I'm slow

[Guest]

I'm a very slow individual when it comes to learning and I want to program however I am having difficulty focusing on learning anything. 

I am trying to develop video games, but C++, C#, and JS are very complicated languages and API references on Unity's website aren't very intuitive IMO. 

I thought about trying to find an easier to learn language/game engine. 

What are your thoughts on Lua, and what other languages one should try to learn. What are some child like teaching methods, or programs? 

I'm considering the Raspberry Pi, but I'm unsure of what I should learn, or how. 

[Guest Kloaked]

You're not going to find an easy route for video games unless you use RPG maker. Even then that can get complicated at times.

 

Do you know how to program at all?

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Kloaked said:

You're not going to find an easy route for video games unless you use RPG maker. Even then that can get complicated at times.

 

Do you know how to program at all?

Yes. I've modified a number of scripts in Unity C#, I've programmed robots in high school with what I assume to be C++, and did some basic programming in C++ for computers. I know a little bit, I'm just not sure what resources I can use that are very elementary to get started and go in depth with later lessons. 

[vorticalbox]

a lot of people start trying to build games they quickly learn that a game is a massive task to take on by yourself.

 

try out code adadmy python course. Python has a very easy syntax it is basically English.

[Organized]

You shouldn't start with developing games or other 3D applications. It's like learning how to do hot laps on racetracks to learn driving in traffic on the first hand.

 

C and C++ are fine to start with basic things, because there are not many things that help you. You will understand how developing works on the lowest reasonable level. If you start with Java for example, there are many helper things, you just use ready-to-use packages and only learn how to use them, but not what they are actually doing.

 

If you know the basics of C or C++, you can switch to a more developer friendly language if you want to, but the other way round is way harder in my opinion, because many  things you learned before are just not existant in C/C++.

 

Finally, when you know the basics, you can specify yourself on more complex things like game developing, but you really shouldn't start with it.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

a lot of people start trying to build games they quickly learn that a game is a massive task to take on by yourself.

 

try out code adadmy python course. Python has a very easy syntax it is basically English.

I'll look into that. I'm looking on the Raspberry pi website. Maybe I will practice with robots since I learned a bit about them before. I'm browsing the scratch field at the moment. 
 

 

8 minutes ago, Organized said:

You shouldn't start with developing games or other 3D applications. It's like learning how to do hot laps on racetracks to learn driving in traffic on the first hand.

 

C and C++ are fine to start with basic things, because there are not many things that help you. You will understand how developing works on the lowest reasonable level. If you start with Java for example, there are many helper things, you just use ready-to-use packages and only learn how to use them, but not what they are actually doing.

 

If you know the basics of C or C++, you can switch to a more developer friendly language if you want to, but the other way round is way harder in my opinion, because many  things you learned before are just not existant in C/C++.

 

Finally, when you know the basics, you can specify yourself on more complex things like game developing, but you really shouldn't start with it.

It is very difficult. I tried using Game maker, but some concepts are just very confusing to me. I've been mostly using the Drag and Drop form of "GML" or game maker language. 

C++ is a lot of fun but there's so many APIs that i have to use very often, and the packages are just like idek. 

I've been sorta practicing some java and there are many helpers, however I still have yet to grasp the concepts. 

I noted game development mostly for the direction I want to head into. I'm unsure of what to program in the mean time besides games. 

[SilicateWielder]

3 hours ago, fpo said:

I'm a very slow individual when it comes to learning and I want to program however I am having difficulty focusing on learning anything. 

I am trying to develop video games, but C++, C#, and JS are very complicated languages and API references on Unity's website aren't very intuitive IMO. 

I thought about trying to find an easier to learn language/game engine. 

What are your thoughts on Lua, and what other languages one should try to learn. What are some child like teaching methods, or programs? 

I'm considering the Raspberry Pi, but I'm unsure of what I should learn, or how. 

Nevermind, I didn't realise that you already know C/C++

 

Anyway, don't write a game off the bat. I would recommend familiarizing yourself with Unity first and planning your game out on the side until you have the skillsets necessary to begin developing it. Also, keep in mind that a good game isn't what the developer makes of it. It's better be a dev who listens to his/her players than to go "I am a genius, you have to love this game because it's perfect in my eyes!" It's probably also a good idea to read up on game design and development. 

