how to learn coding fast. (python & C#)

[richodude]

I'm looking to create games and any coding tutorials I find just seems way too slow and not to-the-point. The main thing holding me back from going out on my own is not knowing how to implement my ideas. I can only do so much with variables, functions, and if statements. If there was some sort of massive cheat sheet that I could use that wasn't just googling every individual question that I had. I got a raspberry pi about a month ago and I've been loving it, I got a 10 minute tutorial and was able to spend over 10 hours making small games. Eventually I wan't to try a big boy engine like unity (and maybe unreal) But tutorials for those are hours long, and all I need is a few basic parameters with the resources to build off of. If anyone has a place with all this condensed information let me know and also let me know if I have the wrong mindset about programming entirely and tutorials like these are the way to go.

 

[Sauron]

defold is pretty easy to start with but you can still do quite a bit, it could be an intermediate step between what you're doing right now and something like unity or unreal. besides, if you're doing things on your own taking advantage of the more powerful features is going to take more work than is reasonable for a hobby.

5 minutes ago, richodude said:

let me know if I have the wrong mindset about programming entirely and tutorials like these are the way to go.

complexity is inevitable as you scale up, there are no shortcuts. what you need is years of practice and experience. even if you sit through 10 hours of tutorials it won't automatically make you able to implement anything and everything. as you progress you'll realize you rely less on tutorials and more on raw documentation.

[richodude]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

as you progress you'll realize you rely less on tutorials and more on raw documentation

what documentation? is it like a forums where you have to search your every question or something laid out for you

 

also is it unrealistic to think that you could learn most of what you need to know in say a week, then be really slow at first and build up your efficiency over the years?

[Sauron]

4 minutes ago, richodude said:

what documentation? is it like a forums where you have to search your every question or something laid out for you

Most languages, frameworks and libraries have extensive documentation you can read that explains the details of its functionality. For instance here's Unity's official documentation. Essentially it's the user's instructions for whatever you're using. Ideally you'd only go on a forum or stackoverflow or whatever to ask about things that aren't well explained in the documentation or fall outside the typical use cases - in that case other people can help you with their direct experience if they have it. Of course, a lot of questions can be answered by googling them and clicking on the first stackoverflow link.

[tikker]

19 minutes ago, richodude said:

The main thing holding me back from going out on my own is not knowing how to implement my ideas. I can only do so much with variables, functions, and if statements. If there was some sort of massive cheat sheet that I could use that wasn't just googling every individual question that I had.

  This will come with practise. You'll have to stick with it, keep doing things and keep trying things. Googling everything is how it starts, because naturally you don't know how to do it. Another thing is to not start overly ambitious. In other words, don't immediately set out to make the next DOOM Eternal or Assassin's Creed as your first game where lots of complex aspects come together, but start simple.  It can even be educational to recreate something that exists, say making pacman.

9 minutes ago, richodude said:

Eventually I wan't to try a big boy engine like unity (and maybe unreal) But tutorials for those are hours long, and all I need is a few basic parameters with the resources to build off of. If anyone has a place with all this condensed information let me know and also let me know if I have the wrong mindset about programming entirely and tutorials like these are the way to go.

  They are long, because the "big boy engines" tend not to be simple takes-a-minute-to-look-up things anymore, but can be rather complicated beasts to work with. The tutorials may not be completely what you're looking for either, because there are near many possibilities of what to do and how to do it. You'll find that they are probably trying to teach you the more general method of how to do something tailored to the respective engine with a simple example and leave it up to you to do the actual thing you want.

14 minutes ago, richodude said:

also is it unrealistic to think that you could learn most of what you need to know in say a week, then be really slow at first and build up your efficiency over the years?

If you're an experienced developer just switching engines, maybe not, because you're "simpy" getting up to speed with a new tool, but if you're just starting out with both programming and game development then I'd say that's absolutely unrealistic. In a way you could say all those " variables, functions, and if statements" are most of what you need to know, but as you say you've experienced first hand already how much more there is to it than just knowing it can do something.

[BobVonBob]

Things like "cheat sheets" for languages exist, but they aren't comprehensive, and they aren't a shortcut to knowing how to code. Cheat sheets like https://learnxinyminutes.com are useful to experienced developers they translate knowledge of coding concepts into the syntax of a specific language. This is why coding tutorials seem slow, they're trying to teach you how to code, not how to Python. What good is knowing that heapq.heapify() turns a list into a heap if you don't know what a heap is or why you would use it?

 

The way you're trying to learn to code is like trying to learn German by reading an English-to-German dictionary. You'll know German words, but without learning German grammar you still can't speak German.

 

Personally I would recommend https://exercism.org/ as a way learn and advance your code. The mentor model they have is better (imo) at helping to learn good coding habits, not just working ones, and it tends to belabor a point less than similar sites I've seen.

[SydneyBrokeIt]

Quote

 I can only do so much with variables, functions, and if statements.

This is literally the basis of everything.  Pretty much everything a computer can possibly do is some variation of this.  There's a reason this is the first thing you learn when you're doing "how to code" tutorials.

 

There's so much more to writing code than the code itself.  I know enough assembler to be dangerous, but if I look at a problem, I still need to break down exactly how I'm going to solve it.  It's like this all throughout computing.  Building blocks on top of building blocks on top of building blocks - both in the code and in our heads.

 

The best advice I can give you is this: you have a great goal -- you want to make a game.  This is something that will take you a while.  Stick with it.  There are no easy answers, but if you're someone for whom game dev, or coding in general, clicks for... that's half the fun.

[riklaunim]

On 5/9/2022 at 10:43 PM, richodude said:

I'm looking to create games

You will learn from junior to mid-developer for few years. If you would get hired as a junior at a good game dev studio that trains juniors then it would be quicker. Also note that making a game on average takes multiple people and most will do different things, no only "pure coding".

 

As for making games Python is not the most popular platform for it. There is Renpy for specific games while PyGame while it's go-to for Python it's miles behind Unity or UE4.... and those two engines have likely world best tools to make your job easier and quicker, not to mention the size of the community and support. If you can't handle a Unity tutorial then you will never get anywhere with programming.

[wasab]

You do realize video game industry is notorious for crunch time right? I wouldn’t mind doing it as a side hobby though. Game engine development is a more interesting area for those who are intellectually curious rather than focus on delivering a finish product.