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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.
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.
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.
I recommend it.
> (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.
It makes you go a bit CrAzY.
Good luck.
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.