hello all ý have just read geoff howland's excellent and realistic article on where to begin first..So he recommends to start with making a tetris clone and grow my way up...this is a really applicable and reasonable piece of advice.. So could you please tell me which tools will be necessary in producing a tetris clone? ý have a basic understanding of C++..namely no problem in picking a computer language....but ý will draw my path according to your advices..Tell me please the first step and so on...Naturally,tetris experienced people are more welcome..

HellRizzer on these forums has released a tetris tutorial series, it can be found here - have fun!

Since I personally don't like graphics programming much, I actually created my Tetris-clone with just C, nothing more required. That is, you -could- start off by just creating the game-logic and draw everything up in ASCII. For some people this is a good thing, why? Because if you actually manage to create a game, then you will want to learn something you might not like as much properly (SDL, OpenGL, DirectX..), as there is a very good reason (your "almost" finished game) why to do so. Then just switch the graphics from ASCII to whatever.. :)
That's just a suggestion, sometimes it might be a good idea, sometimes it might not, depending on your priorities :)