Hey!
I’ve been studying this course as my first encounter with any type of coding. It’s been going pretty well so far, but I got stuck in the middle of Realm Rush… Could I just skip it and start coding Zombie Runner, or is there some essential information I need in order to continue?
Thanks!
Hello. Please do not. I strongly recommend to share as much information as much as possible about your concerns. Do not feel bad about asking or not knowing something. This community is super friendly and open to help you no matter the difficulty of the topic. Also, those topics that are hard to understand or to tackle are the best do not miss the opportunity to learn the solutions for the problems ahead!!! Keep it up, do not give up, and if you need a break please take it and come back with us. Good Luck!!
First of all, thanks!
Regarding my issues: I feel like a lot of the more advanced material in this course wasn’t properly explained. The course has been really great so far, and I’ve felt like I’m not just blindly copying code but actually grasping the concepts. That was true for most of Realm Rush, but once Gary started talking about dictionaries… oh man, I found myself watching the videos repeatedly, yet I never felt like I had the material to truly understand the logic behind it, you know? Also, every now and then, he throws in a Unity built-in function without explaining it, which makes me feel like learning it is pointless since I won’t be able to use it for my own projects.
What really got to me was when I spent almost two hours tackling a challenge, and when I finally caved and decided to see how Gary solves it, he used a new concept that hadn’t been taught before (ContainsKey). That made me feel like I don’t have the necessary foundation to keep up with the class, you know?
To sum up the concept i don’t understnad:
Arrays
Lists
Dictionaries
Keys, ContainsKey, etc
I work as a game designer, and now I have the rare opportunity to take a break from the office for a couple of weeks, so I really want to use this time to learn to code. In the meantime, I’ve started the Unity Pathway course, but I love GameDev.TV and would prefer to find a solution to this problem so I can stick with this course!
Thanks!
I totally feel you!! Yes. Sometimes, the lack of information its on purpose. I cannot assure you if that is the case here. But that is because a “secret super powerful” skill that programmers have or must develop and that is the ability to find the solution even if it doesn’t exist or it is a completely new concept for you, that is, proactively problem solving. It takes some time but it will become a second nature of yourself.
About the difficult concepts, I recommend you {and if gamedevTV allows me} the junior programming path at Unity Learn site where you will have a deeper ‘tour’ about them. Also, try to feel confident about cycles(loops) and/or iterations because those as iterable data structures are super easy to tackle if you know what cycle and how to implement it. Finally remember, in programming there is not only one correct solution. You will come across more efficient ones, even one-liners!! Just keep it simple, brake it(the problem) as much as needed and think in small chunks…!! If you need more information or even books please PM me. I’ll be happy to help you.
Thank you so much for the encouragements, it truly helped! I think ill finish the Unity Pathway course and get back to GameDev.TV after that. My intentions were to continue to the RPG course after that but we’ll see if Ill manage to finish this course.
Thanks again <3
Have you considered simply asking about your specific issue? Like Azu said, make a topic, mark it as Unity Ask, and there are people here who would be more than happy to lend a hand. Chances are you’re not going to be stuck for very long.
It’s also worth noting that all the concepts you described are general programming concepts, and not course-specific errors (furthermore, they are all closely related, so it might just be one small thing you’re missing). If ever there’s something of that nature that you need to supplement along the way, the internet is your friend, and that relates directly to the
Looking things up isn’t cheating or being a script-kiddie, because at the end of the day, it’s still you who has to put two and two together with what you discover and apply that magical solution to your specific issue =)
Oh, and I’ve actually done Unity’s Junior Programmer course. There were a few small blips near the end, but overall you should find it meets your needs quite well.
Glad to help. Keep it up!!! Some hours ago I remember something that could be a great help for you learning process. There are online tools that allows you to actually see the code doing its thing!!! Besides fun to see it’s incredible useful…. For the moment I can remember two of them: pythontutor and algorithm analyzer. With those you can pick your language and copy/paste snippets of your code and see step-by-step what is happening and how!!! Keep in mind that these tools not always will be able to handle a specific situation for a wide number of reasons, in that case you have break points and debugging with VSCode, pretty much the same but you need to do some extra steps, nothing too fancy…!!