I have wanted a hobby for some time now, basically something to do instead of sitting around on forums and watching YouTube videos when I am not playing video games. I am a bit interested in coding, so I got "Visual Studio 2010 Express" and have recently registered it (hopefully Microsoft will not spam my email too much as I ticked that option). I am hoping to learn C++ or/and C Sharp, I have some experience with ActionScript from Flash 8, but that was a while ago and I hope to learn some useful coding.
Currently, I need some good tutorials on one of the languages I mentioned above, I am also wondering which one is most useful and what differences the languages have. With things like this I usually hope to get a good start for then to get some inspiration to keep going. I am looking forward to start on this because of the options it gives me in part-time jobs in the future as well as my interest in making programs and modding/creating games. So I would be pleased if anyone could point me in the right direction.
Easy route, pick up C# and XNA,
2 good books for that are C# for dummies and Learning XNA 4.0.
Hard route (but arguably better) pick up c++
Check out antiRTFM's videos on Youtube for c++, very good for beginners.
(Make sure you make a new program every 3-5 videos so you learn what he's actually teaching, watching them all in a row is dumb)
C# is much easier to pick up and make small little program's with, however do not rely on intellisense, you need to learn how to program, not how to use intellisense.
C++ is more in depth and requires more understanding of how computers actually work to become good at using it (not saying C# doesn't require knowledge, but it does its own memory management, harder to make memory leaks due to no pointers etc.)
The most important thing about programming is you have to DO IT to be GOOD at it.
Practice, practice practice. Make hundreds of random programs. You will never get good at programming by reading books/watching videos if you never actually program stuff :)
[QUOTE=Meladath;34529626]
C++ is more in depth and requires more understanding of how computers actually work to become good at using it (not saying C# doesn't require knowledge, but it does its own memory management, harder to make memory leaks [B]due to no pointers [/B]etc.)[/QUOTE]
You can use pointers in C# if you enable unsafe code from project settings.
[url]http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/chfa2zb8.aspx[/url]
I have started viewing the video series Meladath pointed me to, seems quite useful. Thanks for the help, I'll try seeing all or at least most of the videos and take some mental notes of what I learned and go from there. It's been a long time since I scripted anything using "real" code, but the videos seem easy to understand and I don't seem to have many problems understanding them yet.
Once you have a little bit of experience ( run through a couple tutorials, read a beginners book, that kind of thing ), you can run through [URL="http://www.gamefromscratch.com/page/Game-From-Scratch-CPP-Edition.aspx"]this C++ with SFML tutorial.[/URL]. It covers creating an over-engineered Pong clone from scratch, along the way teaches a number of things that most tutorials don't, like how to structure your code, design patterns and progressively introduces more and more C++ constructs and how to use them in a "real world" application.
It assumes you know the basics though, like how ifs, variables, loops, functions, etc... your actionscript experience may be enough, hard to say.
Although personally, I would probably start with C#, then XNA. In that case, [URL="http://www.riemers.net/eng/Tutorials/xnacsharp.php"]Riemers Tutorials[/URL] are a good place to start. Microsoft has a ton of getting started videos for C#, unfortunately they've made them hard to find with their pushing everyone to Windows Phone 7 development. The stuffs still out there, and very good, you just have to sort through alot more crap to get at it.
I can't even find the XNA Download link for regular windows development anymore. I only see Xbox Live and WP7
This one worked for me: [url]http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=23714[/url]
C#'s probably good route to go, you'll create real interesting stuff even at the beginning. A good book is:
[url]http://headfirstlabs.com/books/hfcsharp/[/url]
[QUOTE=Meladath;34529626]
C# is much easier to pick up and make small little program's with, however do not rely on intellisense, you need to learn how to program, not how to use intellisense.[/QUOTE]
How is intellisense a bad thing?
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