Self-teaching programming, advice appreciated

Discussion in 'Off-Topic' started by kalasle, Jun 22, 2017.

  1. kalasle

    kalasle Forum Royalty

    I'm teaching myself C# and how to use Unity this summer, partly for personal and partly for professional reasons. If anyone has any experience with self-taught coding, I'd love to hear it, or alternatively any advice for someone trying to learn. Any especially good resources? Tips for practicing / order of things to learn?
     
    Hierokliff likes this.
  2. Regulate

    Regulate I need me some PIE!

    I believe Desert Owl Games employees recently self taught themselves unity, they've already made their first test app and put it out there for pre-alpha testing! Hopefully one of their employees can give you some tips :)
     
    davre, NevrGonaGivUup and BurnPyro like this.
  3. Dagda

    Dagda Forum Royalty

    that was about to be the illest burn of 2017 and you went and had to be nice

    o:
     
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  4. BurnPyro

    BurnPyro Forum Royalty

    Straight up though
     
  5. MrBadguy

    MrBadguy Guest

    Just buy a "for dummies" book. That's how I learned C++. Once you learn about variables, expressions and functions, classes and hierarchy, you will start immersing yourself in documentation to create more complex programs but those books start out with enough basic stuff that you can just gradually increase the complexity. There's probably a good chunk of online tutorials but they're not always well structured. Also, consider using MS Visual Studio if your learning is more leaned towards creating small programs as it has a very newb friendly interface that allows you to create stuff by drag and dropping tools but also allows you to peek at the back-end and how it was created by the program so you can later reproduce it just by coding. If it's game oriented, you can try Unity or Unreal Engine so you can start prototyping stuff as you learn.
     
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  6. xaznsoulx

    xaznsoulx Supreme Dream Team 夢想 隊

    @MikeLin @Imba
     
  7. Hierokliff

    Hierokliff I need me some PIE!

    Got any special idea what you want to get done? imo its easier to keep focus and morale up if you got some kind of project you want done, instead of just vague "i wanna learn..."
     
    kalasle likes this.
  8. kalasle

    kalasle Forum Royalty

    I don't have a concrete project for which I am learning these things, but I have a couple simple 2d and 3d game ideas that I want to fiddle into existence. These aren't the ambitious "dreamer's first game" kind of projects, so I am neither worried about them being good or being complicated. I'm really learning for two reasons: one, so that I have the basic skills necessary to explore simple game ideas on my own, and two, so that I have some technical skills that help in getting game dev/design/writing/work jobs. I'm pretty comfortable with that as a goal -- it's mostly how I approached learning guitar as well, and after about two years I have a solid hobbyist proficiency in that. Do you think something more definite would help more?
     
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  9. Hierokliff

    Hierokliff I need me some PIE!

    Dont think they need to big projects at all, just for me its easier to learn if i am focused. having an idea/challenge or having fun makes me focused and i do it. Not sure if that is enough to get into the game industry? atleast here in sweden the competetion is real tough, and its easier to get other more difficult technical jobs instead with the same merits, because the "hype" of working in gaming industri. maybe iam just a sore loser since i didnt get that job at that gaming studio a few years ago :)
    Instead i did get a similiar job at insurance company that was way more complex and complicated, and it paid alot more.

    iam also considering taking a look at unity and C#, but got no focus or morale atm since i have no idea why i should waste my time on it...sadly... hopefully i find a cool/fun idea on a small project. but now hunting spanish slugs in the garden is more fun then coding, hehehe.
     
  10. kalasle

    kalasle Forum Royalty

    You're right that knowing C# and Unity is hardly enough. It would be a pipe dream to think I could learn how to code over the summer and suddenly have an in. Fortunately, hobbyist interest matters more to me, and as far as getting a job, I already have the kind of real work experience that matters more anyway -- it's just that not knowing how to code can be a matter of hard exclusion. Best of luck with all your stuff!
     
  11. MrBadguy

    MrBadguy Guest

    Honestly, I don't think it matters that much that you're only starting out with Unity and C#. Once you learn how to program with a language, getting into another is not always such a big deal. C++, C#, Java and Python are all I ever used and they seemed fairly similar to one another, with some differences here and there but not really entirely different monsters.

    @newsbuff @Moles1909 might be able to provide more insight on this than I can since they're actual programmers and I merely took an interest on it as something on the side and don't plan to ever do it professionally.
     
  12. MikeLin

    MikeLin I need me some PIE!

    How much programming experience do you have? I.e. do you know what class, method, library, statement, and etc are? What languages or game engines have you used if any? Are you going to use your own assets(preferred if your gonna sell it) or use premadr ones by others? https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/

    To start if your noob:
    http://www.tutorialspoint.com/csharp/
    Google/YouTube

    If you know how to read programming language references/libraries:
    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/index

    If your new to game engines in general(Gamemaker is said to be noob friendly, but I never used it):
    https://www.yoyogames.com/

    Beginning programming questions for practice:
    http://guidetoprogramming.com/joomla153/common-programming-questions

    If you are noob and really want a book(or use Google to find similar book cause I never used this one;)):
    https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Programming-Using-Rizwan-Qureshi/dp/3847310879

    Check out Brackeys on YouTube if you really want to use Unity, but his code may be hard to understand if your new to programming.
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2017
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  13. kalasle

    kalasle Forum Royalty

    I took a programming class back in high school, in which I didn't pay much attention, and I have used gamemaker and a couple other newbie-friendly engines before when I was much younger. I don't have much specific knowledge going in, and no hands-on experience, but I do have familiarity with the logic and processes involved -- I get the abstract stuff of how coding works, at least. My high school class was in Java, and like I said, I have touched a couple other tools, like gamemaker and NWN tools, before. I'm planning to stick to pre-made stuff or super-basic assets right now -- I'm not about to set out as a professional indie or anything. Any games that I'm making in the near future would be free stuff for my own sake.

    Thanks very much for all the resources! I really appreciate it.
     
  14. newsbuff

    newsbuff Forum Royalty

    kalasle likes this.
  15. newsbuff

    newsbuff Forum Royalty

    most important thing for me when i taught myself to code was to have a real-life project i wanted to do. doing theoretical/academic exercises is much more difficult as it requires a lot of self-discipline to stay motivated/interested while doing it
     
    kalasle likes this.
  16. MrBadguy

    MrBadguy Guest

    There you go. Now just avoid the weaboo bullet so you don't end up like him.
     
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  17. Poxpoints

    Poxpoints I need me some PIE!

    Honestly, I started on codecademy.com, if you already have some knowledge I wouldn't use it. But as a total beginner I found it really nice to get a feel for different programming languages and learn the basics of programming and logical thinking.

    After that google / stackoverflow became my best friend (for a specific problem and knowing what to look for).

    I don't really have a lot of experience with C# or Unity though.
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2017
    kalasle likes this.
  18. Gnomes

    Gnomes Forum Royalty

    I would try to help. But as a bioinformatics student we kinda only learn perl and R... But if u need help in those hit me up.
     
    kalasle likes this.
  19. kalasle

    kalasle Forum Royalty

    Thanks for all the input, folks. Appreciate it.
     
  20. darklord48

    darklord48 Forum Royalty

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