I've literally only ever used Lua for about 10 minutes in my life, I have essentially zero previous experience with programming. I am 21, work a part time job, and have a great deal of interest in learning to program. My dream is to attend a university near me to attain a bachelors degree in software engineering. Before I can get started with my schooling in programming courses, I need to catch up on my math credits (I slacked off in high school.)
Is it too late for me to start? I want very much to pursue this as a hobby and a profession, but I worry that I'm starting too late.
Thanks for your time and advice :)
You may as well start now or you will regret later that you have never touched it.
Thank you for your response. I am considering either Lua or C#, have you worked in either/can you recommend which would be better or a better alternative to these two to start off with?
[QUOTE=hippowombat;44739072]Thank you for your response. I am considering either Lua or C#, have you worked in either/can you recommend which would be better or a better alternative to these two to start off with?[/QUOTE]
I recommend starting with a language that you know you will be using a lot. This allows you to get lots of non-forced practice.
Programming isn't ballet (thought I like to thing it is quite elegant) so 21 is definitely not too old.
You can start with anything really. Lua and C# are good choices.
(people will disagree because they don't know better, but don't start with C (not the same as C#); there's nothing of value to be learned)
Thank you all for your replies, I appreciate the insight :) I've been working on a dumb little pet project w/ Cryengine, just using the client menus to create environments and stuff, but to move forward I need to be able to program things in using Lua. Any particular books/sites you recommend to get started and work my way towards using it in Cryengine/other applications?
21 too late, are you kidding?
[QUOTE=ArgvCompany;44739209]21 too late, are you kidding?[/QUOTE]
Haha I'm not, I've read elswhere that it's something that has to be started when you're really young, and that it takes a long time to get to a point where you can do anything with it. I understand that it'll take a long time for me to be confident/proficient with it, but if it's something that's gonna take me til I'm 30 to be able to even use it a little bit, I don't think I can pursue it, as I have a wife and a baby and subsequent finances to consider.
You could probably be at a point where you could start looking for junior programming positions within a year or two if you really buckle down and practice/learn every day.
I am 22 years old. I started attending a community college last year for Computer Science (no previous experience with programming at all) and I've fallen in love with it, in just 2 semesters I've already learned a ton. How to program in several languages, algorithm analysis, OOP, data structures, etc. and I'm currently set to transfer to a 4 year university next fall.
It's definitely not too late
Wow....really?? :D this is like... [I]really[/I] encouraging to hear :) I was genuinely worried that I wasn't going to be able to do anything with my aspirations, that because I slacked in high school and have financial and infant priorities that I'd have to give up what I wanted to do in lieu of something more supportive for my family. but knowing now that it's not too late is overwhelmingly heartening. Thank you for your responses guys, sincerely. I'm very excited :)
[QUOTE=hippowombat;44739072]Thank you for your response. I am considering either Lua or C#, have you worked in either/can you recommend which would be better or a better alternative to these two to start off with?[/QUOTE]
You really might want to use something with more cross-platform support, like Ruby or C++. Linux support is slowly becoming a standard in the PC gaming industry.
Also, I really wouldn't worry too much about consuming too much time with learning to program. I'm 16 and I've been learning for 4 years, probably would have taken an even less amount of time to learn if I wasn't just plain stupid back then.
The truth is that because of the open nature of programming, you're not ever going to "master" it. There are so many concepts and programs that you could write that would all require different syntax, libraries, and sometimes other languages. Even with that, you still have to make sure you program your application to run optimally, and at the same time make the syntax as efficient as possible.
[B][I][U]Never. Give. Up.[/U][/I][/B]
That was a good joke :v:
No, 21 is not too old.
You have to know, people in germany start their CS university-career with about 18-20 years and a lot of them didn't even programm before nor they know whats java or C#. (They pretty much just do it for the money :P ). So there is literally no problem starting with 21!
BTW, I would recommend C# as a starting language! It has a great syntax for beginners, is cappable of all the Windows Functions (is also portable to Linux via Mono) and has great a Documentation.
If I was as old as you I would be thinking about retirement home and not college.
Loads of people start programming on your age when they enroll on Computer Science, you're not too old at all.
Go forth and have your fun.
[QUOTE=hippowombat;44739530]Wow....really?? :D this is like... [I]really[/I] encouraging to hear :) I was genuinely worried that I wasn't going to be able to do anything with my aspirations, that because I slacked in high school and have financial and infant priorities that I'd have to give up what I wanted to do in lieu of something more supportive for my family. but knowing now that it's not too late is overwhelmingly heartening. Thank you for your responses guys, sincerely. I'm very excited :)[/QUOTE]
I managed to do pretty well in a Java work-placement (had to do it because of school)/later short-ish vacation job with a few years of self-taught C# and two weeks with a Java book.
I pick up knowledge like this pretty quickly though (and was super lazy about it), so I have no idea how much work is actually involved on average. Some people never get beyond copy-pasting code from the web, some pick it up and have an insane demo after two months. [U]You won't know until you try.[/U]
That said, it's realistic to get very proficient at this stuff in less than three years.
Learning to program is just a very small part of what a degree at uni involves, for the most part you'll learn to plan information flow and abstract thinking, etc.
(This is partly hearsay, since I pretty much loathe pure programming as a job and therefore study in a different direction.)
Not too old at all, IMHO.
What you should learn depends on what you want to do.
If you plan to delve heavily into CryEngine development, learn Lua.
If you plan to use Unity, learn C# (don't bother with UnityScript - it's a horrible mess of a language)
Learn C# you can do SO MUCH with it. seriously, there is so much functionality. Not only that but all the modules that other people have coded you can use, and ontop of that all the general functionality, such as really good networking interface, intellisense and so on. I really have fallen in love with C# more then any other language.
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