[Guest]

5 hours ago, UnbrokenMotion said:

Nevermind, I didn't realise that you already know C/C++

 

Anyway, don't write a game off the bat. I would recommend familiarizing yourself with Unity first and planning your game out on the side until you have the skillsets necessary to begin developing it. Also, keep in mind that a good game isn't what the developer makes of it. It's better be a dev who listens to his/her players than to go "I am a genius, you have to love this game because it's perfect in my eyes!" It's probably also a good idea to read up on game design and development. 

I did teach myself a lot about how to use the Unity editor, components, the animator, scene, asset manager, it's just the programming I'm having trouble with. 

Also I have been looking into designs of games, and I wrote a full game design document for something I am trying to make, but the programming is just very tough. It's difficult to write my own code, and know how everything works I guess. In terms of actual code. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Tom Smyth said:

A lot of people have suggested places to start before, but I agree that Python on Code academy is great and VB is another great place to move onto once you exhaust Python. Start small though, simply scripts to complete a basic task (even if it's not useful to you) are best to get to know each language with.

 

Though, most importantly when learning code is your will, determination and perseverance. I've almost given up with pretty much every coding project I do, but when you persist and continue to push forwards with the language / project and don't give up with errors you don't understand, that is when you get the best results and the best improvements to your skills.

You know... i completely forgot that programming is basically automation. 

I have so many thing's I wish to automate, but I never think of them cuz I never got that far in coding to know how to do that. Now I have a goal to reach. Thank you!

[Fourier]

Ok ... here we go.

 

You're going to have a harder time programming on the raspberry pi than you are on a normal computer. The Raspberry Pi was designed for the purpose of teaching kids how to program, but the innovation is price rather than experience - primary schools and parents can afford it - it uses the same programming languages and tools as other computers (it's a standard linux computer). That said the operating system is less sophisticated than windows (not as convenient to use) and it's not compatible with as many software tools and the ones that are compatible probably don't run as well (it's much lower powered). Suffice it to say you're much better off using the laptop you used to make this post.

 

Ok, here's what you need to do.

 

1) Install python (Justification below)

 

Python is probably the easiest language to learn in the main line (I just now made the term main line up - not an actual thing) of popular, modern, general purpose programming languages. It was designed to be readable and concise. It's got similar syntax (ok maybe not similar syntax but similar structure) to languages like Java and C++. If people who know how to program read that last bit they might disagree, but I stand by it. Python will prepare you for Java, and Java will prepare you for C++. As independent verification of this I cite the fact that MIT now uses Python for all its introductory computer science classes (as well as a lot if not most of its high level classes - essentially any class that doesn't require the use another language - MIT open course ware and hearing someone who would know [MIT alum who works for the python foundation - Jessica McKellar] talk about the policy change explicitly - some video I can't be bothered to find). In case you'd like to know here's a little bit of information about what I'm calling the main line languages. First when I talk about low level and high level here's what I mean. Lower level languages generally make programs that run faster where as higher level languages have higher levels of abstraction (you don't have to do as much work, the code tends to be cleaner). In order of lowest level to highest. C++ is used for things where performance really matters. Java, C#, and Swift are often the choice for applications (C++ is used to make applications as well, and these are used for tons of other stuff - they're general purpose after all - but ...) Java is cross-platform, C# is Microsoft's version of Java, and Swift is Apple's version of Java (albeit to a far lesser extent than C#) Minecraft was programmed in Java.  And finally Python stands at the top as the language of choice for anyone who doesn't need to use something else. Things like screen scraping and for our purpose basic 2d games! And tons more. And I mean tons. Including stuff that would usually be programmed in another language (like one of the aforementioned) if it were a commercial endeavor, but if your just doing it for fun or to learn or experiment and performance isn't a big deal python's great.  When I program for fun it's almost always in Python or Java, and when I first started it was almost exclusively in Python.

 

a) Go to https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-352/, scroll down to "Files", and click "Windows x86-64 executable installer". You can also just go to https://www.python.org/ and click the obvious download buttons, but that will get you the 32 bit version instead of the 64 bit version.

 

b) Run the installer. Click "Custom Installation". Click "Next". Check the "Install for all users" box and click install. You can also just do the "Express Installation" or whatever it's called, but it won't install for all users.

 

2) Install Pygame.

 

a) Ok now go to the start menu and type command prompt. Right click it and go to run as administrator (you don't have to do that if you didn't install python for all users).

