First, let me say thank you for all of your responses. It's a pleasure to see genuine interest in learning to program C++, and in a willingness to help your fellow friends and forum posters.
Let me a address a few of your posts.
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Original post by Alpha_ProgDes:
It sounds like a great idea. Most likely for it to be somewhat coherent and organized the Staff are gonna have to give you your own forum. The Lounge won't cut it, I'm afraid.
That's a great idea. I'm not sure the process of setting that up, however. And then again, this is really for beginners, and I'd be partially afraid it would be missed by those who truly need it if we move it off into another section. Perhaps Fruny and the other moderators can voice their thoughts on that. Ultimately I think this "workshop" should go wherever it will be the most use.
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Original post by Bytecoder:
It seems to me that, if you have to tutor these people, perhaps you should be teaching them a better language than C++? Even in commercial game programming, any programmer worth his salt is going to try and spend as much time /away/ from C++ as possible.
I have my opinions about this, as I'm sure most people do. But I will keep them to myself. It's a very simple matter, really. Myself and anyone who is interested in participating will be donating some of our time to help people learn C++. For those people who feel C++ is not the correct language to be learning, well, don’t follow our workshop. Instead, focus your time learning the language you feel is the best choice for you. Its really not a matter for discussion. Do you walk into your high school, undergraduate, or graduate college courses on Java and tell the teacher they should be teaching Python instead? No. I didn't think so.
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Original post by Forevernoobie:
I’m interested and I have "C++ For Dummies 5th Edition" but I’m not sure If I fall into the tutor group yet. I just finished reading the book and I’m pretty inexperienced. Maybe I could be a tutor on the early chapters and a student on the later ones?
Alas, the line between student and teacher is never very clear in reality. Help where you feel you can genuinely be helpful, and sit back and learn when you feel you're starting to have to tip-toe to stay above water. [smile]
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Original post by dbzprogrammer:
I would be interested in helping teach this "course," but could I recommend the book, "Beginning C++ Game Programming." It seems to be much more noob friendly and have an outline of what to do.
Thank you for the suggestion. There seems to be quite a bit of discussion about which is the best(tm) book for the workshop. To be honest with you, I don’t particularly like "C++ for Dummies." I merely suggested it because it progresses very slowly, and the chapters are small - two very good things for a beginning programmer. With that being said, I'm going to evaluate a few books for this course, and then I'll update the post on the top with the "official" book for the workshop. Please, if anyone does have suggestions, feel free to post them here.
I do not, however, want to use a free online book. There are many reasons for this, but I'll just simply say no thanks. So if you know of a good introductory C++ book, that people can pick up at Borders, Barnes and Nobles, Amazon, etc...let me know.
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Original post by dbzprogrammer:
Perhaps two sessions? Those who are new to the language, and then one for those who just need a project to work on the sharpen their newly learned skills?
This too is not a bad idea. Ideally, we might eventually have these "workshops" running for beginning, intermediate, and advanced programmers...and perhaps for C++, C#, Java, Python, Lua, etc...There's no reason more willing individuals out there can't come forward to offer their own "workshops." For me, I've only got enough time to do one. And since I'm most educated in C++ and C#, I'll do C++ for now. As for why I'll do beginners first, well, because its the beginning of the workshop series. [lol]
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Original post by TomX:
This seems a good idea and controversy over which book to use is to be expected. The decision is in the hands of the teacher though.
Indeeeeeed. [smile] I'll take suggestions, but when I pick the "official" book for the workshop, the decision will be made. People wishing to offer their own workshops using a different textbook are welcome to do so, but I'd like to avoid splitting the workshops too thin if it can be avoided. Having a large group to ask questions and get answers from is what makes GD.net such a valuable place to learn.
Thanks again for all of your posts. I'll let everyone know the official textbook when its been decided. Please feel free to post your suggestions in the mean time.
Cheers!
