Dear Mr.Bob or any C/C++ progammers

[The Blackrose]

I have to agree with Fhqwghads and Aurik on this one. It is best to pick a language that has a solid base and not only learn the fundamentals of the language, but also to learn the fundamentals that create a language as you go along. Java or C++ is a good place to start (I chose C++ because I like being able to hang myself/not having my hand be held, thank you). Once you learn one, you can learn them all. After that, you can start learning APIs like DirectX and OpenGL.

[Deejay]

Wow, so many great & informative replies.

@Aerin - I had no clue there were Digipen student who posted here. That's really cool!

@Beckwin - Thanks for the encouragement and kind words. I've seen first hand the talent required to be successful in the field of art. I just wish that I had that type of patience for it. Good luck with all your endeavors.

I think what I'm going to do first is find a book that teaches me all the basic principles behind Java. If that doesn't deter me, I'll sign up for a class during the spring. All my plans are still tentative, so I just want to make sure that I know exactly what I'm getting into before I approach my guidance counselor/parents about switching.

Again much respect and thanks Aurik, Fhq, Aerin, Gere, Beckwin, Creeps, Blackrose, Alpha, and Haelian for your input. I appreciate it! :D

[Pyree]

Another DigiPen student here!

If your end goal is to get into game programming, skip Java and learn C++ first. C++ is the most common language used in the industry. If you decide later that game programming isn't for you, but you still enjoy programming in general, then you should learn Java.

[Stiker]

While knowing the programming language is big, knowing basic programming fundamentals and logic is even more important. Once you have concepts down and learn how to break your problems down, you can pretty much learn the syntax and quirks of any other programming language without too much effort.

Notre Dame had a really unique way that they started people off in programming (or they used too, they canned this my senior year though). The first programming course that you took had all of the work done in SCHEME (later classes all used C++). If some of you are going "wtf is that" there is good reason because no one uses it in the real world at all. The whole point though was that they wanted you to get outside the usual thinking of C/C++/Java and force you to think more in concepts since SCHEME was unfimilar to everyone in the class. They have since changed this though and are now using C and I will forever have nightmares of SCHEME programming...

The point though is to realize coding is a lot more than learning the language of the code. If you are good about breaking down large puzzles and problems, you definitely have the apititude for it. Also you will need a ton of patience. I've always said that the coding is easy, debugging it is what makes you want to jump out of the tallest building you can find. I remember spending 5 hours one night trying to figure out what the hell I did wrong in my code and it turned out I did nothing more than misspell a variable. Be ready for long nights and lots of headaches, it just comes with the territory.

Some other advice:
1) Use tons of resources. Books and Google are your friends.

2) Try to code something completely on your own. You'll learn a lot doing this and most likely will have to push yourself to go beyond your current skill.

3) Find a good code/text editor. Ones that will color your control structures, highlight your parenthesis, highlight variables and display line number will help so much. Personally, I suggest Notepad++ if you are on PC, if you are working on a Linux system in a lab, see if they have Vim installed.

4) Learn to comment/indent/make your code readable. I personally was so lazy on this at first. You can get away with it for small homework assignments, but once you hit something large and start having thousands of lines of code, you better hope you can sort through it all. And if you ever need to ask for help, you better make sure someone else that hasn't seen your code can quickly grasp what you are doing.

Best of luck.

[Purrrfect]

To program also requires a very methodical and systematic way of thinking and approaching your code. I think the points about just learning a good basic language (C++) and getting a feel for flow and design are spot-on. In high school I had basic>pascal>c++ and basic taught the general ideas, where as pascal and c++ taught more about control and syntax. But that was 3 years of stuff that you can learn in a few weeks-months of spending some quality time learning at your pace. You have to like coding to make a career out of it.

Also, if you enroll in a CS course, they will most likely have something set up with microsoft where you can get visual studio free from them. I got vs2k5 back in the spring I think, and you can also get a slimmed down express version of 2k8 from somewhere on the msdn I think.

[Octavious]

I read through some of the responses and they've all pretty much hit every aspect of what you would want to study, but I figured I would throw some tips out there from my experiences. I currently attend OSU studying Computer Science Engineering & Mathematics, because eventually I'd like to go into a field around Video Games (like every other random joe). The thing most people don't realize, as was mentioned, you'll need to know more than just how to program. You'll need to actually read material on the subject and actually understand the whys and hows about a language.

Also, depending on what you want to go into you might want to look at a strong masters program as well. I've talked with some friends currently interning around the industry that it will help you immensely to get your foot in the door. I chose to learn C/C++ first and focused primarily on furthering my knowledge about the language. I've also taken Java, but personally I like C/C++ more because of the freedom.

