Learning to program

Other Courses Talk
#1

Hey Guys,

I know there has been other threads that have been created about what I am going to talk about, but I wanted to know to gather more information on the subject. (Or at least anyone who is willing to reply to my post)

Please feel free to reply to the following questions.
-what advice would you give people starting out programming?
-Does pseudocode work for majority veteran programmers?
-Should we use pen and paper to write out code before going to the IDE (Unity MonoDevelop in this case)
-How to determine what functions to use in code and how to figure out what needs to be code (Unity in this case)
-How do you keep motivated if you get distracted for a period of time? (Days or maybe even weeks)
-Is there a time where deleting the script and starting over is better than figuring out what happened?

I ask these question for myself, and for the others like myself who find it hard to code at times.

Here is a little description of myself. I am trying to be a indie game developer while working a full time job, so my time on my game can be a little scarce at times. Also, I am working on my Game Design Document and I have a section in it where I thought it would be necessary to pseudo out code before I try and write it. My goal is to work in the industry full time so I want to try and get my skills up to par, and hopefully my few indie games will show that I can be capable working in the field

Thanks

2 Likes
#2

It really depends on your ultimate goals, I find myself in a similar situation to yours, I’ve been writing pieces of design ideas for years and I expect it will take me years more to produce anything meaningful. This has been a journey for me, I have used it to guide my curiosity, and sometimes I’ve let my own personal bias get in the way, but I’m ok with that, because the key is patience… I don’t expect to make a AAA title, because I’m just one person. I do expect to make a solid piece of software, because my pride demands in. It may take a decade, it doesn’t matter. It’s about the journey.

As for pseudo-code, what you’re looking for is UML. It’s a design expression language that includes what you’d historically call a “flow chart”, but you also have class diagrams, sequence diagrams and other kinds of drawings that help you express your ideas without having to worry as much about the programming proper.

As you get more comfortable, you may find you don’t need to write pseudo-code as much, but once you’re actually in the IDE, sometimes it’s useful, and you’d see many comments peppered around my code with things like “//TODO: Refactor to new class” and descriptions of what will be there once I write the code “//TODO: ThisClass, ThatClass, ThisDataObject, ThatStruct” and when there are complicated pieces of code, like for example Observers and other event systems that tend to be a little sticky, I will often write out a few lines describing in narrative what I’m trying to do “Call GetStatus and if Ready, send event notification to Update, wait for Draw call and flush buffers”

I used to do a lot more of that kind of thing, as you get more familiar with the syntax and grammar of the language you’re working in, you’ll get better at writing the code without having to think it out quite so deeply before hand.

#3

Thank you for the reply! This helps me out a lot and thank you for giving me some idea and knowledge to help better myself!

Privacy & Terms