C++ good to start with?

[Gregrs]

I want to be able to make games; nothing super complicated or graphically intensive, something more like balloon tower defense, or terraria. 

[Richard Stark]

Yep , it is good idea to clear the basics of programming before going to making anything.............

I suggest you go with it, C++ is easy to start with ....

What are you even waiting for !!!!!!

[Gregrs]

1 hour ago, Richard Stark said:

What are you even waiting for !!!!!!

 

A good nights sleep

[Richard Stark]

1 minute ago, Gregrs said:

 

A good nights sleep

Good Night !!!!

[Richard Stark]

 

These are some of my basic projects ^^^

[john01dav]

C++ probably isn't the best language to start with. This is because it has lots of useful features (ie. pointers, templates, OOP even) that are very useful, but, can be hard to understand at first. I originally learned to program with Visual Basic, QBasic, and an old DOS Basic compiler I had lying around. Using a very simple language like this will allow you to learn the basics of how to think like a programmer, and the basic constructs that any language will share without worrying about the syntactic difficulty or powerful but hard to use features of C++. Also, if you do choose to start with (Visual) Basic, please don't tie yourself to any specific company's tools -- such as Microsoft, who makes Visual Basic.

 

If, however, you have already begun C++ and find it to be within your range of difficulty, feel free to keep on going with it -- this will probably be fine as long as you make sure you learn each and every concept properly before moving onto the next (which you should do whether or not you are learning your first programming language).

 

TL;DR: I recommend going with some form of Basic, most probably Visual Basic, to start off with before learning C++.

[Gregrs]

1 hour ago, john01dav said:

C++ probably isn't the best language to start with. This is because it has lots of useful features (ie. pointers, templates, OOP even) that are very useful, but, can be hard to understand at first. I originally learned to program with Visual Basic, QBasic, and an old DOS Basic compiler I had lying around. Using a very simple language like this will allow you to learn the basics of how to think like a programmer, and the basic constructs that any language will share without worrying about the syntactic difficulty or powerful but hard to use features of C++. Also, if you do choose to start with (Visual) Basic, please don't tie yourself to any specific company's tools -- such as Microsoft, who makes Visual Basic.

 

If, however, you have already begun C++ and find it to be within your range of difficulty, feel free to keep on going with it -- this will probably be fine as long as you make sure you learn each and every concept properly before moving onto the next (which you should do whether or not you are learning your first programming language).

 

TL;DR: I recommend going with some form of Basic, most probably Visual Basic, to start off with before learning C++.

 

I had a "programming" class last year (10th grade), and we were using construct 2. I do understand the basics of game programming, but I've never done any actual coding. Construct 2 was more of a drag and drop, but create your own sprites type of thing. Other than that, I'm a pretty smart person, I usually understand anything if it's explained to me. I just don't know how reliable Construct 2 is for understanding the basics, I'm pretty sure it's good though.

[john01dav]

1 minute ago, Gregrs said:

 

I had a "programming" class last year (10th grade), and we were using construct 2. I do understand the basics of game programming, but I've never done any actual coding. Construct 2 was more of a drag and drop, but create your own sprites type of thing. Other than that, I'm a pretty smart person, I usually understand anything if it's explained to me. I just don't know how reliable Construct 2 is for understanding the basics, I'm pretty sure it's good though.

I've never heard of that, but, it sounds like the somewhat more popular, at least how I have seen it, Scratch. Perhaps you can share how similar it may be if you're familiar with Scratch? In general, I recommend against any sort of drag-and-drop -- it may teach you what an if statement is but any sort of typed language will do so in a more realistic setting which allows you to apply your skills faster. Also, it is perfectly doable to learn on an industry-used language such as Java (which is only slightly more difficult than Visual Basic) which allows you to apply your skills as soon as you learn them without having to learn the syntax of a new language.

[Gregrs]

1 hour ago, john01dav said:

I've never heard of that, but, it sounds like the somewhat more popular, at least how I have seen it, Scratch. Perhaps you can share how similar it may be if you're familiar with Scratch? In general, I recommend against any sort of drag-and-drop -- it may teach you what an if statement is but any sort of typed language will do so in a more realistic setting which allows you to apply your skills faster. Also, it is perfectly doable to learn on an industry-used language such as Java (which is only slightly more difficult than Visual Basic) which allows you to apply your skills as soon as you learn them without having to learn the syntax of a new language.

Never heard od scratch, but with construct. You just right-click, insert new object, and select what you want it to be (usually a sprite for game models and stuff) then it opens a window where you can draw the sprite. When that's done, you can click on the sprite and click on behaviors, then you can give it stuff like 8-direction, and solid (so stuff cant movie through it). Then say you want to shoot a bullet (after you make the sprite) you go to the "programming tab" and just add an event where "if key is pressed (space) then spawn "bullet" on layer 1" It's fairly straight forward to be completely honest with you.

[SnowyMus]

I personally found C++ to be a bit hard at first. Understanding things like memory management can be a real slap in the face to any beginner, though it does have neat features like unique_ptr and object constructors/destructors which C does not typically provide. If you need to work with lower-level languages, it'd do, since you'll probably need to learn about memory management, anyway. The syntax itself isn't hard, though.

 

I'd check out something like Python or Basic if you need quick programming experience. Alternatively, there's Mozilla's new Rust language which might be fun to try out - it's as low-level as C++ and one of the nice things is the compiler enforces safety (which can be useful if you want to form some good habits), though you probably won't find an IDE that has support for it out-of-the-box that I know of at this moment. Or go with C++, if you're going to use it anyway, and see how you like it.

[SteveGrabowski0]

C++ as a first programming language is like doing driver's ed in an F1 racer.

[Nineshadow]

C++ is an excellent language to start programing with, but not so much for making games quickly as a beginner. If you do go ahead with C++, then I suggest you use SFML.

[Gregrs]

1 hour ago, Nineshadow said:

C++ is an excellent language to start programing with, but not so much for making games quickly as a beginner. If you do go ahead with C++, then I suggest you use SFML.

 

I'm not looking to make them quickly, maybe in like 2 months or something could start messing around with it? I'm a pretty fast learner, but I don't know if that would matter to much.