Man, I love posts like this! I made a couple of these in my time
I read your rant, and that's okay! If you're finding programming hard, don't worry!
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new". Just keep trying. I was in the exact same position that you're in, and people said the exact same thing to me. I was like, "Really? But you... you made X, Y and Z!! :O". You can either keep trying, or take a break for now. Don't tire yourself out. If you're not enjoying it, don't do it. If you ever feel like you wanna code, code. If you don't, don't.
One thing I will say, if you get frustrated, play some music you enjoy for about an hour WHILST NOT PROGRAMMING. If music isn't your thing, go out and play a sport or take a walk or play a game or whatever. Do something that'll help you relax. Chat to a friend. Whatever calms your nerves and makes you feel better. Make yourself a cup of tea. Then, come back and start coding again if you feel like it.
What inspires you guys to program?
Well, the main thing that inspires me to program, is having something to be proud of in the end. Not for anyone else to be proud of, but for me to be proud of. I get enjoyment and happiness out of programming, and if there's ever a day where I think "Meh, I'll take a break", I take a break. Unless you have a job programming, you don't have ant set-in-stone timetable. When I work on a project, I don't set deadlines. I just work at my own pace and rate. This way, I can enjoy programming. Specifically, when writing games, the thing that inspires me to write games is the idea of having a game to play when I'm finished. For example, I'm writing a game right now, and sometimes, when I don't feel like coding or doing much, I'll play it and really enjoy it. So, back to your question, the thing that inspires me to program/write games I suppose is just to have something that by the end of it I can play.
What get's you up in the morning and code something beautiful. And that in 1 month or 1 week, you start to get something you're proud of?
Well, I wouldn't say to code something beautiful, but what get's me up the morning and gets me to code is similar to what inspires me. I think "Man, if I finished X, then I could play it and enjoy it!". So I get up, turn my computer on, open iTunes/Browser of my choice, and play some Crush 40/Watch
Steves Vlogs in the background, and start typing! After about 30 minutes to 8 hours later, I could either end up fixing half a bug, or gotten an entire game mode done! The amount of progress you made doesn't matter. If you get ANYWHERE or learn ANYTHING, then you've made progress. If you've attempted to fix the issue, you've made progress. It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you're not staring into your editor for 10 hours, then you've done something worth doing.
Well, I'm 14, and so I don't have a job, and I have a lot of free time. Some days I might only get like 20 minutes to code, others I might get like 8-10 hours! But, after a week, I generally start to see
something. I tend to see something that'll keep me going. That being said, sometimes I'll think, "Ugh, I have to fix X, Y and Z. I can't be bothered", and not code for a day or so, just to avoid having to fix that problem. I move on pretty fast, so after about a day at most I'll start coding again. After a month I see something I can be proud of, not necessarily a week. That's not enough time. If you're not proud of what you have, analyse what you don't like and change it. If you think "Ugh, I'll have to write X, Y and Z", don't. Cross that bridge when you come to it.
I'd also like to know, how everyone got into programming.
Ah hah, this is going to be a long section, because it's a very convoluted and crazy story.
When the game "Sonic Adventure 2: Battle" was released in Europe, my mum and dad bought it. I was just over a year old, but I loved the game. It was probably due to the colours and fast paced nature of the game and Sonic series in general. Anyway, from that point on, I became obsessed with the Sonic franchise. When I was around 8-9 years old, I asked my dad how the game was made (This was because I did a glitch that allowed me to escape from the Neutral Chao Garden, and there was a lot of extra space. I asked my dad about this) and my dad told me that it was basically all programming. He explained how everything on the screen is, essentially, 1's and 0's. Of course, as a 9 year old, I was baffled, and then he explain about binary, and I got a big interest in software at that point. I had always been a bit of a computer nerd (I got my first computer when I was 3 years old. It was a really old Toshiba laptop, and it was crap now adays, but at the time it was amazing).
When I was like 11 or 12, my dad told me about the programming language "Python", since I had been asking about how to make games. Python 3.3 had just came out I think, and we didn't know what that meant. All the tutorials I found were for 2.7, and the changes were kinda big between 2.7 and 3.3, so I got really confused. After a couple of hours, we worked it out and I started learning. I got stuck on variables, and didn't write another line of code for another
8 months. Programming was the spawn of the devil as far as I was concerned.
Anyway, then, when I was out shopping with my parents, my dad found a Linux magazine. It spoke of a website called codecademy, and I went on there. To this day, I have not completed their Javascript course, but it was the first one I started. After getting stuck on objects in JS or something, I went onto HTML & CSS, which I completed in a few hours or so. I then started jQuery, finished that very quick, and then went onto Ruby. Right now, I LOOOOOVE Ruby. It is a fantastic programming language. But at the time, Ruby was confusing and evil XD I stopped using it and went onto Codecademys Python course.
