Meet the 11-12 months-Previous Whose Code Was Adopted by a Gaming Large

It’s not day-after-day that an 11-year-old boy turns into a key contributor to a serious tech platform, however that’s precisely what Damir Buldakov, a younger programmer from Vietnam, has accomplished.

While most youngsters his age are simply enjoying video games, Damir was busy constructing a brand new plugin for Playgama, a gaming platform with over 300 million month-to-month customers.

His contribution, a Scratch language extension, permits tens of millions of younger coders to attach their tasks to Playgama’s world community.

Is there a lesson for the developer neighborhood in these contributions from an 11-year-old boy? “Age doesn’t mean anything,” Buldakov instructed The New Stack. “What really matters is knowledge.”

And possibly someplace in his expertise is a message for any younger programmer who’s ever had a dream.

“I hope other kids feel like they can build cool things, too.”

Solving Real-World Coding Problems

Playgama’s SDK helps all kinds of frameworks and instruments. Yet regardless of this mission, their open supply developer package hadn’t included help for MIT’s well-liked programming language, Scratch.

“The plugin was originally initiated by Damir, who built its core functionality,” mentioned a Playgama spokesperson. And Damir’s plugin “is now maintained and distributed by our team as part of the Playgama Bridge SDK,” revealed underneath its MIT License.

All 931 lines of it.

MIT estimates Scratch is utilized by over 20 million builders yearly — and Playgama’s founder, Dmitry Kachmar, is genuinely appreciative of this contribution by Damir. “Thanks to his work, even students and beginners coding in Scratch can now connect their projects to Playgama and reach our global distribution network.”

“I built the SDK extension using JavaScript,” Buldakov instructed The New Stack — following the documentation on Playgama’s Wiki. (“You can integrate our SDK with any common game development framework,” it explains.)

“I also studied with SoloLearn, YouTube tutorials, Stack Overflow and other forums,” Buldakov defined. “It took me a few months to feel confident with the basics and then keep improving through practice.”

But there’s a wealth of knowledge on-line, Buldakov found, asking for recommendation and suggestions in on-line boards, developer teams and chat channels. He even met different children who had been additionally programming in JavaScript and different languages. “I think adults should understand that kids are not just ‘playing on the computer,’” Buldakov mentioned. “We are actually learning and solving real problems.”

After all of the cautious preparations, Buldakov was able to make his transfer. “The hardest part was the initialization of the SDK, because it’s the most important step and everything else depends on it.”

“At first I really struggled,” Buldakov remembered. “But after practicing with SoloLearn, I understood how to set it up correctly for Playgama. After that, adding functions like ads or saving progress became much easier!”

And it seems Buldakov’s contribution was precisely what Playgama needed to see. The “Playgama Bridge SDK” is an open supply answer — and “as a team, we’re continuously developing this SDK by adding new integrations,” defined Playgama’s founder, Kachmar.

In a press launch, Kachmar mentioned Buldakov’s code “met every technical standard, integrated flawlessly with our release pipeline, and most importantly, made it easy for millions of young coders to reach millions more players.”

A Meaningful Contribution To Game Development

Kachmar instructed The New Stack that when he’d first heard about Buldakov’s code, “I used to be actually joyful. It jogged my memory of myself at that age, once I was simply starting my skilled journey as a developer.

“So I wasn’t exactly surprised that an 11-year-old could do this, because I know from my own experience that it’s possible. What I felt instead was a strong motivation to bring his work into Playgama — and to support Damir in his first steps as a developer.” With a programmer’s eye, Kachmar realized that Buldakov had “created something meaningful” — not only a facet challenge, however a brand new integration that turned “a real product.”

Playgama needed to do one thing particular to acknowledge Buldakov’s contribution — and created a mentorship program, together with a monetary award. “I know that this kind of external recognition can give even more motivation,” says Kachmar. “Our devs team will always be available to Damir to provide guidance and support he may need as he continues his path as a programmer.”

“It has strengthened Damir’s confidence,” his mom mentioned in an e-mail interview, saying Playgama’s response had proven Damir “that his efforts are acknowledged, and motivated him much more.

“He now feels that what he’s doing is not only fun, but also valuable and meaningful and that others see it that way, too.”

The Importance of Parental and Community Support

Buldakov’s mother and father appear joyful, grateful — and proud. “As his mom, I’ve always just tried to support my son’s interests,” says Damir’s mom, who enrolled him in a robotics class at his elementary college, and later a course on Scratch (plus a summer season programming course). When he was in third grade, Damir requested his mom to purchase him what she describes as “a big book on programming.” And final yr, she purchased him a subscription to the coding training app, SoloLearn.

“It helps a lot when adults support us, buy courses or subscriptions, and explain difficult topics,” Buldakov instructed The New Stack. “That kind of support makes you feel like you can really build something cool.” But his mom mentioned, “Honestly, I think it’s Damir’s own achievement that he knows so much at his age. He’s always been curious and eager to learn.”

“Even though I don’t understand programming myself, I love seeing his eyes light up when he’s working on something, and I’m even happier than he is when he succeeds.”

Going ahead, she mentioned, “We’re very glad that Damir now has entry to Playgama’s builders, who’re able to deal with him as an equal and assist him in his skilled progress.

“It’s important for him to know that he can reach out at any time with any question and that he’ll get real support and guidance.”

The Future Aspirations of a Young Programmer

What’s subsequent for the younger Buldakov? “I am already working in a small team of about five people on my own Scratch/TurboWarp modification called Dash (DashBlocks), which adds new colors, blocks and extensions.”

Buldakov mentioned that it’s been “a fun collaboration.” And quickly he might even be collaborating with the programmers at Playgama.

So does he need to grow to be an expert programmer? Yes, Buldakov mentioned, and “My dream is to construct an software that may be helpful for everybody, one thing ‘all-in-one,’ with issues like taxi, market, video games and extra.

“I additionally need to examine extra superior programming languages and recreation engines, go to college.

“And maybe even start my own company one day.”

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