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I would be interested to know if anyone actually got anything out of those stupid computeach people I see advertised on TV. Those adverts really irritate me.

There are plenty of opinions on Computeach on the net. Many of them bad but perhaps not all are totally justified. I have had 1st hand experience of them (that's where I learnt Pascal from) and while I am the first to admit that I didn't put in the required effort at that time of my life, I would say that in my opinion they are very badly organised and to take what they say with a pinch of salt. They are a business and they exist for only one reason -to sell their courses.


Well I reckon the only way forward for me is to do a degree in computer science. I shall have to do that via a correspondence/distant learning course. I like the look of the Open University degrees as they are modular and from what I have read on their site it looks like you can fund it on a module by module basis (each module seems to cost approx £300 from memory).

It also appears that I won't get anywhere unless I can get my foot in the door and sooner rather than later. Would a job on an IT helpdesk be one way to achieve this? That's if I can find a company willing to hire me with no qualifications yet. I suspect I would need something like A+ to land a job in technical support.

Keep the replies coming people, it is very much appreciated -especially from those of you involved in the hiring side of IT.

I'm 31 and getting my CS degree after all these years. I have an associates' degree in electronic engineering technology to fall back on if I need to. I learned to program in Assembly on the C64 and later on the Amiga 1200. What I'm going try to get into is SPE programming for the CELL processor. It probably won't be game programming since I stink at vector math but I won't rule out being a programmer as a whole.

It sounds to me like you didn't get very deep into programming your Vic 20 or anything deeper with Pascal. According to the Wiki on DevMaster.net Pascal is a dead language (not suitable for writing games). After having an Amiga for many years I'm familiar with the way graphics acceleration works although I'm thankful that OpenGL does all the 3D stuff for me.

What's going to kill you is trying to figure out object-oriented programming after having been into structured and imperitive programming all these years. The question isn't whether or not you can do it. The question is WILL you do it after sitting idle all these years. Game programming is hard work and it is more competitive than regular programming.

If I were you, I'd get familiar with object-oriented programming before you pass judgement on yourself as a programmer. Don't get hung up on how long it has taken you. Just don't give up your day job in the process. And don't rule out regular programming for a profession just becuase you like games.

If you want to work with C++ go ahead and work with it. Assuming you got really familiar with linked structures under Pascal (trees, lists, etc.) you should be able to get into it without too much hassle. Watch for memory leaks if you use the standard template library (and you'll definitely want to use it for the amount of work it saves you).

As for the CS degree. Don't waste money on correspondance courses. If you can go part time to get a degree than do that. Maybe you can get some of your general education credits to transfer in the process of applying. See if your college has a club for nontraditional students since they'll be able to help you with some of the transitions from being out of the loop for so long.

As for PaulCoyote's comments about offshore jobs, some of them are coming back on-shore due to programmers writing poorly documented code that couldn't be easily maintained. Learning to program so it works is one thing. Learning to program so that somebody else can make it work and improve on it is another.

Game writing isn't for the one-man team anymore. Game companies have at least 5 and probably more like 20-50 people working on each game.

There are infinite amount of resources on the internet regarding C++.
There are many tutorials available for free at
www.codeproject.com

Also, you might want to learn object oriented programming.
It is definately useful.
I have been doing structural programming for 2 months last year,
and looking back at my code last year i was disgusted,
I couldn't maintain it any longer.

oop opens up a new way to look at programming. ( I'm not all that great it in, but I'm already seeing the benefits of maintaining the code )
Here's a fabulous link on oop http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/ObjC.pdf#search='The ObjectiveC Programming Language pdf'

Definately look through this. It is better than any oop book that I have skimmed through. ( though it's not c++ it drills in the concepts of oop, i only read the first 30 pages, but i now thoroughly understand what an interface is, and why encapsulation is so important.

edit: and it's never too old.
my father is a retired electrian and he taught himself how to html / dynamic &#106avascript / flash / photoshop himself.
he's older than you and more than 90% of the people on this forum, way older.. so let's spend more time on learning rather wasting time on if we're too old or not before my dad catches up!

Like everything in life you need only two things to succeed: The desire, and the proper tools. Bottom line is I'm 29 years old, I'm a highschool drop out, father of 4 kids, and dead broke. You know what? I'm going to be a professional game developer. I can use any of the things I've mentioned as an excuse as to why I'll never make it, or I can throw that stuff out the window and make it happen.

There are stories everyday about people that are 30-40 years older than both of us doing amazing things. While I may never climb rushmoore, or run a marathon, I WILL program games and get paid for it. This is something that nobody can answer for you, it's not something that can be told. You just have to know you're going to do it, then put every fiber of your being into it.

If this is something you want, get off your ass and stop asking permission. I mean that in the absolute most supportive way possible. Best of luck to you, and I hope to see you down the road!

Some great responses here people. Thanks :D

I definitely want to do this programming thing and turn it into a career so I will give it my best shot. If it doesn't happen then at least I will have a great hobby, but I shall give it a proper go and see what happens. I shall try to get onto a degree level course no matter what happens, although I doubt very much I will be able to do one part time -let alone fulltime. It will have to be a modular distance learning degree. In the meantime I shall continue working my way through C++ books & tutorials as I would want to have as a reasonable foundation in at least one programming language before undertaking any coursework. I'd hate to feel I was at the bottom of the class as well as being twice the age of my fellow students!

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chSkiz: You aren't old until you replace your dreams with regrets

hehe I've been doing plenty of the regret thing lately (wish I'd stuck with the programming all those years ago, wish I'd not done my 1st degree with no goal in mind other than to get drunk in the students union etc) but I think that's to be expected when life's doors start to close on you...

Anyway thanks again people, you have given me some cause for optimism plus some useful home truths/reality to consider as well.

So some of you are saying I should quit as I'm 40... 41 now and am just startig to work on creating/devloping games. I don't buy it but hey what do I know..