[gameprogrammer] Re: programming

ok i'm a university student (studying games programming and design)

my advice would be:

1. learn at least 1 of the basic programming languages (i started
programming with visual basic at college) doesn't necessarily have to be
game programming specifically. in fact IMO it is easier to not worry about
programming games until you are comfortabl with programming theory.

2. consider taking up a course in computing and mathematics at college if
possible, the maths will help a lot in any programming but more so in AI or
Physics programming. The computing will help with some general knowledge of
how computers work.

3. start coming up with some game ideas, even if you don't use them right
away it will make life easier when you feel confident enough to program you
first game (make your first game as simple as possible ie space invaders,
tile shuffle type game)

4. consider a course at university on a programming related subject, doesn't
have to be game programming, i just chose a course in game programming
because i knew i would find it more interesting (this is by no means a
necessity, if you can program but don't have a degree showing some samples
of your work will usually be a good substitute providing they are of a high
quality)

5. practice! can't stress how important this is, i struggled to learn how to
program in my first year of college because i spent very little time
actually sitting down and doing it, as soon as i started to program on a
regular basis inside and outside of college everything became easier.

in terms of qualities, determination is a key factor when you first start
learning to program, it will at times be difficult, it is important not to
give up just because you can't figure out why a program won't work straight
away.

There are plenty of resources on the internet that can help you get started
with any programming language and forums like this are always useful if
there is something you have a lot of trouble understanding.

Finally some ideas of programming languages it might be useful for you to
learn, you wont need to know them all, just do some research and decide
which are best for you

*Beginner* (IMO these are the easiest programming languages for a beginner
to learn):
*Visual basic *- The first programming language i learned
*Dark basic*   - First programming language i used to create a full game

*Intermediate* (these programming languages are slightly more difficult but
if you have a good knowledge of the theory behind programming they should
still for the most part be relatively straightforward):

*Java* - I have been learning this for 2 years now and found it to be a very
good transition between beginner languages and more complex      languages
such as C++

*C++* - managed to teach myself enough c++ during last summer to feel
comfortable programming most things with it, i think i found this so easy
because 1. i already knew a lot of the theory 2. it is very similar to java

*Advanced* (even though i call these advanced if you find the previous
languages straight forward then these shouldn't be too difficult either)

*C++ with directX *- some people have problems with directx due to the fact
that it takes so much code to setup a simple empty window but once you get
past that its very simple to use

*Torque script *- only difficult at the moment because there isn't a great
deal of documentation for people new to the concept of scripting an
alternative to this which has more documentation is Lua script (scripting
languages will be a must if you would like to specialise in AI programming
but i wouldn't recommend learning any of them until you have been
programming for a few years)

There are many other programming languags that could have been added to this
list but the ones i have mentioned are the most common in the industry.

Hope this info helps and good luck :)

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