Welcome to the C++ Workshop Tutor List!
For information on the C++ Workshop, please go here. Introduction: Over the duration of the 21 weeks of the C++ Workshop there will be many questions asked and (hopefully) many questions answered. Unfortunately, not all answers are created equally. People tend to respond to questions for a number of reasons, not all of which are entirely self-less, and can sometimes even be dangerous to the learning process of those trying to absorb the information. Keep in mind that although your peers on the forum may be anxious and excited to help you, many of them may be learning the information for themselves, and not in a position to claim mastery of the subject. For this reason we’ve decided to establish a list of people we feel to be qualified tutors. People on our list are people we feel have attained a level of mastery such that their answers can generally be accepted as fact. If a person on the below list has answered one of your questions, you can feel relatively secure that the answers they are providing are correct, and can be trusted. With that in mind, writing effective C++ code is both an art and a science. Like any art, some parts of programming are subjective, style based, and should be relegated to people’s opinions. As a result, it is not uncommon for even experts or masters of the subject to disagree on what the “correct” answer is. If this occurs, just keep in mind that it’s entirely possible that BOTH are correct. For your particular purpose, either go with the answer most popular amongst the tutors, or apply the answers to the information you already know and try and determine for yourself which answer seems most appropriate. List of Tutors: Here is the list of people recognized by this workshop as official tutors.- Jeromy L. Walsh (jwalsh) Jeromy began learning C/C++ in 1992/93 at the age of 12 when he picked up a book on the subject so he could begin making his own games. Shortly after learning to program he joined several MUDs as an engine coder using a scripting language called LP-C. He continued to develop his skills over the next 6 years and by 18 was writing 3D maze generators and wolfenstien clones. In 2002 Jeromy graduated from the University of Missouri – Rolla with a BSc. in Computer Science and a BSc. in Psychology. During his time at the university he worked as a Software Engineer for the U.S. Department of The Interior. After graduation Jeromy took a job with Liquid Entertainment where he worked on the camera system, minimap, and was the sole developer of the world editor for Lord of The Rings: War of The Ring. Afterwards he began development on the world editor and terrain system for Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard, but left Liquid before completion. Next, Jeromy worked as the Sr. Tools Programmer for Pandemic Studios’ NextGen tools department. While there he architected and engineered their nextgen world editor, worked on localization tools, created exporters for their 3rd party modeling packages, and created the Havok plugin for Softimage|XSI, which was later purchased by Havok. Jeromy earned credits on Star Wars Battlefront and Mercenaries while at Pandemic. Today Jeromy is the Technical Director of his own software company which he hopes will earn him enough residual income that he can start his own game company.
- Richard J. Fine (superpig) Richard started programming in ACORN Basic at age 4. He started C++ at around age 13, after having done several years of C. To date, he has worked with too many languages to name, including languages such as Haskell, Hypertalk, Erlang, and Pascal. At age 18, Richard got a job as a Junior Programmer for Rebellion and is credited on "Sniper Elite" (PS2, PC, Xbox) and "Rogue Trooper" (PS2, PC, Xbox). Leaving Rebellion after a little over a year, Richard is now a first-year undergraduate student studying Computation at the University of Oxford, and in his spare time, manages the GameDev.net software team.
- David Neubelt (ph33r) David started programming in QBASIC at the age of 9, and only a few years later he wrote his own a 2d/3d raycaster. By the age of 15 he was working at a Computer Programming camp teaching younger kids C. At the age of 17 he won his state computer science programming competition and received a partial scholarship. During the time he was getting his A.S degree in Computer Science from UCONN he worked as an application programmer in C++ at Multi-Seals. He finished up his B.S. degree in Game Development from Full Sail. Quickly entering the industry, he spent a year working on his first credited title Daxter which quickly became the best selling PSP game to date. Dave moved from the game play team to the engine team where he works on the next engine for a future title. In his spare time outside of work he develops his own 3d engine and contributes to different 3d graphics forums.
- Sean P. Henley (Sr_Guapo) Sean began programming in Q-BASIC in 1996. A year later, he received a copy of Visual Basic 6 and self-taught himself the intricacies of the language as well as using DirectX 8 for 3D graphics. He began learning C++ in 1999 and has been doing his work almost exclusively with it for the last 4 years. He has also experimented with several other languages, such as VB.NET, C#, Python, LISP, and Java. He has just finished his first year at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute studying Computer and Systems Engineering and Computer Science. Most of Sean's university work has been related to embedded programming (straight C) and various data structures (C++). In his free time, Sean prefers working on his various pet game projects, including a scene graph implementation and a flexible resource manager. He has worked with DirectX in its various forms for almost 8 years, but he has a learning knowledge of OpenGL/SDL as well.
- Stephen Roantree (Stephen R) Started learning to program at age 11, in 1998, with C++. No qualifications, but many years of experience using the language. Has finished several small games. Can also use Java, Visual Basic, C#, D, ASP, PHP, etc., the usual suspects. Starting college for computer science in October of this year.
- Ben Dilts (beandog) Ben began programming during elementary school in BASIC, and moved on to C++ in 1998 at age 13. Not too long after, he discovered and joined GDNet. He has finished several game projects in C++, including a Worms clone, a space shooter, a networked top-down-view shooter, and an RTS. He has worked professionally as a non-game C++ programmer (among other languages) since age 17 for Estari, Inc; eFileCabinet, LLC; and now as CTO of Zane Benefits LLC.
