First post !

Console programming is the best for learning and developing! Consider yourself lucky. Think of what you can do.

You can write a full fledged ray tracer that outputs to a .BMP file.
You can program a LISP interpreter or some type of compiler.
You can program CGI scripts for web serving.
You can program AI problem solvers.
The list goes on and on.
Enjoy!

LaMothe''s book is all you need. Just make sure you understand everything in each chapter completely before moving on, and you''ll be on your feet in no time.

-Ironblayde
 Aeon Software

And never feel afraid of digging up somebodies crusty old code and seeing what it does. Thats how a lot of us got where we are today

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

What the hell kind of first post is this?

FPs should be taking the piss out of the topic at hand, not addressing them. Geez, if the trolls of slashdot don''t even troll anymore... oh, wait... this isn''t slashdot. Never mind...

Kelendil -- Don''t worry, all this stuff (linked lists and queues and more) you''re learning will help. Andre LaMothe''s book is excellent. And I reccommend an article here at GameDev.Net called something like "2-D Isometric Engines with Direct3D" when you''re done with the book (I don''t remember the exact name, sorry - do a search).

Wishing you the best,

CP

"Can't you see it's only life! We can laugh about it!" - Seal

Kelendil : Having an infinite number of things to learn is a good thing! Imagine how boring life would be if we knew from the outset all that we could learn.

School might seem like it''s going slow. I interpret this statement to mean that you''re just beginning your degree. There are so many things in Computer Science to learn...so many things your professors will hint at but not cover explicitly in class...the real trick is to discover associations and inter-dependencies amongst topics that seem different on the outside.

If you are at a University (as opposed to a technical college), you''ll probably never have a class in DirectX or even Windows programming. What you''ll learn is the underlying theory, an abstraction, that you can build upon to get where you''re going. That having been said, most computer graphics courses that I know of teach a little OpenGL. Game programming is something that you have to pursue yourself, on top of the grunt work at school.

Oh...and since you''re new here: Don''t mind Godfree^ ... lest we forget that today is Monday and yesterday was the weekend...