Perhaps I''m nothing more than an insecure paranoid, but at the ripe-old age of 20, am I too old? It seems that every bit of material I read is from a 19-20yo who''s been doing OpenGL for years... I work as a professional programmer, but have only begun to see how exciting working w/ OpenGL could be. Is there anyone else who waited until "later" to begin? I guess I''m rather flabbergasted about only recently being ignorant to this world of game developers.

If you are too old to start, I''m ancient! Being a beginner at 27 is tough, especialy when I ask a question and a 14 year old thinks I''m dumb. But I have desire and that''s all I need. Go to knowledge as you would go to war. You know if you are to old to learn new tricks.

Neej, I know exactly how you feel. I''m 23 now, and before my senior year in high school, I didn''t know anything at about programming. I took a programming course in Pascal that year, and then decided that I liked it. In college, I was a mathematics major, and I also basically got a minor in computer science. I have a really good base of information about C/C++ *syntax, functional design, object oriented design, and data structures/algorithms* but I never took a course on graphics and stuff like that. I just decided that I''m gonna start learning graphics, but I keep putting off learning all those libraries!

Sometimes it does seem a little far fetched that these prepubescent programmers could be well versed in OpenGL. Myself, I''m glad that I didn''t bother with that stuff as a little one. Being a kid was good enough for me.

Take Care!

Req

dddDDDdddDDDdddDDDdddDDDddd

Big Brother is Watching

*grins*
Too old? Heck, you''ve finally reached the age of wisdom to ask the RIGHT questions!

I''m 23 ( nearly ) - in the first year of my 5-year stint trying to become a Doctor in Computer Science, and I''ve only been programming stuff with OpenGL/DirectX for a year or two;
What I find, is that once you have the basics of programming, and LEARNING things down, it doesn''t take long to grasp a new technology. Whenever I hear about something interesting, I pick up a book, grab a couple of tutorials, run through the example programs, and I can start write my own simple things.
Granted, I usually don''t memorise things, but if I keep the book next to me for reference, I can do a lot of stuff, it just takes a little longer than someone who does the same thing "professionally".
I did that just last month with Perl, to build a test CGI-script for my website, access control and the like. It was great fun. Now I don''t claim to be a Perl-programmer, but if you ask me to write something in Perl, I know I can do it with the books and references at my disposal;

Just my little rant



#pragma DWIM // Do What I Mean!
~ Mad Keith ~

If you think that you are having fun with it, then no you are not too old...

I am 25 myself, and I plan on learning 3D programming later. Right now I want to finish my 2D-Platform game which is the most fun I´ve ever had (well..sort of)



-- There IS something rotten in the state of Denmark --

>> Perhaps I'm nothing more than an insecure paranoid, but at the ripe-old age of 20, am I too old? <<

Yep, you're just paranoid You're never to old to start.

/. Muzzafarath
Visit my website, Mad House Software

Edited by - Muzzafarath on May 21, 2000 3:20:24 PM

Old , 20 , dont make me laugh . I''m 24yrs old . I made my first game when I was 11 on a spectrum ZX (2k memory , no hard drive blah blah ) , but unfortunately because my father passed on , and my family was very poor , I could not afford to own / buy a computer. So for years , I passed time reading programming magazines and designing my games on paper hoping someday I would own one. 11 months ago , after full filling family obligations , I got me a computer , Lamothe''s Teach yourself game programming in 21 days and made a game . Found out about directx bought dx books , now I am trying out programming under Beos oh yah and I am making my first 3d game for the contest .

I'm just a ghetto child trying to make , Mama wont pray for your baby ...........

Really, how could you be too old? Age really doesn''t matter at all does it really? I''ve only been programming for a little bit, I''m 18, but even if i had waited a couple more years, what difference would it make?
I can understand being too old to be a professional sportsperson or whatever, but not programming...

"Born of a Broken Man, but not a broken man."

Hey its still kinda satisfying to know im the oldest here. Im 31 in October. Im a product of the sixties (well 1969 anyway...) and started really learning game coding when i was 28.
Check out my website to see how far Ive got. Your never too old dude...

http://www.positech.co.uk

I''m 28, and I was 25 when I started relearning game programming (I did it for about 4 years starting at age 10, but obviously things have changed). I used to have the same concerns as you, but I''ve learned that age doesn''t matter, so don''t sweat it.