Getting into coding

[madcow]

Hey

Some of you may remember me from a long time ago. Long story short, I'm looking at getting into coding - I'd like to work mostly with games but have literally _NO_ idea where to start.

I've tried my hand at mapping, texturing, modelling.. found a niche in web development (PHP), but I'm over it and want something new.

So... languages, where to start, what to do first. I know most basic programming starts with a black screen and hello world, but I like to pick things apart to find how they work.

Cheers in advance and a big hello to any who remember me ;D!

edit: also lol @ still having Moderator in my profile

[Thrik]

Welcome back! I have absolutely no programming background whatsoever outside of web stuff, but I'm sure someone will come and splurge knowledge all over you shortly.

[Sentura]

processing is a library in java that will get you on your feet, after that you can switch to xna/c# (especially since java/c# share almost all syntax)

[Zyn]

One book that I keep getting told to read to learn programming, is this : http://www.amazon.com/Head-First-2E-Rea ... 1449380344 , since it's apparently the best for learning C# and Object-Oriented Programming (which makes transitions easier to other languages).

I have the book but I wish I had the motivation to actually, you know, read it ;_;

[BaRRaKID]

In my opinion you should try to get some lessons even if it's just an online course. It's not easy to learn how to code by yourself, you will end out missing lots of basic principles like design patterns, common algorithms and data structures, memory management, etc. Also codding is one of those things that requires a different kind of thinking, you'll struggle a lot to get to a point where coding is almost instinctive and you can look at a problem and immediately see how to turn it into code, it takes lots of practice and patient until it "clicks".

Nevertheless I would recommend that you start with C# since it allows you to easily build windows applications and uses the .net framework. Also the syntax is similar to other C variants (C, C++, Objective C, etc) and Java, so it makes it easier to switch to other languages if you need. Try to build some simple desktop applications in C#, look for example at Project Euler for some codding challenges, or go to open source repositories (like sourceforge or github) try to read the source code from some open source projects and implement it yourself (don't copy-paste) to try to understand how everything works. If you have any questions go to Stack Overflow or Code Project (you will also probably come across Experts Exchange many times and end up in a pay well asking for money to see the answer to the question, but if you scroll all the way to the bottom of the page the answer is there without having to pay).

This is all so that you can get comfortable with codding, once you start "felling it" try to switch to other languages that use different principles to see what their advantages are, and after all that start to look at game engines and build something with them.

[Jetsetlemming]

C# and XNA is the best way I know of (because it's the only way I have first-hand experience with). I'm currently working on a roguelike in XNA, actually.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/

http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/e ... 0-editions

http://create.msdn.com/en-us/home/getting_started

[madcow]

Took a quick glance @ head first c#.. looks amazing - I'm gonna start there. Cheers

[Jake Gilla]

I can vouch for the Head First C# book, very good.

If you just want to get up and going quick you could go to http://www.codecademy.com/ It'll teach you enough Javascript to use something like Unity3D, and get you doing some game programming.

[D3ads]

Omg Cowww~~~