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So... being in online school gives me a ton of free time. So, in this free time I've decided to learn programming with the goal to be a game developer at some point in the future. Keep in mind while reading this that I know NOTHING when it comes to coding because I haven't started learning yet. But I don't know what to use... There are a ton of java tutorials out there that I could look at but games like Minecraft are very CPU intensive and that's (at least what I have heard) because of java. Should I use something else or do the benefits of Java outweigh the problems?

If your going to work with java I recommend getting Eclipse, it's a very nice and helpful program. Also start with a basic hello world program.

Princess Luna wrote:If your going to work with java I recommend getting Eclipse, it's a very nice and helpful program. Also start with a basic hello world program.

I suppose I'll need Notepad++ as well.

You don't need Notepad++ if you have Eclipse.

I recommend a toaster. Preferably a brave model.

Tunnelthunder wrote:I recommend a toaster. Preferably a brave model.

Brave Little Toaster gave me nightmares -.-

Begin coding with Ruby plataform.

Or LUA.

They are very easy and powerfull.


I recommend.

fr0st recommended Java when I asked him if Lua was a good starter.

I'm doing it anyway because it's the language Spring engine uses, but for just the purpose of becoming a gamedev...I hear it's not that big a step from Java to C++.

Eventually it doesn't matter what you learn with but what you learn from. When it comes to learning programming you probably need an easy language to start with. Java and C# are pretty much identical and are quite easy to understand. For each one of them I suggest getting their respective programs (Eclipse or Visual C#) because with Notepad++ you lack many futures that exist in those editors. Also if I were you I'd rather ask "where do I start learning from ?" because I have no idea I always studied it as my primary with a teacher.

Lua is shittastic for most purposes. I'd suggest learning Python, and building from that. I use Geany and Vim for editing and such.

Lua is used a lot in game scripting because it is very lightweight and portable, and has a good math library. It's not because it's easier.
At least for programmers, Python is usually considered the easiest language to learn. I don't know whether that is the case for novices as well; I don't use it myself.

I recommend Visual Basic because of it's "breakpoint" testing feature. This allows you to test specific portions of your code by running the program line by line. Its quite useful.

This exists in pretty much every single editor I mentioned - it is a fundamental tool in debugging. Just get something and get going ! Consider what you would like to hop into when you are done - for example if you want to try and help with the mod go for Java.

I suppose I'll start with Java and move on to Lua whenever I feel ready...