Don't get disappointed if you can't get an internship in the industry right away while you're in school. I've done internships for a few companies and C/C++ experience, is experience. Be persistent, study, and you'll succeed. Don't let the difficult problems get to you, seriously. In some of my math courses it gets to the point where you want to throw the book across the room. You'll want to have a very patient mind to study some of the harder parts.

As far as textbooks I would look in to getting; C Programming Langauge for C and The C++ Programming Language for C++. Those contain an immense amount of information that is very helpful when working and I've used them thoroughly in early classwork. On the downside, those books aren't too reader friendly for picking up the language. They're more/less a giant dictionary for each language. Practical C++ Programming is a pretty straightforward book that you can read and do the exercises to pickup the language.

If you've got an XBOX 360 and some motivation, you can try tooling around in C# and Microsoft's XNA. It allows you to use already built classes to create different games. I wouldn't say it really teaches you much. eginning XNA 2.0 Game Programming: From Novice to Professional is a semi-decent book I ended up borrowing from a friend that explains C# along with teaching you how to code different games with the XNA tools. It's kind of fun to mess around in and it will give you a decent understanding of the basics in game programming. A few of the XBOX Live arcade games were made in the same fashion, Dishwasher Samurai comes to mind.

Well since i'm out of ideas and physics is starting i've got to get going. Best of Luck and stay motivated!!

edit: ooo, almost forgot, Visual Studio 2008 Express, contains all express versions of Visual Studio, you'll use C# if you do the XNA thing i talked about. If you're a CS or CSE major on most universitys, check with MSDN Academic Alliance if you're able to. OSU gives us free Visual Studio Professional and some other random Microsoft products. Unfortunately we don't get any Adobe products, which means I still have to pay for them. :'(

[Deadhands]

I think there are a couple of ways to go about seeing if you enjoy it or have the knack for it. At the university we did our intro in Java then our upper division work in C. I'd recommend dicking around with the gnu C compiler and some basic C problems out of a text book. Pointers in C can be a bitch for someone new but I think trying to understand OO is equally as difficult for someone that is new to programming in general. I'd say try to install a linux/unix box at home and start dicking with that since it'll help broaden your experience. You want to basically get a grasp on programming basics like control flow, basic IO, functions/methods before you start to delve into the language specific features.

As for game programming it will suck and is probably one of the worst slices of the industry from my experience and the horror stories of my peers. Not to say that all game shops are bad but I believe the majority will work you to the bone and prey on your dream of "making games is cool" and use this to justify raping you at their leisure. However if you can survive it you can rack up decent gaming industry experience that looks good on a resume when you try to advance to a design position or a lead position. After your initial few years in industry I've found most places don't really care about what languages you know(though knowing the languages they are asking for is a plus) but they do care about what you've done, traits you've acquired, skills and such etc. Again from my experiences.

[-Zer0-]

DigiPen and UAT ftw, good luck to you guys!

[Maguspk]

While knowing the programming language is big, knowing basic programming fundamentals and logic is even more important. Once you have concepts down and learn how to break your problems down, you can pretty much learn the syntax and quirks of any other programming language without too much effort.

Notre Dame had a really unique way that they started people off in programming (or they used too, they canned this my senior year though). The first programming course that you took had all of the work done in SCHEME (later classes all used C++). If some of you are going "wtf is that" there is good reason because no one uses it in the real world at all. The whole point though was that they wanted you to get outside the usual thinking of C/C++/Java and force you to think more in concepts since SCHEME was unfimilar to everyone in the class. They have since changed this though and are now using C and I will forever have nightmares of SCHEME programming...

The point though is to realize coding is a lot more than learning the language of the code. If you are good about breaking down large puzzles and problems, you definitely have the apititude for it. Also you will need a ton of patience. I've always said that the coding is easy, debugging it is what makes you want to jump out of the tallest building you can find. I remember spending 5 hours one night trying to figure out what the hell I did wrong in my code and it turned out I did nothing more than misspell a variable. Be ready for long nights and lots of headaches, it just comes with the territory.

Some other advice:
1) Use tons of resources. Books and Google are your friends.

2) Try to code something completely on your own. You'll learn a lot doing this and most likely will have to push yourself to go beyond your current skill.

3) Find a good code/text editor. Ones that will color your control structures, highlight your parenthesis, highlight variables and display line number will help so much. Personally, I suggest Notepad++ if you are on PC, if you are working on a Linux system in a lab, see if they have Vim installed.

