learning to program

[Scribbles]

I definitely think it's possible to program without learning it in college. I mean, clearly you program and there are a lot of people earning good livings (who I know) who are self taught!

What I will say (from having attended an engineering program) is that school gives structure. It's really, really hard to pick up some of the weird nuances of programming without being forced to sit through a class on say, architecture or higher level mathematics.

With that said, the vast majority of programming that I (or my friends) have done at work doesn't require all that super high level stuff. So...if your goal is to be, say, a database engineer or to write algorithms for, say, Netflix buffering, you probably do need to go to school. (Or really, really, really love teaching yourself arcane math on your off hours. Most people I know who do that kind of work have done both!) But in general, I'd say that the credential is more to get a foot in the door than much else. (And after you've worked for a bit, you don't really need the degree.)

oh thanks, yeah I mainly want to code my own games without needing peoples help all the time > < lol

[Mutive]

Hah, for that I don't think you need a formal class. (Although classes do give discipline! But really, it's mostly the higher level stuff that seems to really require a bunch of formal training, which most game design really isn't! Of course, I say this as I bork out while trying to program a while loop...hah hah hah....)

[Scribbles]

Hah, for that I don't think you need a formal class. (Although classes do give discipline! But really, it's mostly the higher level stuff that seems to really require a bunch of formal training, which most game design really isn't! Of course, I say this as I bork out while trying to program a while loop...hah hah hah....)

lol I always make the dumbest mistakes with code, I don't have to worry about the discipline too much I'm pretty driven. thanks for your advice ^^ I do feel a bit more at ease about -not- trying to go back to college b/c that would be a nightmare for me

[Mutive]

I do the same thing. The colon is and always will be my nemesis. *sigh* (I just remind myself that the only bad thing that happens when I screw up is that I get an error message that usually even tells me where my error is. Oh, that and that I need to write little chunks, not big one, little, not big...gah.)