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Some help for a beginner

Started by igal_alkon Nov 20, 2005 at 9:50 AM 5 replies 1.4k views

Original Post

Nov 20, 2005 at 9:50 AM

first of all, i did read some beginners notes on the site :) i'll tell you a but about my situation, i live in israel, just finished surving in the army (3 years) and actually taking some math classes now. i started with computers since the age of 10... and always knew that this will be my direction in life, for a profession that is. recently i decided i wanna work in game development. when i was younger i programmed some stuff in VB, and later on i did some PHP programming for websites. tried to learn C++ (from books and internet) when i was about the age of 15-16 but that didn't go so well, i think back then i was just to little to understand some stuff, in english too. anyway as for the future i wanna learn high level programming in an academic level, think this is the best. meanwhile i though i can not just wate my time and start with some simple stuff first. i wanna start with somthing, question is what? should i learn some more basic programming lang. stumbled in Python, heared BF2 scripts are written in it. is that a good jumpstart for more advance langs? or maybe i just should start a bit with C, or C++ right now? any more advices you guys can give me? problem here in israel we have a really huge high-tech market here, but most of it is networking and hardware. the term "digital entertainment" just don't exist here, only small stuff like cable company game development and ICQ games and such. they do make some stuff for the army tho. recently i stumbled in a first course in game development that some collage offer here, but by looking on the stuff you learn, this is just not it, but that's a start, that's why i'm really thinking of learning the subject out sire, europe or us. and if you can advice my for some academic placed that teach "digital entertainment" that will be just great.

dave

Nov 20, 2005 at 9:58 AM

Hi bud,

Welcome to GameDev.

I would suggest get a book that is as useful as a reference to the language of C++, rather than a tutorial style book. The i would suggest just getting stuck in. You must have some ideas in your head.

If you want to get stuck in to something not so simple try these ideas:

- An object-oriented deck of cards.
- Client/Server programs written with Winsock.
- A program that emulates some of the functionality of programs like Winzip and Winrar, brings the files together into one.

Once you begin to feel comfortable with C++ you could pick up a book on a graphics API like DirectX, OpenGl or SDL. I would then try and make some very basic graphics applications.

Hope this helps,

ace

igal_alkon

Nov 20, 2005 at 10:19 AM

sure, anything help. i'll keep that in mind.
any books you can suggest?

dave

Nov 20, 2005 at 10:26 AM

Have you looked at the book suggestions here.

ace

igal_alkon

Nov 21, 2005 at 2:58 AM

well, i browsed thro the books on the site, found some the look as a good ones.

Beginning C++ Game Programming (is this one will be good to begin with?)
C++ Programming Fundamentals

References:
C++: The Complete Reference, Fourth Edition
The C++ Standard Library

any special recommandations on one of them?

TyroWorks

Nov 21, 2005 at 9:14 AM

Beginning C++ Game Programming is an excellent book. It will not teach you how to program graphics, but it will give you a great introduction to C++. What I really like about it was the way that everything was game related, unlike most boring C++ intros. After that book, I recommend Beginning Game Programming by Michael Morrison. It teaches some Win32, and by the end of the book, you will have made 6-7 small games using a framework that you will build throughout the book. Very cool!

pulpfist

Nov 21, 2005 at 9:57 AM

Hi

Since you are asking about Book titles I thought I would mention
the books I have found most useful.
By the way, I am a 33 year old computer engineer, I dont have much
professional experience, but I have been programming for about 12 years now
and read quite a few books on tha road.
These books are not necessary those that will get you into the industry of game programming, infact none of them are about this topic.
They are the best books I have read about programming C/C++ in general.

1. The C programming language.   Brian W. Kernighan   Dennis M. Ritchie2. Effective C++   50 speciffic ways to improve your programs and designs.   Scott Meyers3. Data stuctures and Algorithm analysis in C++   Mark Allen Weiss

The first book is the old and well known C-bible.
The second is not a beginners book and require some basic C++ knowledge.
I had to work with both the first and last of these books during my computer science degree.
The basic C++ book for our course was C++ How to program, by Deitel & Deitel.
An amazing block of information, very well organized, but MAYBE a bit too technical for a pure C++ beginner. Since you are not a "beginner", you might wanna check it out =)

With your experience you are probably familiar with some of them already.

[Edited by - pulpfist on November 21, 2005 10:57:21 AM]

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