4) Learn to comment/indent/make your code readable. I personally was so lazy on this at first. You can get away with it for small homework assignments, but once you hit something large and start having thousands of lines of code, you better hope you can sort through it all. And if you ever need to ask for help, you better make sure someone else that hasn't seen your code can quickly grasp what you are doing.

Best of luck.

Wasn't Scheme developed from LISP? That sounds like a terrible introduction program to be honest. Just like LISP a missing Paren will probably mess up everything :/ Starting with something like C makes more sense I can see why they switched.

For a code editor just use Eclipse, it's awesome.

[The Blackrose]

For a code editor just use Eclipse, it's awesome.

Googling now... C++/C and Java, not bad. Will have to play around with it later.

VI, Emacs and Notepad++ are pretty much my holy trinity.

[Haelian]

They have since changed this though and are now using C and I will forever have nightmares of SCHEME programming...

A class called Software Design and Development was a requirement before you took any programming classes at my school, we had to use... flowcharts. And it was awful. I can see how it may have helped some people who weren't familiar with programming already but for me it was just torture.

As far as compilers and environments go, I always enjoyed Dev-C++ as a quick, simple and most importantly free C++ compiler. However Purrrfect and Octavious are right and you most likely will be using Microsoft Visual Studio in class and you probably will get a copy of the program with the text book you buy for the class (for C++ at least). So it's a good idea to to get used to MVS, especially if you're going to be using a newer version (i.e. 2008) where the terminology is a little different from other programs.

Good gosh, this is possibly the friendliest topic I've ever read on BG.

[Octavious]

VI, Emacs and Notepad++ are pretty much my holy trinity.

Oh man, <3 ViM. Also, if anyone wants to talk about an ass intro series, OSU does theirs based on 'RESOLVE/C++' which is like bastardized C++ with shitty modules. C++ itself isn't a bad introduction, C can be annoying as was mentioned with Pointers, but all in all I love C/C++ more than anything else. I love the fact it doesn't hold your hand through anything. As a recommendation to anyone if you haven't tried it, Eclipse has a C++ IDE and if you download MiniGW you can do development in Eclipse & Compile with MiniGW. I had to recently use subclipse and minigw for a group project and i actually never heard of subclipse so it was interesting. Ya got to love version control <3

[aurik]

MSVC Express is free and awesome, especially for a beginner.

[Chezo]

Love this thread, I'm in same boat as DJ kinda and these posts are very helpful.

I tried the art/animation thing at first, but like you I'm not that good. I love to draw and stuff but don't think I have enough skill right now to do much with it. Trying the CS thing now and I love it. Taking two Java classes at the moment and they are confusing at first but get a lot easier as you start to understand it.

[Aerin]

A thing to remember when getting into a game design, you'll need a good grasp of math and physics. Not really early on, but when you get into more advanced 2D and especially 3D stuff you'll need it. You don't have to start out with 2D stuff either, make something text based.

Probably one of my favorite quotes on C/C++

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.

[Maguspk]

Oh man, <3 ViM. Also, if anyone wants to talk about an ass intro series, OSU does theirs based on 'RESOLVE/C++' which is like bastardized C++ with shitty modules. C++ itself isn't a bad introduction, C can be annoying as was mentioned with Pointers, but all in all I love C/C++ more than anything else. I love the fact it doesn't hold your hand through anything. As a recommendation to anyone if you haven't tried it, Eclipse has a C++ IDE and if you download MiniGW you can do development in Eclipse & Compile with MiniGW. I had to recently use subclipse and minigw for a group project and i actually never heard of subclipse so it was interesting. Ya got to love version control <3

My friend showed me subclipse earlier this semester for a proposal we're working on and I immediately installed it. Really great to be able to commit and update code right through eclipse. I had previously only used a CVS on eclipse before, didn't know there was a subversion plugin for it. That's the great thing about eclipse, there's a plugin for everything.

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.

"...and Java locks the gun in a cabinet"...that's what my favorite professor always adds to the end of that popular statement.

[Pyree]

"...and Java locks the gun in a cabinet"...that's what my favorite professor always adds to the end of that popular statement.

Except Java is pretty much worthless in the commercial games industry. If you're set on video game programming, then don't learn Java first. No one uses Java for video games.

[aurik]

java is/was pretty big in the handset programming area -- cell phone games, etc.

[Maguspk]

Except Java is pretty much worthless in the commercial games industry. If you're set on video game programming, then don't learn Java first. No one uses Java for video games.

lol. Where did I say Java was a great language for programming games in? Was simply adding a funny little extra bit to the quote...

Learning Java isn't a bad thing for any programmer, your advice is poor.

[Aerin]

Java locks the gun (and the keys to the car) in a cabinet. XD

Both have their uses in different ways, and both suck in different ways.