 

b) Ok now type in the following "py -m pip --upgrade pip setuptools" and hit enter.

 

c) Alright now type in "py -m pip install pygame" and hit enter.

 

3) Work through Think Python. Other good resources include TheNewBoston and MIT Open Course Ware

 

4) Use this tutorial and/or TheNewBoston and the pygame doc - best accessed through google - to make snake or pong or something.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Fourier said:

 

Ok, here's what you need to do.

 

1) Install python

 

 

 

How do I do that? I tried it before and my failure to do so is what put me off from the language originally. I contemplated the pi because supposedly it comes pre-installed. I have windows 10 home, not pro. 

[Fourier]

Still working on my post. I accidentally posted before I finished. Then I left to go do something else. Back now. Give me a few minutes.

[AlTech]

2 hours ago, fpo said:

How do I do that? I tried it before and my failure to do so is what put me off from the language originally. I contemplated the pi because supposedly it comes pre-installed. I have windows 10 home, not pro. 

Literally just search "Download Python". You'll want to download python 3.x instead of 2.7.x unless absolutely necessary.

[Guest]

@Fourier @AluminiumTech

Thank you both very much. I just finished up Java on codecademy since I had 3 assignments left before completion. I am redoing the entirety of Python, and making progress. I'll finish that and then move onto the resources you provided to me. 

[Fourier]

Oh I didn't realize you knew how to program! ... Or that you already knew Java. Python's great and I recommend learning it, but if you don't want to learn another language there's the LWJGL.

[Guest]

Just now, Fourier said:

Oh I didn't realize you knew how to program! ... Or that you already knew Java. Python's great and I recommend learning it, but if you don't want to learn another language there's the LWJGL.

I looked into that since I heard it was used to make Minecraft, however I couldn't figure out how to learn the libraries. It mostly just recommended to learn Open Gl, and that wasn't any help either once I found out Open GL has libraries for a ton of languages, and I found the site awkward to navigate, and overly complex. 

I'll try looking into that again. 

I don't consider myself knowing how to program because I can basically only make console applications that only lose all their data once you close them, and they don't do anything to anything outside the program. 

[Fourier]

Saving data and doing stuff to things outside the program are small potatoes. GUI's aren't that big of a deal either (however 3d graphics is). What were the last few things you did in your Java class?

 

You probably don't want to do 3d graphics where your at anyway (OpenGL is 3d), but I think you can make 2d games in  LWJGL with very similar syntax to pygame, but I've never done it. I'll have to check.

[Fourier]

Oh no it's Slick2D I'm thinking about. It runs on top of LWJGL.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Fourier said:

Saving data and doing stuff to things outside the program are small potatoes. GUI's aren't that big of a deal either (however 3d graphics is). What were the last few things you did in your Java class?

 

You probably don't want to do 3d graphics where your at (OpenGL is 3d), but I think you can make 2d games in  LWJGL with very similar syntax to pygame, but I've never done it. I'll have to check.

I used Princeton's STDDraw library and we made pong, and some animations based on math.(Have a ball bounce off the edges of the "canvas") I couldn't complete recursion, or the literal programming of the universe. (We had to program the orbit of the planets around the sun to scale, but I couldn't figure out how to do that.)
At my last school with C++ we were working with arrays. Made text based adventures, tax calculators, and a few other things I cannot recall. I learned arrays, functions, classes, conditionals, switches, basic math, and primitive variables in both C++ and Java (Between both schools.) 

[Fourier]

Oh wow you've done a lot. So you are close to ready for 3d graphics. Unfortunately I can't help you with that yet - I've never done it - just looked at it.

 

It sounds like you're close to ready for data structures and algorithms. Have you made any data structures (Array List, Linked List, Binary Search Tree, Heap, Hash Map, etc)?

 

I can help you with recursion and the solar system thing (I've actually done variants of the solar system thing a couple of times )

[Guest]

What do you mean by data structures? 
I have worked with arrays to store data, and check if a number(int, or string...) is in that array.
We were taught how to sort an array with an equation that I believe to be n - i - 1 or something like that. I cannot recall exactly. I sat in on a data structures class once before and they were doing something with the Towers of Hanoi. 

I had an idea of how to keep track of the discs and everything, but couldn't follow what the teacher was saying. I feel the teacher was purposely using excessive vocabulary. 

Are there any links, or can you PM me how recursion works, and some examples with explanations? My current teacher doesn't speak English too well.