I consider myself as a moderately experienced, newer shipped a full game but got five years of coding on my back and so..
I read a questions how to start a game programming, what language/ framework to use and I began to think how to mention/enumerate possible ways I do know about. So let me begin this what do I know and maybe someone wil expand that
(sorry for weak english)
1) there is a low level way, you could start by using such things like a opengl + c or directx + c++ or even assembly on some empty machine but be aware that it can take you at least 5 or maybe 10 years to do something this way
2) there is a big engine way (something like ue3 or unity) I newer was doing such thing so I can say much about this - I suppose howewer that learning such engine can take long time to (but I do not know if this is even the main problem with that )
3) there is for example javascript and browser game way - I was starting interesting myself with that when i saw some game sources under that (it was reasonably clear and short, so I was begining to sympathize with such way - maybe it is easier and quite good way of beginning the game programming (dont know)
4) there are clicks /gamemakers - newer saw one (totally nothing to say, but it seem to be not a programming way)
5) there are a couple of (reasonably) small frameworks devoted to game programming like allegro/sdl/sfml - I was looking at their documentations , Seem to be quite ok for me - you could use many languages here, Though I do know that for the begginers it can be hard - you must learn tu proper use the api and so and it is not so terribly easy (maybe javascript browser way is easier than that, and more suitable for the beginners)
6) there are also more esoteric frameworks suitable for programming games, for example a couple of basics (I saw some freebasic or what it was called, demos and it was running quite fckng good) There are also many less known languages where you can try write games too - it seem to me
quite interesting option for the open-minded begginer to learn some language that will stay unknown for most more advanced programmers - it could be like exotic adventure maybe
7,8,9,10 there may be other ways, If you can expand this, please contribute thanx
(fir)