I am satisfied with the pace of the program so far, I will appreciate the full week when we get to some of the later chapters. So far we are covering introductory material that I believe many of the people who frequent GameDev.net have been able to get through. When we get to pointers and such I think there will be a growing interest. This has been great so far, and it is a real confidence boost knowing that there are professionals able to answer questions. The book is a great value at $22 and was a good choice. I know that JWalsh and Fruny have put a lot of work into this and I want to make sure that they know this is being appreciated.

Something I would like to see, and this may be down the road, is how some of the things covered in these chapters is applicable to game design. Some real world examples or even a design related story relating to some part of the material could be inspiring. Also, at what point we should be trying to tackle a Tetris clone or tic-tac-toe. A weekly programming challenge, such as developing a small program that would use what we have learned in the current and previous chapters, may be fun and a good learning exercise.

Quote:Original post by Gambler
Something I would like to see, and this may be down the road, is how some of the things covered in these chapters is applicable to game design. Some real world examples or even a design related story relating to some part of the material could be inspiring. Also, at what point we should be trying to tackle a Tetris clone or tic-tac-toe. A weekly programming challenge, such as developing a small program that would use what we have learned in the current and previous chapters, may be fun and a good learning exercise.

I second everything you said. I have already read the book (before the workshop started... grr!), and I know that I read the first 4 chapters in around 1-2 days. That could be any of 3 things: 1. Those chapters were very small. 2. I already knew that portion of C++. 3. They were easy topics.

However I do know that the last week was a killer, and I had particular problems with the end-of-week summaries (not so much the first week, mainly 2 and 3).

But, for the difficult topics, maybe a link to an article or two that are related to the content (e.g. OO information, polymorphism, pointers, OO design) would be extremely helpful.

And information about what kind of programs could be made to test the knowledge, and game programming specific concepts would be exellent to know, even now after I've finished the book.

Good work getting it organised!

Quote:Original post by Fruny
Is the workshop helpful? Are we going too fast? Too slow?
Do you find your questions fully answered? Are the answers detailed enough?
Are the answers too complex - particularly when dealing with topics that won't be studied until later?
Have you encountered problems with the book that the tutors haven't corrected?

Is there anything you think we should do to improve this forum?

The workshop is a great idea. Learning programming or any other science is easier to do with a teacher, other students and a schedule. I wanted to get in programming for at least two years. The farthest I had gone was input/output/if statements in Python. This workshop motivates me and I think its safe to say I will finish the book and go beyond, something I might have not done on my own ( at least until i start my degree ). One chapter per weeks seems good to me. You cant really go any slower. If you are learning faster well you can read more than one chapters per week... I had a bit more time this week so I was able to finish chapter 5 and I am now halfway throught chapter 6. Lets say I finish chapter 8 2 weeks before the workshop gets there, well it will be an opportunity to review my learnings and consolidate it when you get there. I read a lot of english but I do not write that often so as a plus, I get to train my english skills :) ( Obviously, its not my first language ).

When I ask a question I dont think its humanly possible to answer faster and to be more detailled ;) . Thought I must say I usually skip the [advanced] [/advanced] brackets. ( see Oluseyi advanced post on chapter 5, sorry but you lost me after the first sentence ).

Thanks to Gamedev.net, jwalsh, all the tutors and the people who kindly answers my questions on the forums :)

[Edited by - Myotis on July 1, 2006 3:05:16 PM]

This is an excellent forum and I'm glad it exists. I'm using this forum but I'm working at my own pace. As for the decline in viewings and posts, remember this is SUMMERTIME!! Guys are just coming off of school and finals, people are taking time off the job. There are a lot more activites outdoors than in the fall/winter.

It's not that people aren't interrested but the above factors are significant reasons for the seeming decline. Still there are those like me who will appreciate there is a forum like this that we can go to a week, a month or two from now to get expert help on learning c++. Keep up the good work!

I wish I had this forum 6 years ago when I used the 2nd edition of this book to learn C++ in summer school...

jwalsh I think you chose an excellent book. Its the only book I recommend to my friends who have never programmed, and I have plenty of different ones in my collection.

I just wish I would have seen this forum sooner... I only noticed it because I accidently scrolled to the bottom of the Forums list. I think there should be a sticky in the general programming section for this...

Im going to see if I can find the programming problems I was given in summer school when I learned from this book. If I find them Ill pass them on here so others following this book can give them a wack in addition to the ones jwalsh and the forum admins are supplying...

Good luck to all of you following this book and Ill make plans to start lurking around here and put in my 2 cents here and there to help out!

I could not afford the book.

First, I think this Workshop is a brilliant idea. A huge thanks to J. Walsh and all the tutors (and all the others who are posting).

I have been reading these threads, as well as the 2nd edition of the book that's online, from the beginning. Before the Workshop began I wasn't sure whether or not it was for me, as I already had some amount of programming experience (mainly from Python and Java).

After the first weeks I've decided to jump in to be an active participant. My reason for this is the quality and depth of the replies given by the tutors. What little I know of programming I've learned myself by reading couple of beginner's books (and doing Python with Alex Martelli's Python in a Nutshell by my side) and I'm convinced that having some sort of guidance or tutoring will help me to fulfil especially the theoretical gaps I'm sure to have.

So I'll be following the course with the outdated online version of the book, and my Finnish C++ book which appears to be up to date (based on the usage of header files, and the fact it claims to follow the ANSI standard). It also appears to be deeper than the actual course book, so I think I can ask some clarifications later when the Workshop reaches certain topics.

Then some actual feedback and suggestions:

It would be great to have some larger exercises during the Workshop, or at least a final project after the whole book is done - a sort of a final exam for us to get our "degree" :)

Regarding the critique that the course is moving too slow; I know it's quite difficult to come up with good exercises but I believe that trying to give few (or even one) trickier exercise each week would help to keep up the interest of those who think the pace is too slow.

Perhaps some of the advanced but important topics could be given a thread of their own, so that they'd be easier to find after few more weeks, or at least an in depth FAQ could be made out of some of the explanations provided.

I'd agree with the idea of a FAQ section. For instance, I've been building a glossary, explaining such as Interface, Implementation, Scope, Block, the format of various declarations and definitions etc.

I'm sure there are loads of common questions that go through folks' minds. I know it would be a big task to collate them and respond to them but I wonder if one of the tutors might be willing to take on the responsibility of having them e-mailed to them? I'd suggest that topics would be such that they could be answered in a few sentences at most, otherwise the questions and responses might warrant a place in the appropriate weekly section.