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"Hello, World - My route to becoming a game developer"

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Sun 24/08/03 at 23:11
Regular
Posts: 787
I've been itching to get into games development for years, ever since I wrote my first BASIC programs on the ZX81 back in the early '80s. (OK, so I typed 9999 line program listings from Sinclair magazine then wondered why they didn't work).

25 years later and I've decided to finally stop pfaffing around with silly things like 'careers', 'family' and other non-essential things, and taken my first steps into becoming a 'game developer'.

My first port of call was here: http://www.gamedev.net/reference/start_here/

Basically a website devoted to everything you need to know about getting started, what tools you need, and how to go about it. I've never been good at learning from home, so decided to take a more structured route.

So I'm doing the following:

a) Access to Computing course, 1 year, 16 hours a week, enough to get me into University.
b) BSc in either Software Engineering or Computer Science OR something else computer releated, there's loads of degreees now so I'm still deciding which one is the best to go for if I want to go on and develop games in later years.
c) Learn a programming language.

Step c) is the fun one :) I've decided to go ahead and learn C, as it's a good basis from which to later learn C++ and Java which will probably come along in whichever degree course I finally end up on.

So I went and bought Microsoft's Visual C++ .NET 2003 edition, and after several hours of configuring and installing finally produced my first ever C progam. And yes, it was helloworld.c (ok, it was helloworld.cpp but that's a technicality).

For anyone thinking of learning to program, Microsoft's Visual C++ .NET 2003 seems to have everything you'll ever need, and probably a great deal of stuff you'll never use as well. The only drawback I can see (apart from the whopping 3 Gigs it takes up on my hard-drive), is that it does everything the Windows way. But I figure as long as I remember it's 'just a compiler' for now, I won't get too brainwashed.

Today: "Hello, World!"
Tomorrow: Something a bit more useful, hopefully...

More, as it happens, later.
Tue 26/08/03 at 11:23
Regular
"bing bang bong"
Posts: 3,040
I would not recommend doing a University course. I just finished my degree and I want to go into games development, but rapidly advancing is the realisation that I'm probably £16K in debt for absolutely nothing, as a degree doesn't count for much, only skills do. I would say you're on the right track - home learning is tough, but probably the best way to go. Programming in C++ is a lesson in frustration, I would advise getting yourself into a forum community which can help you out, otherwise you'll spend days on stupidly simple problems because you don't know how things work. Ask questions on here, there are a couple of us who write C++, but I would register for other forums as well.

Having said that I haven't, I'm too lazy :O/

Books help as well, my C++ books are okay but they're not brilliant, I would take UKs advice if he's so sure his book is a winner.
Tue 26/08/03 at 03:55
"I love yo... lamp."
Posts: 19,577
I use Borland C++ Builder. Quite good I think. It came on a PC Format cover disc or something like that. Always done me fine.

I have not finished it ever, but I found one very good book was Hands On C++ by Alistair Stewart.

C and c++ are very different languages to Java. But other than mobile phone games you don't really use Java for games.

Stick in with it. You'll enjoy it once you start getting the hang of it.
Mon 25/08/03 at 02:25
Posts: 2,131
Dev C++ offers a good alternative, dressing up the gcc compiler with a IDE environment. Doesn't do stuff the "Windows" way, and is free too.

I recommend it.
Mon 25/08/03 at 02:08
Regular
"relocated"
Posts: 2,833
FantasyMeister wrote:
> (OK, so I typed 9999 line program listings from Sinclair magazine
> then wondered why they didn't work).

All my repressed childhood memories just came back in a horrible frustrating flood. "990 GOTO....hell, you infernal machine!"

The best programming book in the world, by the way, is Learning to Program in C++ by Steve Heller. I recommend it to all my friends, even when they're asking my advice on completely unrelated matters.
Sun 24/08/03 at 23:46
Regular
"+34 Intellect"
Posts: 21,334
Ha! I cant remember how many time i had to type "Hello world" strings while doing Java.

It makes you go a bit CrAzY.
Sun 24/08/03 at 23:20
Regular
"Chavez, just hush.."
Posts: 11,080
Gonna be hard to learn from the very basics but if you try hard enough you can easily learn it.

Good luck.
Sun 24/08/03 at 23:11
Regular
"Copyright: FM Inc."
Posts: 10,338
I've been itching to get into games development for years, ever since I wrote my first BASIC programs on the ZX81 back in the early '80s. (OK, so I typed 9999 line program listings from Sinclair magazine then wondered why they didn't work).

25 years later and I've decided to finally stop pfaffing around with silly things like 'careers', 'family' and other non-essential things, and taken my first steps into becoming a 'game developer'.

My first port of call was here: http://www.gamedev.net/reference/start_here/

Basically a website devoted to everything you need to know about getting started, what tools you need, and how to go about it. I've never been good at learning from home, so decided to take a more structured route.

So I'm doing the following:

a) Access to Computing course, 1 year, 16 hours a week, enough to get me into University.
b) BSc in either Software Engineering or Computer Science OR something else computer releated, there's loads of degreees now so I'm still deciding which one is the best to go for if I want to go on and develop games in later years.
c) Learn a programming language.

Step c) is the fun one :) I've decided to go ahead and learn C, as it's a good basis from which to later learn C++ and Java which will probably come along in whichever degree course I finally end up on.

So I went and bought Microsoft's Visual C++ .NET 2003 edition, and after several hours of configuring and installing finally produced my first ever C progam. And yes, it was helloworld.c (ok, it was helloworld.cpp but that's a technicality).

For anyone thinking of learning to program, Microsoft's Visual C++ .NET 2003 seems to have everything you'll ever need, and probably a great deal of stuff you'll never use as well. The only drawback I can see (apart from the whopping 3 Gigs it takes up on my hard-drive), is that it does everything the Windows way. But I figure as long as I remember it's 'just a compiler' for now, I won't get too brainwashed.

Today: "Hello, World!"
Tomorrow: Something a bit more useful, hopefully...

More, as it happens, later.

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