Noob Questions from Nickropheliac: Your stories, programming lifestyle, etc.

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Im Nick, I go by the handle of Nickropheliac or TheNickropheliac most times. I’m a sophomore in high school and I want to be a programmer. For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved to make things for myself, and watch others enjoy what I’ve created. This acclaim mostly came from my artwork, as I had wanted to be an artist from 3rd - 9th grade. I still draw. In fact, I’m worse at pixel art than I am at digital painting. It’s something I will build on, but for now, I wish to make games. Not big games. Just good games. Small ones. For the next few years, I will not focus on anything huge. Just really short 1-2 week projects. The third week since I had begun to learn java has just begun. I have A.D.D, and I read books on Java coding on the side. However, I prefer to watch video tutorials, just because I cannot focus on reading for long periods of time. I often get off track. I’m most efficient late at night. That’s when the most work is completed. You’d find me up until 5:30 and sleeping until 8, and taking small naps during the day.

The reason I am writing this post is because I want to understand what it is like for you guys. I’ve posted a couple threads since I’ve joined, and you guys all had great responses. And as of now, you guys are who I’m looking up to. So what I want is to hear your “success stories”. How did you learn? What was your life like? What was your life like as you were learning? Study habits, etc. It’d really give me a boost, to keep working at this. Thanks :smiley:

#2

i think that’s a hard topic. successive depends on so many things. learning for instance - everybody has a different perception of things. imo, if somebody “doesn’t get” something, there’s probably something wrong with the translation. the way a teacher teaches, the type of book you read, etc etc.

… so general, proven or “mostly correct” approaches … or hints or tips … are very little if you do not bias it into your personal space. for this attitudes like “self-reflective” empathic and patient help. (hot-headed, hyped, impatient, … do not help). (doh’)

anyway, i think it’s great when you do something different, not code. if you draw, paint or do any art that’s great! alone from that you can gain programing skill. especially if you code games.

#3

Hi Nick, I’ll try not to make this post too long but to hopefully give you some overview of my programming journey so far.

My first introduction to programming was when I was about 16 after I was inspired by games such as Minecraft and wanted to try a new hobby. I looked into programming but soon came to realise that it wasn’t a walk in the park and I gave up in the first few weeks. I left coding alone until I was 19 and decided that it was in fact what I wanted to do, not only as a hobby but as a career. I started watching maybe 2-3 videos everyday making sure to understand everything and using what I had just learned by using my new knowledge with what I had learned before.

I was about 3 months in and my confidence was starting to take a hit, I felt like I was always working in the console and not seeing any progress. I decided to join a number of different forums to help me along, give me inspiration and to push myself to move forward and learn more. While doing this I applied to University to study Software Engineering as my passion for coding was growing and I wanted some formal education in the field. I should add at this point that I dropped out of ‘high school’ in my final year due to depression and anxiety so I wasn’t sure what my chances would be with going to University. I continued my work with programming while I waited for the my University replies and the guys here and at other forums helped me understand new concepts as well as helping me learn about things like vector math which has pushed me to learn about other math topics and actually enjoy it (I hated math at School).

A few months later all of the Universities I had applied to replied to me with their verdicts. I received an offer from every single University I applied to and couldn’t be happier. I had dropped out of School due to my depression and almost given up hope that I would ever have a job I loved but here I was years later working hard and trying to make something of myself. This pretty much is the story thus far and i’ll be moving out to start my first year in about 2-3 weeks which i’m really looking forward to.

I’d just like to add that without the support of my mother, I wouldn’t be in this situation. She stuck by me and helped as much as she could, finally convincing me to get help for my illness so I could get back to normal. I owe her everything really and I plan to spoil her with gifts :P.

#4

I started programming using a tool called Game Maker (8 years ago). I was 10 at the time. It wasn’t until I was 12 when I started learning Game Maker’s programming language.

When I found Java, I already had a decent programming background which allowed me to pick it up relatively easily. However, over the past 4 years of it, I have become a tremendously better programmer. One of the best things in my opinion that you can do, is develop something like Minecraft plugins. It’s nice because it gives you the satisfaction of writing something which has a huge impact on a game, without having to write the whole game.

About 3 years ago, I started making Minecrafft servers using the base server, Bukkit. I created MCBrawl with a friend of mine. It became incredibly popular, and in fact still has a ton of people that play on it, even though I left to focus more on my own projects.

Stick with programming though! There’s no feeling like making something awesome in code :wink:

#5

Started programming almost 2 years ago, during New Year school break. After half a year, during the summer, decided to drop out of school with 2 years left. Was programming for around a year at home and playing videos games. Googled ‘game programmer job’ in my language, saw some company, decided to give a job application a try. I was told to make a Galaga clone in a week, which I did. They invited my to a job interview. That was my first job interview ever, I didn’t know what I was doing. They asked my question, I answered some of them. After a week they emailed me that I got the job. So yeah thats my success story so far :smiley: