Darkfeign

Man the difference in amount of code required between C and python becomes so apparent in the above two examples.

I will note that aside from a good computer I believe that a white board (or more :P ) are a programmers best investment.
 
I usually start with a flow chart to give me an idea of how I want my program to be laid out. Then I dig down as pseudo code with method calls and the like. If it is still too abstract I'll draw more charts and dig until I feel I've reached bottom. At this point coding is usually pretty hassle free, but I do  have to go back and re-do some ideas because I didn't dig down enough.

That's not stupid, that's type-safety. Doing exactly what you described is violating the rules of strongly-type languages. You always need to cast.
 
C# is a managed language with manual garbage collection. It's a feature of the language not to allow pointer manipulation in the standard environment. While I do like being able to manipulate pointers, it's a feature of C# that it abstracts that degree of control away from the programmer. If you don't like it, don't use the language, but on a whole, the language is sound given the practices and principles the original creators were going for.

Wish I could help you out, as I've looked at Lua before and it sounds pretty cool, but short of Googling 'Lua Tutorial' there's not much I can provide. Good luck.

C is a little harder to get your head around after doing something like C++ as it lacks quite a bit of abstraction, but there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to get into it. You just have to pick a solid resource to learn from. C won't have most of the object-based programming practices implemented so structs are used to group data together, but at a fairly basic level.
 
However if you understand basic concepts in C++ like memory allocation then you should be okay as it is designed to retain backwards-compatibility. Good luck ;D

Thanks dude, I already had Learn Python the hard way; but I added learn c/ruby/SQL the Hard way; also have credited you.
 
Also It seems the thread now shows all html tags for me, is this the case for others too? It has happened a few times and deleting it is a nightmare

Could you add LearnCthehardway similar to the python reference? Thanks.

I'm looking for something to do after my final exams and might be interested in helping you out.

what we first start off with is making some guideline holes so that we are able to do better cuts with the jigsaw allowing us to change angles easily.

 
 
Mid way cutting.

 
 
now time to lay it on, and all is good.

 
 
a wild cat appears! "hmmmm, can i fit through here?"

 
 
"Why yes! of course I can!"

 
 
marking out the other side, and repeating the process

 

 
 
both sides have been completed and look very nice. they are BOTH yet to be routered so that the grill sits in flush. but that is next days off job.

 
 
I quickly decided that I would do my 5.25" holes, one for a Blu Ray drive (basically just incase i need it for whatever case. And no, I couldn't be bothered getting a USB one), and also will be fitted with a Fan Controller too.
Here is the plan...

 
 
Holes done

 
 
all cut out

 
with a bit of extra little rasping (wood equivalent of a file) they fit nice and snug! Though like the rad grills. Will router a recess for them to sit flush in. If some may notice, the drives are sitting lower then centre, this is because I will probably put my power/reset buttons above the 5.25" area. 
and ps, yes I know the middle piece between each 5.25" slot is weak as hell, and I understand that. If it breaks it breaks, if it doesn't it doesn't! it looks nicer with it though 

 
 
Oh, and this is the glass installed 
easy to remove to, simply put fingers between the two glass sheets and lift the top one up! the front bit is siliconed in place

 
Next update will be Wednesday of everything routered
and then theres only two holes left to do (PSU, I/O shield) and its time to d-d-d-d-d-drop the hardware in!!
 
 
Here is how I will be spacing my UP7 to the desk itself. just a few rubber spacers, that will be screwed into the desk, will have to go find some nice long thin srews while I think about it!

 
We start with the routering of the 480 grill rebate, so that the grill can sit nice and flush

 
 
The middle bits had to be done also, and were very difficult too as after a few cm's the router wasn't sitting flush anymore so would 'dip' as you can see in the picture where it dipped a little bit. but that's okay! it's not seen 

 
 
Thinking about how I could find a packer to use that allowed an extra bit of width... duh, why not use the template to rest the router on!

 
 

 
Now, this is what it looked like! the rebate for the grill was done, and also i further rebated in a rectangle for the actual little hex-hole grills to sit in too

 
 
Then there was about a 2 week period where I did nothing in life but work/sleep. UNTIL my parts arrived! and I will also be getting another GTX 680 4GB too 
 

 
After thinking and googling, I figured a way that I could mount my power supply tidily, by making a metal template I guess you'd call it. where you would screw the thin sheet steel to the desk so you could then be able to screw the psu in! 

 

 

 
And then there she was. the template to cut out the... template :B

 
Mid way cutting it out, realised I shouldn't have cut the paper up so much as it was so hard to get the small rectangle square again! 

 

 
And there it is. Not the tidiest and 100% most beautiful, but it will be painted, not seen. It will serve the purpose it was made to do _b

 
Time to mark out where the IO shield will be put, and also where my PSU hole will be too.

 
Time to do my preliminary guide holes for the jigsaw

 
And there it is, all nice and square!

 
The PSU Template works well too

 
Now, the one thing that bugged me the most... The PCI holes. How do do them? Do I rebate them? Do I cut out one big hole instead? I will do it individually instead and rebate me thinks..

 
I then proceeded to use the smallest router bit I had and rebate the groove for the PCI brackets to sit in.
Also, the top L piece of the bracket needed somewhere to sit in, so I marked the lowest point the bracket could sit, otherwise the card when in the motherboard will be on a lean and could have a dodgy connection to the PCI/E Lane

 
Making sure my depth was correct, I used a test bit of wood to make sure that when it came to the final piece, it was done properly.

 
A Perfect fit!

 

 
 
Just a FYI, to prevent any scratching this is how I lay the top down to do any cutting/routering etc

 
Now that the first PCI slots had been cut, it was time to finish the rest off

 
Here is how I measured the spacings for where the slots went, just an old case I chopped up!

 
All cuts done

 
Next, to square all the holes out I figured, what better way to do that, than with a Router! Least that's what I thought. The insertion of the bit went well, as soon as I itched it to the right BOOM. the middle piece of the PCI slots just snapped off.. I said a naughty word beginning with F. the next one began with C. hehe

 
It was time to resort to Plan B. Cut the whole damn thing out and chop the PCI bracket bit out of that old case that was in the pic above

 
it looks a lot tidier this way anyway, so while I am not happy the slot snapped out, I am happy with the result I guess!

 
So after cutting the PCI Bracket out, i gave it a quick sand and a quick paint with orange and will continue to polish it up over the next week but just wanted to test it out for the time being to make sure all was well... Guess I was just impatient and wanted to see if when everything was laid out in the desk it would all look pretty is more appropriate
 
PS- Hello Vita! (sheep)

 

 

 
After the day, I moved everything to it's little box. and covered it. Until tomorrow 

Notepad ++ and I also like Sublime Text 2

I've seen this type of thread on nearly every programming forum I've been on, so I figured it would be time to start up our own WAYWO.
 
Feel free to post anything about any projects you are working on, including pictures, video, snippets, or what have you!
 
 
I'm currently working on a few projects but only have this one that I can really show off:
 
I decided to hack an old NES controller for use over USB using an arduino. Yes I know that I have a big old board hanging off the back, but this is for prototyping, I can always pull the IC off and mount it in the controller itself.
 
Here is a quick video with my obnoxious voice giving you all a rundown  :lol:
 
 
http://youtu.be/EC6Y3m41FIg
 
 
If you don't have the time to watch the quick video, I made a simple controller class that has methods for handling the clock and strobe of the controller, as well as a method that returns a byte that holds the button information (only 8 buttons total, convenient!). I have defines for each of the buttons that I use in the loop function inside a series of 8 if statements that handles printing the button that is currently pressed. This is only temporary, as I need a way to check for multiple button presses. But alas, I am tired and will work on it tomorrow.
 
 
Again, feel free to post your own projects, or comment on other users projects and posts!  :)

I highly recommend Python. It is a much simpler language, it is almost English. Learning Python will allow you to easily grasp the core concepts of programming and computer science. From there you can learn most other languages with more ease. Python is also very versatile and robust. It is a great language. Here are a few resources you may find helpful:
 
Learn Python the hard way: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/
MIT Opencourseware lectures: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-00sc-introduction-to-computer-science-and-programming-spring-2011/
PyGame: http://www.pygame.org/news.html
Python.org: http://www.python.org/
 
Learn python the hard way is a great PDF that teaches people how to learn Python
MIT Opencourseware is online lectures from MIT, in Computer Science
PyGame is how to program games in Python
Python.org is the official Python site, with documents and tutorials.
 
Just my opinion.
 
Rob

Python is a nice, basic language to start with http://www.python.org/doc/

I believe android apps require java and xml not javascript.

From what I read it's Python :)

Get ready to suffferr in computer science with countless nights gone by without a drop of sleep. lol jk *on topic* i think if you study a bit of python then work your way up with c++ you'll be fine

id say, rather than do competitions do challenges for people.... start basic and make it more hard for people

I would suggest this as a python resource:
http://learnpythonthehardway.org/

If you want to get into game development, don't try to invent the wheel get a an engine (Horde3D, Ogre3D etc...) and spend time actually making the game.

Computer Science is a pretty broad topic, as a whole. Are there any areas of specific interest to you? If you're looking to get into programming and haven't tried anything before I'd suggest looking at Python books for beginners that teach with examples. Python is a fantastic language that's great for new programmers, and still used in industry - it's even taking over PHP in a lot of web-development applications. 
 
I'd also suggest something like Essentials of Computer Architecture:
 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Essentials-Computer-Architecture-Comer/dp/B0041VDNSK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367161515&sr=8-1&keywords=essentials+of+computer+architecture
 
If you're looking at degree-level knowledge and already have a fairly good understanding of hardware, you might be more interested in the above for finding out what your computer is actually doing with the hardware and how operating systems manage everything.