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Educational Material Suggestion?

Started by shishio64 Dec 15, 2009 at 3:53 PM 4 replies 750+ views

Original Post

Dec 15, 2009 at 3:53 PM

Hello Everyone, Im 23 and soon starting university education for a bachelor degree in CS. In the time that i have till semester starts i have started trying to teach myself programming because im completely new to the whole thing and want to gain some basic understanding before the real education starts. i have already gone through 3D Buzz XNA Extreme 101 course which deals with the C# language and the XNA framework and although i found the program very enriching and fun, i had quite a difficulty understanding some basic principles and i feel i need a more beginner friendly educational material. what i did learn from this course though is that i really like game programming and that i would like to continue to expand on it while doing my degree education. can anyone suggest a good book, video course or any other kind of material that might be useful for me and get me started? im also not sure if i should stick with C# and XNA (i just randomly picked this course to get me started), what do you think? Thanks a lot!

Tom Sloper

Dec 15, 2009 at 6:13 PM

You seem to be asking a beginner programming question, so I'm moving this to For Beginners. I recommend you "View Forum FAQ" (above) for starters.

Kalnos

Dec 15, 2009 at 6:27 PM

IMO, I feel that the 3DBuzz videos are pretty neat to watch, if nothing else but just see how they handle certain aspects of development. As far as a tool to learn how to program though, I feel that it's weak. Not only do I feel that you need to read books, but I feel that you need to design your own projects and code them yourself without 'following along', although the VTM's are a great resource. Actually programming things is the best way to learn how to program.

I started with CPP and SDL, a path which most people on this forum would probably discourage you from taking, I still haven't figured out if they are right or wrong.

Anyway, some recommended reading/sites:

General Resources

A similar thread

There are lots more beginner type FAQ's and threads on this site, do some searching!

Fenrisulvur

Dec 15, 2009 at 7:56 PM

Okay, first of all, please understand that I'm only suggesting C++ because I like the book I'm about to link, and find it provides a good introduction to not only programming, but many computer science and hardware fundamentals which you will encounter in your course - Steve Heller's C++: A Dialog.

That book does have me convinced that C++ can work very well as a beginners' language, but please remain well aware of the fact that C++ is an extremely overrated language that you should show no particular pride in knowing (at least over any other language). In any given computer science course, you are likely to meet some people who would rather walk out on a lecture than be taught a language that isn't C++, and you should come to despise these people.

That said, it's the language every big game developer uses, so you may have to use it at some point.

shishio64

Dec 16, 2009 at 11:48 AM

Thanks for the help everyone!
i see that there aren't any recommended books on C# and XNA, oh well maybe i will go with C++ after all...

blackcloak

Dec 18, 2009 at 1:29 PM

I was going to recommend this book for XNA (Professional XNA Programming: Building Games for Xbox 360 and Windows with XNA Game Studio 2.0) but since it have not been updated for 3.1 I will suggest this site for XNA

I can't recommend any c# books since i taught my self with out one.

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