Mentors?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but this board is good for starters. Flipcode.com has some developers that answer questions and a lot of tutorials.

JoeMont001@aol.com www.polarisoft.n3.net

Edited by - Julio on August 30, 2000 10:13:10 AM

Edited by - Julio on August 30, 2000 10:14:52 AM

well I don''t know if you are an experienced programmer or if you are just a beginner like me, but don''t you ever wish you where kind of in a one on one friendship with someone who had no problem teaching you what they know.

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Hey, Freud, what brand of bullshit are you shoveling, huh? Right now he's probably dancing around his room in a pair of his grandmother's panties, singing show tunes and rubbing himself with peanut butter...

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Wolfmaster

I don''t want to sound condescending, or superior, or whatever,
but those people that know a lot of things, and are able to communicate this to you in a clear and easy fashion, usually are too busy to spend time with a relative newbie to teach them the ropes. You''ll have to piece everything together yourself, you''re not going to get it handed to you on a silver platter.


Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~
ERROR: Your beta-version of Life1.0 has expired. Please upgrade to the full version. All important social functions will be disabled from now on.

WolfMaster - Well, I understand how you feel - I am also just starting out and sometimes I think having about 2 hours of somebody''s time could probably save me a week of work on my own. On the other hand, it is definitely too much to ask somebody to just be your personal mentor. I suspect that some might be willing to do that, but think about it, who would they help? Apparently everybody on the face of the planet has a ''great idea for a game'', and about half of those people want to ''get into'' game programming. How would you decide who''s really serious and worth helping?
Anyway, I''ve posted a few questions on this board and gotten a total of one response. I''m not really complaining - I think that at this point I probably don''t know enough to ask a good question. I guess I''ll learn eventually. I''m even more stubborn than I am dim.
If you live in a town of reasonable size, you might see if there is a ''club'' or something of people doing this. I don''t really have the time to do that myself, but it might be very helpful. You might also try Emailing other beginners you encounter and if it seems like you can communicate on the same level, just keep up a correspondence. Just being able to talk out something you don''t understand without having to worry about sounding dumb might be really helpful.

Good luck

information is the illusion of knowledge

the last message was me!

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Hey, Freud, what brand of bullshit are you shoveling, huh? Right now he's probably dancing around his room in a pair of his grandmother's panties, singing show tunes and rubbing himself with peanut butter...

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Wolfmaster

Good mentors really help. I kinda had one while I was learning. But I agree with MadKeithV that it is hard to find programmers than can explain everything well to you and are willing to hand everything on a silver platter. And when they do it is decadent to the learning process.

Good mentors lead you in the right direction, and give you hints after you''ve been stuck on a problem for hours. Looking at some well optimized code with good algorithms helps give a lot of ideas.

I don''t think Keith is saying that he wouldn''t help someone with a question or 2, but few people are going to walk through the process step by step. The closest you''ll get to that is a good beginners book...mostly LaMothe''s books.



Think about it: if you knew a whole lot about programming would you use all your time explaining something to one person step by step? I doubt it. You''d want to use the time to work on your own projects or write a book or make a sort of company like LaMothe''s.

Showing someone how to write games is different than teaching someone to rollerskate or something. You can''t just say do this and do this and you''ve got a game! It takes a long time.



"NPC's are people too!" --dwarfsoft

"Nazrix is cool." --Nazrix first, then Darkmage

Well Now,

A lot of people on this board really know their stuff. Maybe one of them is willing?

STVOY





Mega Moh Mine!!

hello everyone,
Well, I understand that people are busy doing there own projects or writing a book, making some sort of company like LaMothe''s. I also thank people that help me with my questions. Now I just can''t understand one thing, when people are doing project on here and they are looking for help, people to give there free time for no money and they won''t accept you because your newbie. Now that makes me sick. These people are new, willing to give there time and willing to put everything they want into the project, and they won''t take you because your new. I just don''t think that''s right.
Braves

I see what you mean braves. If someone has a very specific question then people should try and answer as best they can, but when people expect others to write a whole game for them or guide them through every step, it''s just unrealistic.



