How do you 'learn' a programming language?

Dimitris Kokkaliaroglou · 2013-10-29T04:05:42

The topic header might be a bit ambiguous and rage-inducing, so let me clarify it for you before I end up with life threats I have only recently put my foot in the waters of game development, and it's mostly theoretical stuff about it. My story with programming -and desire to develop games- though has begun at least 6 years ago, in High School, in an extracurricular class, but that was mostly Pascal-based procedural algorithms. Lately, and after finding a few good men who would like to join me in my quest (and they are serious about it) to learn and finally develop a game or two, I started putting a more serious effort in it. Before you bash me about gathering a small team when even I can't stand on my feet, I have to say that it's just two friends (one is a coed of mine in Physics school) and it really helps keep the motivation up, since we insist on learning together and every time someone gets disappointed, another member of the trio keeps him enthusiastic. Now, on to the actual question. Since I have fallen flat on my face many times when I thought making a small game would be a piece of cake, I have gotten a more realistic picture of what is in store for us. So, I wanted to start from the basics: learn a programming language, and learn it really, really well. I know I can't master it in the next 5 or even 10 years, but I want to achieve a solid understanding of its elements. That language is C++. I know it's rough and low-level and I didn't pick it because 'it's what the pros use'; I actually love it with all its shortcomings, and I find its attention to detail to be parallel to game development itself. Thus, I shelled out some cash to pick a book after some brief research: that book is C++ Primer, 5th Edition. I have to say it is pretty readable and goes very deep where it is needed, so no complaints about the book itself. It's me who has the problem. Whenever I establish a good reading routine, some kind of OCD kicks in and all in all, I give up. What usually happens is that I read a lot of material, and even if I leave it for a couple of days because of college work, I believe I will forget everything and insist on starting all over again. And yeah, I do most of the problems in the book and write my own code. Also, whenever I get stuck at something I don't understand, I get disappointed. This pattern repeats and it is usually one or two month gaps that I don't do any work. The result? I end up actually having to re-read. This may be suited better for a psych forum, but before I visit the shrink with such a ridiculous problem, I wanted to ask you people. Which do you think is the best way to absorb the material of such a big book? Do you have to actually understand every single line to even consider stepping into a game development framework? Or can someone go through the book once, fully understand the basic concepts like OOP, and just hop up in the pages again if further reading is needed?

For Beginners

Started by loxagossnake October 16, 2013 07:09 PM

21 comments, last by Tutorial Doctor 10 years, 6 months ago

Tutorial Doctor

2,574

October 22, 2013 01:03 AM

Wow, this is a very interesting topic. You are very right Serapth. The internet can be a big distraction. When I moved, for the first few days I didn't have internet, and guess what? I READ A BOOK! hahaha. We didn't have cable either by the way.

I wasn't missing it as much as the rest of my family was. I think we can become anti-social that way. I mean, my brother texts me an imessage in the other room. haha.

Anyhow. I have been into game design for about 2 months (believe me, the time flies really. Seems like only a few weeks) and I have learned so much. And it is just like you say, Try, fail, iterate, succeed, repeat.

Amazing. hehe.

They call me the Tutorial Doctor.

jHaskell

1,856

October 22, 2013 05:03 PM

i haven't actually coded a single game yet or a single applicatin yet...

....

Any suggestions on what I should do next?

Writing code is what you need to start doing. Lots of it. If you haven't created a single application yet, then you really haven't learned nearly as much as you may think you have. Reading books/tutorials and watching videos has its value, but it's nowhere near as valuable as writing code. The only path to becoming a proficient programmer is to write code. All other activities only provide guidance and structure to that singular critical activity. For every hour you spend on those supporting activities you should spend an absolute minimum of two hours writing code, 5+ hours would be even better. The person that spends 90% of their time writing code and 10% of their time 'learning' how to write code will be a far better programmer than the person that spends 10% of their time writing code and 90% of their time 'learning' how to write code.

Tutorial Doctor

2,574

October 29, 2013 04:05 AM

Yeah, that's true jHaskell. I kept going from video to video for tutorials, and also looking for the best way to learn. From all of those videos I didn't find one person who could make it simple for me. But what I learned bits and pieces from those videos enough to write my own tutorial on programming. And I made it layman's terms. It turns out that programming is not hard at all, and just about anyone can do it. Whether or not you do it well is another story (not everyone perfects their craft).

Sitting at a computer and typing code in an IDE and seeing the result in a console window was not the ideal way for me to learn programming (boring), so I searched for a good game engine that would let me type code and test it visually. Was looking at a Unity 3d video when I saw another engine in the playlist. Tried out the video, went to the website, downloaded it, and ever since I have been doing very well as far as programming goes.

The engine uses LUA for scripting, but C++ as the engine code. I have not found any good help on C++ yet, but I understand concepts well enough I know I can do it. The syntax just gets me.

I would suggest that a person new to programming games get a good game engine rather than an IDE, and code in that. Even 3D software like Maya or Blender have scripting. Ruby is pretty easy also (used for Google Sketchup).

I started with Python. It is easy to cross to a new language once you have basic programming concepts down. All you have to do next is learn the syntax of the language.

Even then, once you get a language down, you have to learn the API's and stuff (figuring out how someone else's code works) which is the most annoying part for me.

For the original poster: I know I sound like a programmer dude, but I am really new to this, and have been learning a lot in a short amount of time. Just for reference, I found that game engine about 2 months ago (time flies) and so far I have written over 500 lines of code (neat code).

It's not hard, and doesn't have to take long.

They call me the Tutorial Doctor.

How do you 'learn' a programming language?

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How do you 'learn' a programming language?

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