I’ve been making my way through the 2D GDQuest Module 5, which is involving collisions and physics. Neat! So that got me thinking, what about dragging cards? Turns out there’s a lot of ways to do this. I went down a YouTube rabbithole comparing many techniques, and I wasn’t finding a lot of consensus.

I happened upon Drag and Drop Systems in Godot by Snoeyz, which compares three different techniques: native drag and drop, button-based drag and drop, and mouse event-based drag and drop. The author preferred their mouse event-based solution over native, but that may also be biased. The true takeaway:

If it wasn’t obvious, there’s no “best” solution. But I did learn a lot along the way.

Herein lies the struggle; I am learning this, and I do want to do things in the “best” way, but I also want to ship things. I love “best practices,” but only if it seems industry- and peer-reviewed with consensus about “one size fits most.” If the only tool you know is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail; sure, but do you want a place to live or a third of a perfect place to live.

Tangentially, I found an artist whose work I would love to incorporate into my work, but I’m way too early to reach out. Their aesthetic matches my approach; minimal, stark, but effective. When I’m doing my own UIs, they’re not great but they work and there’s not a lot of noise. What they offer that I don’t is the style. If I can make something work with their look and feel… but more importantly, I need to make it work.

I’m looking forward to productivity tomorrow. Today, I had a minimally invasive medical test, I picked up the weekly CSA, a part-time job teaching brass instruments to kids, followed by my own trumpet lesson. I still made time for programming, but not enough. It’s a balance.