I'm a demoscener, and I disagree on the basis that the comparison simply doesn't make sense. Take your average scener and tell them to build a simple web application that works well and you'll see that the skill sets simply could not be more different. Am I able to make a webapp, sure; am I remotely good at it, not at all.
Now, there's something to be said about the flexibility that sceners tend to have, but I think the standard you-wear-every-hat approach of a small startup shows the same sort of flexibility. They're just two vastly different worlds.
The average scene coder has always been more of a creative tinkerer than a systems programmer. There's obviously a specific skill set involved in building end-user web apps (or anything else for that matter) that must be learned, but it doesn't seem like a terrible fit. They're used to working closely with graphical artists and musicians on a shared vision while adding a lot of their own creativity to the mix. Oh, and they're used to writing terrible throw-away code. They'll fit right in. :)
Fabian is the systems programmer type. He'd hate building web apps.
What resources are there available, or how does someone start getting into the demoscene? Are there any good websites or books for a complete beginner?
I'm using that book because it seems to be a gentle start into assembly language. If you read a lot of tutorials, they want you to memorise how the architecture works before getting started, which seems to be to be a very exhausting approach that's not well suited to people who have other things going on in life.
Once I have the basics I'm going to gradually build up a libray of sharp patterns. I expect I can build a capability from this approach. Maths operations, then user input, then event loop, then moving bitmaps around screen, then very basic wave forms. 3d graphics are a fair way down the line.
I'm very curious about this as well. I was always impressed by the demos I found but never managed to find anything that showed me how to break into the community. About the only thing I gathered was it was not so common in the US.
I don't know if it's worth getting into the high-level programming vs. low-level programming debate.
A good buddy of mine is a hardcore game programmer and we both give each other crap. He says I'm not a "real programmer", and I tease him about waterfall development and day-long compile times, but in the end we have mutual respect for each others' skills. It takes intelligence and years of dedication to master either one.
Neat hack! But stacking sine waves with a bit of modulation isn't exactly earth-shattering. You might like to try some of these: http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?type[]=256b&order=view.... The most impressive to date is probably Puls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R35UuntQQF8. The top three 256b productions on Pouet are all doing the same basic thing of ray marching against an isosurface. The sophistication of the geometry has increased a lot since Lattice, which used something simple like cos(x)^2 + cos(y)^2 + cos(z)^2 = f(t) where f(t) is an oscillatory function of time that controls the thinning and fattening of the lattice.
I simply cannot see any of the current boy kings being able to keep up with this sort of thing.