Hey, first:
Don''t get down because these problems, they happen everytime, look at my situation:
I''m on my 16 and I program since 12 (not games, i started to program games 2 years ago), I''m brazilian, so I know english but not 100 % and you know that everything in programming is in English, books here is a shit, they take about 2 months to come and are expensive because the transportation, etc... I don''t have money to get in a course of C++ (its really expensive) and I have the school that takes 70 % of my free time, so I program (I don''t know, is it program or programm ?) on some afternoons and on the weekends, and I have been getting so many problems with my library fo DirectX Game Progrmming that I''m doing.
I don''t care so much about the errors, when I get one, I just take something to eat, or watch TV, or rellax and think with fresh head on the problem and... I usually get to answer ! When not, I put a question here and when they answer I justa get the one whoresolves my problem. Certain time a gave my code to an programmer who answered to me and he got the solution... Don''t care so much to the walls, because when you get where you want, you probably will look backward and say:
"Man, it looked so hard, but it''s so easy now ! What were I thinking about ?"
And it will be like a spirit state, like Nirvana or Zen, or something like that... You will feel like you''re the smartest man in the world !!! You can trust me !!! I feel the same...
Get up your head, take aminute to think and get to point...

About teachers and classes: It really depends on what works best for you. I find that the classroom environment really pushes me to do more, since it''s no longer that I only want to do it; I HAVE to do the assignment to get a good grade. In addition, I like a good book at my side for reference, and a wise overseer for a teacher can''t hurt.

About Carmack: Bah, forget Carmack! Hehe...I don''t see why all of you want to become the next Carmack; I want to be the one to blow him out of the water. Many of you mentioned Meier and others...That''s perfectly respectable, but he wasn''t a coder at all...Hmm...Btw I know a guy who used to eat lunch with Sid Meier, hehe...
As for Carmack being a genius, I suppose he was, but really anyone can make a bsp-based engine if they know enough about it...

About 2D/3D: The fact is that a good 3D game is much more difficult to make than a good 2D game, and is a simulation more alike with reality. I say that when you compare an awesome 3D game and an awesome 2D game, the awesome 3D game would get more respect from me, since it was likely much more difficult to make...

About genetics: ? How did this one come up? It should be obvious to everyone whether they have an innate ability to program, and if they do, they should nurture it...If you have an innate ability for ANYTHING you should probably develop it to its full potential...Whether this sort of thing is genetic or not would be hard to prove, and I''m sure that to a certain extent, it is. However, even if the ''genetics'' are against you, you can always overcome. It''s just an example of mind over matter...

Basically, keep plugging away. If you want to make it, you WILL - it''s only a matter of time. It''s always hardest to get new things working, but when they are, you can do all sorts of things with them. As soon as you get your bitmaps working, you''ll be able to do more and more with it. When you make your first awesome game and blast off to stardom, think of us little people, will ya? Hehe...Good Luck, and remember that you are only defeated when you accept defeat.

- Ah, to write code; to compose electrical music, to manipulate the bits that make up everything...such is our chosen line of work. And for a game, no less!

Man! Im 18! and I dont even have the slightest clue on how to display a bitmap! I just learned how to loop simple code 5 minutes ago!

So relax!

Its all fun and games till
someone gets pregnant.

Well my problem was that I didn't have any motivation for school. I was happy just to become a plumber or something. I never took my talents for computers seriously. Until I started programming, and wanting to make games. I realised that only Highly educated people have a chance now.
I know that I am fairly intelligent, but I was lazy. I have now decided to repeat my last two years of high school again. And not muck it up this time. I want to get a CS.
I just wish I had found my love for programming a few years ago. The I would of found my motivation.

- David


Edited by - bully on 2/27/00 10:44:37 PM

I am also lazy, extermely lazy, but I am very motivated for programming games, a little too much, and thats why Im doing shitty in school, caus when I get home I dont do my homework, I program, All through the weakend I program. I get fine test grades(inless they require studying), and I really lack motavation in school, well, thats my problem, oh and sorry for not reading the question

My recommendation is to ask a lot of questions and look at a lot of example code. And learn how to read manuals. Whenever I asked my father for help his first response was, "Did you read the manual?" The answer is often there. (I guess today it''s learn how to look stuff up in help files )

I learned most of my programming on boards similar to this one on Compuserve. And by reading lots of magazines. And downloading megabytes of example code (that was a lot back then, over 2400 baud modems.) Today, there are several good books on game programming. The Game Programming Gurus book mentioned earlier is a good one, though a litte behind the times. It''ll teach good techniques and organization, even if not all the actual code is directly applicable.

It''ll come a little bit at a time. And you''ll probably end up specializing in two or three areas. You may become good at graphics, networking, language design, AI, UI design, database design or physics, etc. There''s some overlap in all of those, and you should be familiar with most of them, but few people are expert in all of them.

On your error message, have you learned how to run your program in a debugger? In most debuggers, when you hit that error you''re given an opportunity to drop to the line of code that caused the exception. From there, you can look at the preceding code, examine variables, or go back up the stack and look at the variables in the routines that called the offending line.

In the simplest terms, you''ve done something similar to this:

char * foo;

... some intervening code, none of which ever sets foo ...

memcpy(foo, bar, someSize);

Since foo is pointing at some random location in memory the CPU recognizes that it''s illegal and raises the exception.

There are two kinds of creatures in the world: consumers and producers. It´s up to you to choose who you are! Make games or consume games, listen to music or compose music etc. I think that almost everyone can generate something orginal and interesting. Improve your talent and good luck with your programming career!

Gandalf the White

It seems like we all share this problem, don''t we?
I''ve been programming (games mostly) for about 2 years now, I''m 17 yrs old, and I think I soon have to decide what I want to continiue studying, but I''ve got no idea.
No matter how much fun it is programming, all I have to do is visit a forum like this and I find that I''m really below average (aren''t we all?)

But I say that as long as it''s fun to you, you should keep on doing it and if this is what you want to do, then let no one stop you (that would be parents and relatives that always say: "and what are you up to then, sitting on your FAT ASS all day long as usual?")

Daniel Netz, Sentinel Design

"I'm not stupid, I'm from Sweden" - Unknown

Spiffman!

quote: No matter how much fun it is programming, all I have to do is visit a forum like this and I find that I''m really below average (aren''t we all?)

I''m not below average!

*grins* hehe so that was nasty, sorry.. But I''m making a point. I''m not below average NOW. I''m about to turn 23 this year, and started thinking about game programming somewhere around 18, when my extent of programming knowledge just about grasped the concept of GoSub statements in quickbasic.
So what happened next? I got a book. Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus. BOY does it suck in retrospect. But really, it didn''t suck, ''cause I wasn''t up to anything more than its level at the time. I had never seen C, let alone C++, and I felt pretty darn desperate flicking through the code.
Then, I did this daft thing - I signed up for a degree in Computer Science, and WORKED, WORKED, WORKED...
About 5 years later now - and I''m doing a PhD in Image Based Rendering, stuff you guys probably haven''t even heard of. But I''m nothing special, I just liked what I was doing and followed the available routes to get there.
Hell, I think most of you spend MORE of your free time programming than me, so you stand a better chance of getting here!

So don''t give up, if it''s a passion, you can make it.