll fail this college class if I can't do the fucking homework assignments.
So I spent this past weekend trying to get Visual Studio 2010* (Visual C, specifically) set up to compile code from my textbook for my graphics programming class. We're being forced to used OpenGL and the author's code uses glut, as opposed to the newer freeglut which we'll be using. And so I spent hours attempting to put all the right .lib and .dll files in all the right places for glu, glut, glew, freeglut, and some mesa3D stuff (because it worked for a classmate) and... NOPE. I wasn't alone; the entire class spent the entirety of our last lecture time attempting to get our computers to run the shit. And still, I can't get it to work. I mess with the shit in and out of visual studio, and I end up with one reoccurring error: it can't read glut32.dll. Well, looking up the error code says that it's giving an argument too long for the command line; I think this is for VS's internal command line, and not the system's, but I don't fucking know.
I give up. I try installing cygWin, because OpenGL seems to like Unix a hell of a lot more than Windows, and it won't install right and doesn't recognize any standard unix commands (not that I'm even familiar with unix command line) and I give up there.
So, I'm stuck. Trying to figure out which of the many things based on OpenGL to attempt to use to make this shit work, look for a whole new compiler, or to just keep smashing my head against the keyboard as is hoping for a miracle.
---------------------
In less ambiguous thread relevance:
This semester I'm only signed up for two classes; one a day, and I can't find a part-time job... or anything productive to do with my over abundance of free time. Note that I can't get myself to just sit down and work on hobbyist/practice/self-study projects, goddamn I wish I could, but no:
"What should I do? Draw? Study kanji? Try making a game? Write something?"
"I know! I'll go back to sleep or watch horrible TV all day!"
*On my Windows7 64-bit laptop where I do my work and which Saturn constantly borrows while putting off setting up his desktop for the N
th week now.