Best course for programming?

[latinakayla]

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Great advice and I am learning all the time.

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[ehtefaz.hedayet]

Originally Posted by semper fidelis

for hsc subjects,

u should choose software design develpoment (SDD)
or information proccess tech (IPT)

make sure u hav a good teacher or u wont learn anythin

n learnin to program is hard unless u tryin to learn real basic or some really easy thing

you mainly need ext 1 maths to get into computer science. But SDD is part of the recommended subjects, IPT is just useless in this case.

[chucknthem]

both SDD and IPT are completely useless.

on SDD:

* Most of it is boring, outdated, and irrelevant at least until you've worked for a couple years (who needs know to know about the 'water fall model'? who's going to understand it or care until you've actually done a bit of software development at a large company (you wont find small companies using it), even then it's only a minuscule subset of software development that most people studying in or working in software will never use!).
* Why only teach sorting algorithms with O(n^2) complexity? they're not interesting at all.
* Most SDD teachers are morons who doesn't know the difference between java and javascript. being taught about software by them might be damaging to your learning
* being a good programmer relies on being intelligent more than the average career[1], SDD is just going to dumb you down, it doesn't attract the right kind of people to computing degrees, in fact, it'll just discourage people with half a brain on their heads from even consider computing.
* it seems standard for SDD to recommend people to use VB or pascal...WHY???? VB (except .NET) is horrible, and pascal is hardly ever used anymore, not even in academic circles which is where you might see other near dead languages lurking, but they're usually more interesting languages than pascal
* Needs more LINUX. I didn't touch linux until uni, but it's a much more friendly environment programming environment[2]

[1] unfortunately it also relies less on social skills than the average career, so you get more awkward people
[2] but linux has a less friendly user environment in most cases

I took a programming subject in high school in the US and absolutely loved it and was almost sure I was going to study computer science. after doing SDD in the HSC, I nearly changed my mind! but now i'm glad I didn't.

so in short, stay away from both IPT and SDD because they'll probably discourage you from doing programming at uni. take harder maths subject, do some science subjects, maybe even business or economics.
</rant>

[ehtefaz.hedayet]

Originally Posted by chucknthem

both SDD and IPT are completely useless.

on SDD:

* Most of it is boring, outdated, and irrelevant at least until you've worked for a couple years (who needs know to know about the 'water fall model'? who's going to understand it or care until you've actually done a bit of software development at a large company (you wont find small companies using it), even then it's only a minuscule subset of software development that most people studying in or working in software will never use!).
* Why only teach sorting algorithms with O(n^2) complexity? they're not interesting at all.
* Most SDD teachers are morons who doesn't know the difference between java and javascript. being taught about software by them might be damaging to your learning
* being a good programmer relies on being intelligent more than the average career[1], SDD is just going to dumb you down, it doesn't attract the right kind of people to computing degrees, in fact, it'll just discourage people with half a brain on their heads from even consider computing.
* it seems standard for SDD to recommend people to use VB or pascal...WHY???? VB (except .NET) is horrible, and pascal is hardly ever used anymore, not even in academic circles which is where you might see other near dead languages lurking, but they're usually more interesting languages than pascal
* Needs more LINUX. I didn't touch linux until uni, but it's a much more friendly environment programming environment[2]

[1] unfortunately it also relies less on social skills than the average career, so you get more awkward people
[2] but linux has a less friendly user environment in most cases

I took a programming subject in high school in the US and absolutely loved it and was almost sure I was going to study computer science. after doing SDD in the HSC, I nearly changed my mind! but now i'm glad I didn't.

so in short, stay away from both IPT and SDD because they'll probably discourage you from doing programming at uni. take harder maths subject, do some science subjects, maybe even business or economics.
</rant>

+1

i agree fully with this statement, but SDD discourages me because of my teacher. Repped.

[tedelex06]

Originally Posted by chucknthem

both SDD and IPT are completely useless.

on SDD:

* Most of it is boring, outdated, and irrelevant at least until you've worked for a couple years (who needs know to know about the 'water fall model'? who's going to understand it or care until you've actually done a bit of software development at a large company (you wont find small companies using it), even then it's only a minuscule subset of software development that most people studying in or working in software will never use!).
* Why only teach sorting algorithms with O(n^2) complexity? they're not interesting at all.
* Most SDD teachers are morons who doesn't know the difference between java and javascript. being taught about software by them might be damaging to your learning
* being a good programmer relies on being intelligent more than the average career[1], SDD is just going to dumb you down, it doesn't attract the right kind of people to computing degrees, in fact, it'll just discourage people with half a brain on their heads from even consider computing.
* it seems standard for SDD to recommend people to use VB or pascal...WHY???? VB (except .NET) is horrible, and pascal is hardly ever used anymore, not even in academic circles which is where you might see other near dead languages lurking, but they're usually more interesting languages than pascal
* Needs more LINUX. I didn't touch linux until uni, but it's a much more friendly environment programming environment[2]

[1] unfortunately it also relies less on social skills than the average career, so you get more awkward people
[2] but linux has a less friendly user environment in most cases

I took a programming subject in high school in the US and absolutely loved it and was almost sure I was going to study computer science. after doing SDD in the HSC, I nearly changed my mind! but now i'm glad I didn't.

so in short, stay away from both IPT and SDD because they'll probably discourage you from doing programming at uni. take harder maths subject, do some science subjects, maybe even business or economics.
</rant>

couldnt agree more. im currently in year 11 (have done SDD for a year now) and my teacher literally teaches us out of the book, hes trying to teach the class VB6 using outdated methods and being irritating in general.

one of hte kids asked the difference between VB6 and VB.NET and he answered "VB6 is old and VB.NET is the newer version, thats the only difference"
i laughed and he sent me out lol.


anyway... im not sure i made myself clear, when i say im not interested in design i mean i am not interested in game design (storyline, level design, 3d art, etc), what i am interested in is engine programming really.


and web programming aswell. either .NET or LAMP.

[megaa]

That was a useful response. Software is all about design, and in particular OO which is by far the dominant paradigm nowadays.

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[gdt]

You want to do a Bachelor of Computer Science. Don't do an Information Technology degree, these are about the business applications of computing, and are not what you want for games.

Now that you know your course, look at the universities which offer it and see what later-year units they offer. You are looking for game software electives such as computer graphics, game software architecture, haptics and the like. Then make an appointment with the course coordinator and go and chat with them (or ring them if interstate). Get some idea if these electives have the support of the department or if they are offered merely because one staff member is sharing their expertise. Ask them about the courses run by other universities in the state. Have a look at the honours seminar topics (these are usually on the web). Are some of them about gaming?

As for you other electives, you need enough math to be able to do matrix transforms, discrete math, and algorithm run time. Some computer architecture subjects would be good, as programming graphics cards is very much like assembler. You need to know about databases and networking. An embedded computer architectures subject would be good. Don't ignore the software design, software engineering practices, configuration control, testing, quality assurance and project management topics -- games take years to deliver and getting these wrong can doom a project before the software is out the door.

You also need to think about employment. The history of games development in Australia is a sad story. It's not much better overseas. So who do you see yourself working for, and how do you plan to get there? You might need to consider winning a scholarship to a overseas university to place yourself in the same country as likely employers. Can you really get the marks for that, or is games development an idle fantasy? Is a visa even possible, or do you need to create your own business here in Australia. Have you done any games development, just to learn by doing --- some influential games are open source.