A hop, skip and a jump later, me and my friends get together with the idea of writing a game. We initially started using HTML, CSS and jQuery (I had no idea what I was doing or what went into making a game). We then switched to Python/PyGame, then C++/SDL, C++/SFML, and C++/Allegro. That ended in a bad way, so we then went onto Ruby/RubyGame and Ruby/Gosu. Then we were gonna use Java, but we found LÖVE. I eventually abandoned the idea of writing a game, after loosing a lot of friends. A lot of core people dropped out as well. Mr. BallGuy was supposed to be a test for our game, but ended up turning into a full game, and my first game. Mr. BallGuy got a fair bit of attention, and that made me happy. Someone, who's name will not be mentioned, really annoyed me and put of programming for a couple of months (this guy was a hater and I think eventually got banned, but anyway). I lost all inspiration for writing games. Then, I took up Java and LibGDX. I still really enjoy using LibGDX, but LÖVE has a nicer community and it's more "fun" to write games in, I suppose XD
After slowly edging my way back into LÖVE, I came back. I got my inspiration for writing games back, and then I got back into LÖVE. I started writing code in LÖVE again, and it just "felt like I was home"... sorta... It just felt natural and fun and amazing and LÖVELY. I then proceeded to reboot my LÖVE tutorial series (I made a YouTube channel in 2009, but uploaded nothing of real interest. Then, I started making LÖVE and Python and Lua tutorials), and now we're here.
In short: What got my into programming was Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, My Dad, Python, Codecademy, that dreadful mistake of an indie game dev team, a Linux magazine and my friends.
What steps did you take to improve your skill? Did you read a manual? Did you watch tutorials? Or maybe a tutor?
Practice, mistakes, headaches and tears. Literally. There were some days I would just cry. I actually didn't read any manuals on Lua until a lot later on. I watched SockMunkee Dev's tutorials (or as he is called on the forums, baconhawka7x), and he taught me a lot of Lua and LÖVE. His tutorials were great, but they are for LÖVE 0.8.0 I think. Still, it could help you learn some LÖVE, so I highly recommend them. I also watched Goatures tutorials. They helped a little, but ended up confusing me a lot. You can check them out if you want. I was my own tutor. After I finished Sock's tutorials I proceeded to ask questions on here, on YT, on Stack Overflow (which was a huge mistake, might I add. All I got was hate and banned on there for asking questions) and to anyone I could. The best thing to do to improve your skill is to keep trying and keep going. Start writing a project. If you don't understand something, ask. That's what I did. I asked a hell of a lot, actually XD I posted like 100 posts before I eventually started getting somewhere with LÖVE, with almost all of them being questions. Silly questions looking back on it now. But everyone in the community helped me, and encouraged me. I said something really crazy, basically saying I was gonna stop coding (which a few months later I did, but for different reasons), but people here greatly encouraged me. I have to say, without their help, I would have gave up a long time ago. I would name them, but the list is too long. You know who you are
Just keep asking questions, and don't give up. Think of what you can achieve in the end. Hey, some day you might be replying to a thread similar to this one. Call me crazy, but if you had have went back to me when I was making threads like this and told me I'd be replying to a thread like it, I'd have called you crazy... and then became friends with you XD
UTTERLY SHAMELESS PLUG: If you ever wanna check out tutorials, check out mine if you haven't already. Apparently they help people (and apparently my voice is amazing too XD) I'll be recording and upload them regularly, especially now that it's summer
Funny enough, I'm uploading the 3rd episode right now! Playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... re=mh_lolz
Hopefully you found my extremely long message helpful in some way! Good luck, and remember: Have fun and be LÖVELY!
Have an amazing day!!!!!!
If you don't, I'll find you and make your day lÖvElY
) website for learning how to use Lua with ROBLOX. I become respected enough to be recommended for moderator and soon enough I convince the owner I'm good enough to become the developer. "Where's your proof?", he asked. "I don't have any right now, but I'll make a forum website." I respond. Then I start writing a website in PHP. I don't know PHP. I don't know how to use SQL. I don't know anything about web development. I make the entire forum website in 2 hours. It has multiple boards, user accounts, various threads, and the ability to moderate posts. I didn't know PHP, but I manage to become proficient enough in it in 2 hours to get asked to join the development team. I work on developing the new and shiny lessons website. I design the entire exams website by myself (which was some of the worst code ever written) and manage to convince the owner to keep running the website. We release and everyone loves it. People especially liked ranking up when they got XP from passing exams (yay!).