How'd you learn to program?

colinwilcox · Post by **colinwilcox** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:59 am

Like Halifax, I also kinda started out with TI-basic. I had a TI-82 back in the day. I also failed in my first attempt at asm programming on it, but I never really bothered getting back into it. I had more fun later with my TI-92 but didn't take it that seriously.

I fiddled in the usual manner with Q-BASIC, making text games and whatnot. But the first proper learning came when a friend invited me to join him on a MUD (you know... those text games you play via Telnet) as a world builder. This was actually a really helpful experience and did a lot for my interest in game development. The language used in the MUD was called LPC, a sort of C++ like language. Very easy to use, but still required programming principles and a fair amount of learning. I did that for a while, before going to a junior college and taking classes.
I liked to offset my boring math, english and physics classes with at least one (fun) programming class per quarter, so I ended up taking 3 quarters of C++, in addition to Java, Perl, VB.NET, and C#.

Since a friend of mine was working at some Java-heavy company at the time, when we decided to do a project we chose Java. We spent a few years off and on working on a very strange MUD-type game, that never really got finished but did get overhauled and ported to newer Java versions many times. I like to think of it as our Java and XML playground and sandbox where we put all of our crazy design methods and AI ideas into play.

After all this Java work I did it was a bit shocking to go back into C++ when I started using Irrlicht for a school project (3D animation and programming class). But underneath the rust was a little bit of knowledge leftover. Needless to say Irrlicht was a huge bonus in terms of making a decent looking project.

Next up is Ruby. I plan to use it with Java (JRuby) for a simple online game.

Vsk · Post by **Vsk** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:51 pm

About games I start programing in text mode

. Yes, I used pascal and ascci code wit 15 color for text and made a pong realy good, I had velocity of ball, IA!!!, option for IA difficult,support for two players and even visual effect when the ball boudning against the walls

. It wast the fiste game I made, and I finished!. Programing games in with only asscci chars its realy a amazing and interesting activity!.

Then, I didn't program games but graphichal applications like a grpahic function program that even made derives from arithmetic function and some compose function, it was realy easy to use, and very didactive. I made too a paint, until now, it was all drawwin primitives.

Then go to Allegro (amazing libryri for 2d) and made somo pseduo 3d game (actualy not finished and more kinda framework game) that soport it pseudo 3d collision, some IA and nice effectss even snow! and day-night cilcle.
Then I made (for duty) a assembler sparck pong (piece of cake

) in graphic mode. (But this one has no colours at all or effects

).
Then touched some opengl stuff made a litle and limitate space invaders that realy sucks, and then go to irrlicht!.
Until now the most amazing was....

the one that made in ascci!!!

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:46 pm

Lol, it is crazy how different people learn in so different ways

but awesome stories nonetheless

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:09 am

Any more suggestions/ideas?

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 12:54 pm

I guess it should maybe be like the "Who is everybody?" thread? - Sticky maybe?

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 2:03 pm

MasterGod wrote:I guess it should maybe be like the "Who is everybody?" thread? - Sticky maybe?

That would be cool

TiZ · Post by **TiZ** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 5:27 pm

I actually started out with QuickBasic back in 7th grade. I tried to learn C++ several times but could never get the hang of it. I picked up all sorts of game development kits with scripting languages that resembled C. And thanks to those languages, I was able to test out of my first programming class in college. (Yes, I stuck with game making tools that long

) INF 260 was a Java class, and after learning the subtle differences between Java and those other scripting languages, I picked up C#.

Yeah, I'm actually an Irrlicht .NET CP user.

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 8:51 pm

Ehh! You were on the Ogre forums, asking if you should use Ogre! lol