Aerothorn on 7/10/2006 at 22:48

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For some reason, when I saw this thread out of the corner of my eye, I thought it said "I'm becoming a pregnant cow".

Schattentänzer on 7/10/2006 at 23:40

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Poke into assembler. I'm not saying you should learn it, but write a Hello World and maybe a simple calculation program. Understanding what happens on the processor is a solid basis, and knowing assembler will come in handy for debugging.

Then get your hands on a good C++ IDE, and write simple command line stuff. Avoid GUI, if possible. VB is good to throw together a quick application, but C will teach you how programs work, the hard way. Everyone should have misplaced a pointer at least once.

Read on about software engineering. Learn UML and flow-charts. Start with easy stuff like the Waterfall or Spiral model, look up Extreme Programming if you can stomach it.

Good luck! :)

SD on 8/10/2006 at 01:40

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Heh, I read it as "I never want to have sex again!"

RavynousHunter on 8/10/2006 at 02:27

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i, too, am a code junkie. i started over 4 years ago with TI basic, writing little math and science apps, and even a nice game (in TI terms). My freshman year, i took a programming course, and learned the ins and outs of VB6. Then, it was time for me to fly out of the nest, i began learning DM, the language of the BYOND game engine, and some C#. 2 years go by, i havent learned much C#, but have learned tons of DM from examples in my spare time, but this time, im in a little thing called "EAST Lab", basically, its a course for those who are "community service inclined", which i am not. Unfortunately, i was forced to do a service-based project, alone, the only way i knew how, with code, but all they had was VB6, and that put me on a bit of a sour note for the entire year, because by then, i had learned enough C# to make a nice little ditty of a prog, and i really wanted to expand my horizons, but NO.

Well, im out of this damnable class, the summer of my junior year. i found a little forum called the "GameDev.net" forums. i immediately became intrigued, they gave me tools and resources in a language that dumbfounded me for a long time, C++. i enevitably became engrossed in the language. I finally was able to get a book called "Teach Yourself C++ In 21 Days" :thumb: Ive been learning tons from it, and thats where this chapter ends. :cheeky:

Mortal Monkey on 8/10/2006 at 02:53

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Writing programs in Assembly is like building an automobile out of legos. It's tedious, unintuitive, and not very portable, and doesn't really have that much to do with strapping actual car parts together. And the only thing it's usefull for is proving your superiority over the machine.
A C compiler, like most other compilers, will convert car parts into lego bricks and fit them all together. Most will even do some optimisation for you. But the only way to ensure that your program couldn't possibly go any faster, is to write it in Assembly. The speed gain is really minimal (we're talking split microseconds), but if you're doing real number crunching, say, making a pixel shader for a game (which means running the same piece of code 786432 times per frame in a 1024x768 resolution), Assembly is invaluable.
Fortunately, many compilers support inline Assembly, which means you can just pop Assembly code anywhere in your other code.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of C++, so I can get you started on that (just PM me or something). I've just started poking at Assembly myself, so I can't really do much for you there.