Trying to decide my path...

[Gat Pelsinger]

I am just a 14-year-old (almost 15) who from the past 3-4 years has just been wandering around to gather information about software, hardware, and programming. The software and hardware part was good, I am the only tech savvy person in my family, but about the software, I just realized that there is way more than just coding on a GUI drag and drop coding style platform (Scratch), a simple C++ course, and exactly copying the code and learn OpenGL and Unity. I mean, we do have like Java in our School, but I am trying to get way ahead of my time, because it is my hobby to program, of course. And yes, then my plan to master C++ by trying to look up all of its content also failed. I am still not sure, but like, the main programming knowledge I am going get is in my college days through college books, right? But I am not in college yet, but I do want to start some ACTUAL programming. So just how do I find the correct entrance to the path of Computer Science (a bit of computer engineering isn't bad either as a hobby) at this age without many resources? Are there free resources? Or paid are still ok. All I just want to know is where the "actual" start is, and not just doing a small C++ course and calling myself successful.

[Sauron]

3 minutes ago, NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO said:

All I just want to know is where the "actual" start is, and not just doing a small C++ course and calling myself successful.

There is no one way to "start", if you're interested in programming you should just give yourself some simple projects and look up information when you're stuck. All the information you need is available for free either in official documentation, forums like stackoverflow or video tutorials, though obviously lessons or courses help understand and focus that information.

 

On a side note, you should not mention your age here if you're under 16.

[Gat Pelsinger]

@SauronYou are guiding me to the same mistake I am doing. Although it's not a mistake, it's not the best way to learn programming. I am not in college or anything, but what do they have in their syllabus? I don't have those resources yet, but I will try my best to get those. Like look, I don't know how a compiler exactly works, but then I am trying to program in C++. That's not the correct order in the exact portion of programming, but for getting started in programming (which I already did), it's ideal.

[Gat Pelsinger]

5 minutes ago, Sauron said:

On a side note, you should not mention your age here if you're under 16.

uh, ok but why?

[CommanderAlex]

17 minutes ago, NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO said:

uh, ok but why?

It is against the Community Standards of the forum. 

Quote

Privacy

• Do not post other people's personal information (name, email, addresses, phone number, etc) without their explicit consent.
• Do not post personally identifiable information pertaining to anybody under the age of 16, including yourself, regardless of whether you have permission to do so.

In case you want to read the Community Standards, they're posted here.

 

[Radium_Angel]

Ex-coder here.

 

Though I came from coding before the advent of wide-spread online knowledge. There are a number of college courses that are totally free online (MIT comes to mind) 

It might be easier to decide on a project to do (for example, catalogue all your books into a searchable database) and figure out the best way to approach that problem, than try to pick up a generalized "do everything" approach.

 

There are also some fantastic game-coding "kits" on Steam that are either cheap, or free outright. 

[Neftex]

you will never learn everything you need and then apply it. learn general best practices and patterns + more about the language/framework you intend to use. as a programmer you will always have to be learning new stuff to finish the work you have to do, thats why Saurons advice is good

 

 

also, knowing details about how compiler works might not be useful to you at all

[Sauron]

4 hours ago, NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO said:

@SauronYou are guiding me to the same mistake I am doing. Although it's not a mistake, it's not the best way to learn programming. I am not in college or anything, but what do they have in their syllabus?

A whole lot of it is teaching you concepts and then expecting you to be able to use them for a small project. It's the way you learn how to program. Reading books on its own won't get you anywhere.

4 hours ago, NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO said:

Like look, I don't know how a compiler exactly works

You don't need to. For the most part you can just assume the compiler is a magic box that spits out binaries. If you go on to take a university course you'll have to know at least the basics of what a compiler is and does to graduate but learning to program does not require it.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO said:

I am just a 14-year-old (almost 15) who from the past 3-4 years has just been wandering around to gather information about software, hardware, and programming.

I was there.
I created the following thread you might have seen a while back to help individuals such as yourself.
This helps explain what kinds of programming you can do.

8 hours ago, NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO said:

The software and hardware part was good, I am the only tech savvy person in my family, but about the software, I just realized that there is way more than just coding on a GUI drag and drop coding style platform (Scratch), a simple C++ course, and exactly copying the code and learn OpenGL and Unity.

There is.
But they're just means to an end.

Do you have examples of things you have already done?
It will help us perhaps guide you in a direction.

8 hours ago, NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO said:

I mean, we do have like Java in our School, but I am trying to get way ahead of my time, because it is my hobby to program, of course. And yes, then my plan to master C++ by trying to look up all of its content also failed.

There is so much ridiculous stuff in C++, I don't think anyone uses all of it.

8 hours ago, NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO said:

I am still not sure, but like, the main programming knowledge I am going get is in my college days through college books, right?

Eh... Depends on the college.

I learned most of what I know by working on things I wanted to do and then researching things I wanted to do.

8 hours ago, NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO said:

But I am not in college yet, but I do want to start some ACTUAL programming.

What is your favourite technology?
You listed a few, but I think you said it was graphics programming in C++.
Is that it?

8 hours ago, NvidiaFirePro6900XXTX3DPRO said:

So just how do I find the correct entrance to the path of Computer Science (a bit of computer engineering isn't bad either as a hobby) at this age without many resources? Are there free resources? Or paid are still ok. All I just want to know is where the "actual" start is, and not just doing a small C++ course and calling myself successful.

IMO, you won't get much out of beginning/small C++ courses anymore.
Some courses are useful, but they won't tell you what to do, just how to do things.

 

 

So... assuming you want to do C++ and graphics programming, you should learn math.
Start getting as much advanced math knowledge you can.
You can use Khan academy and talk to your teachers in school. They're passionate about mathematics & would give you high level guidance into math subjects for you to study.

Now, to do "real programming" you should decide on a long term project.
JavidX9 is a youtuber that does a lot of graphics tutorials and game programming that seems to relate to the things you have posted about wanting to do in the past.

You can just make a game engine or game with Open GL.
Plan it out and buy the book "Game Engine Architecture." 3,000 pages of joyful theory.

[wasab]

just watch some youtube coding channels in which they create a project from scratch and then code alongside them. 

 

[NocTheRocc]

Check and see if there are any FIRST Robotics Competition teams in your area (a full list of teams and locations can be found here). It's the biggest robotics competition in the world, and it's built for high school students. Doing programming for an FRC team is a fantastic way to get a taste of 'real' programming (and on many teams, you get to work with real software engineers as mentors), with the added benefit of getting to interact with a bunch of other engineering disciplines. It's a great way to get a feel for what it's like to be a software engineer, I can definitely say my experiences with it were much closer to what it's like to be an engineer than anything I did in university.

 

I was in a similar place to you in high school in that I wanted to expand my programming knowledge but wasn't sure how since my school didn't offer any classes for it can be hard to get started with online resources. Find ways to make programming into more than something you're studying on the side-- get some friends to learn with you and make something together (game design was something I had a lot of fun with back then) and find extra-curriculars like robotics that let you learn and apply the things you're learning. It's really tempting to just dive into books and online courses on your own since they're easy to find, but they're not very rewarding in my experience, and not all that helpful in deciding if programming is something you want to pursue as a career.