"NPC's are people too!" --dwarfsoft

"Nazrix is cool." --Nazrix first, then Darkmage

Well Now,

Calm it braves, take a chill pill. No one said anything about that. I doesn''t happen that much, but I can see your point, but sometimes people are just too busy to help. No flames now I agree OK.


STVOY

Mega Moh Mine!!

On my team I allow newbies since I give the people simple tasks at first and I carefully check their code. What usually happens is I tell them to do something and I never hear from them again because they don''t know how to do it.

Although I have seen a lot of engines completely screwed because someone used a bad algorithm early on and most of the code needs to be rewritten to fix it. But again for my project I know what algorithms should be used and I just tell other people to use them.

I guess I could try to mentor someone, but if you saw my ealier post that doesn''t mean I''ll help you a lot. You also need to understand that I don''t always code the standard way, and I''m not big on 3d stuff

I''m not sure that we are understanding each other:

1) I know people are busy, which makes it hard to help others.

2) If I had the experience, I would like to think that I would help someone, after all I know that being a newbie is tough you have all this information at your fingertips, but don''t know the order to put it in.

3) It''s the old saying about employment, how am I supposed to get all this experience, if noone will hire me?!

just my thoughts.

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Hey, Freud, what brand of bullshit are you shoveling, huh? Right now he's probably dancing around his room in a pair of his grandmother's panties, singing show tunes and rubbing himself with peanut butter...

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Wolfmaster

I''m glad to see people didn''t take my comments too badly

Some of the people that know the ropes on these boards, in certain areas, try to help out the newbies as much as possible. In order to not have to give the same answer to the same question all the time, they end up writing articles, and they are here on gamedev.net. That''s why a lot of the time we point you to this article or that book, because it answers your questions in a way we probably couldn''t beat if we tried.

So, don''t discount answers that point you to books, specially if you asked a really broad question that''s hard to answer.

Ps. I have written an article for Gamedev already, the one on Performance Programming using C++. I use what spare time I have to help the people on this board. And if I have the time, I will answer any direct question that you ask me.



Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~
ERROR: Your beta-version of Life1.0 has expired. Please upgrade to the full version. All important social functions will be disabled from now on.

Since he lives withing biking distance of me, I''ve taught Icemage a few coding tricks...

- DarkMage139
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"Shut up and give me the freakin code" -unknown
"Ask and you will be shot" -snes16bit
"Not again!" -SHilbert (upon being assimilated)
"Nazrix is cool." - Nazrix

Hello once again,
I can really understand not taking people’s time up too long. Time is money, right? I respect 99% of the major experienced programmers that come to gamedev.net, they have answered so many programming questions for me, not just game programming because tell you the truth I have not started a game yet, don''t really think I am at that level when it comes to understand DirectX. However, I did one time try to get with a team that was developing a game under the "help wanted" section but they would not take me because I was new. I have a good understand of C and basics understand of C++, which I plan on learning a lot more. I wanted to join a team because it gives me a more personal relationship with people that have the same interest as I have, which is programming, games and just getting this game finished. See, I don’t know anyone that is interested in game development as I have, which makes it hard because if you do have a question to ask, sometimes it’s nice to know someone personality that you can assist you rather than making a post and hoping someone will have the opportunities to answer your question. Books are also great, but sometimes what the author writes just does not click for you, which again gives that personal relationship even more valuable

Blue-lightning
Thank you for giving newbies the opportunities to work on your project. Maybe you have a project these days that you can use a newbie as a programmer? I am sorry some of your code had to be re-wirten but you have to understand that’s going to happen letting a new person work on your team. If you have any current positions open let me know, I am willing to work on your team!

This is just my opinions which really doesn’t mean anything, but I am still going to express it.
Braves