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Introduction GameTutorials Learning Philosophy |
Theory vs Practicality Typically, if you want to increase your knowledge about a programming topic, you buy a book on the topic that you want to learn about. The book may have a CD accompanying it with programming examples designed to further your knowledge on the selected topic. When you read the book, you usually find it on the theory heavy side, talking about high level solutions rather than code specific solutions. Unfortunately all too often the accompanying source code won't even compile without some tweaks, which depending on the reader's level, could make it completely useless. Theory is important when learning computer science, however, you can't punch "theory" into the compiler and have it create you a program. For this reason, we focus on the practical aspects of programming. The lessons cover the nuts and bolts that actually make things work. That is not to say the tutorials are devoid of software development theory; however, the overall content of the CD is geared towards practicality. This is why each and every programming lesson, in and of itself, is an executable program. Each source file that goes into making a programming lesson is richly commented with information that explains the lesson at hand.
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Learning By Doing To paraphrase Aristotle, "What we learn to do, we learn by doing". This couldn't be more true when it comes to learning how to program. If you think you're going to learn how to program by just reading these tutorials, let us set you straight right here. Simply reading the tutorials is not enough. You must write code to become a better a programmer. We suggest designing a small project and then programming your custom solution to it. Don't stop until it's finished! Quitting early will get you into bad habits that employers do not look fondly on. Employers want programmers that are capable of finishing what they start. This doesn't mean you have to come up with the worlds best solution, just finish your design so that it does what you said it was going to do.
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Not Robust, Not Optimized, What Gives? In general, the tutorials are generally not robust or optimized. This is because having an easy modifiable, highly-optimized, ultra-reliable, piece of software adds a ton of overhead to your source code. Each lesson is not a snippet code ripped from a commercial application, but rather has been carefully crated to teach practical concepts that can be applied when writing code. This is done by adding verbose commenting and focusing each tutorial to the topic a hand. When making your own software, you'll be able to add your own level of safety and flexibility. Basically, the least amount of code to teach a concept is what we have strived for, eliminating confusion to the read as to what exactly does what.
If you are a beginner we highly suggest that you first read through the beginner
FAQ so that you have a greater understanding of vocabulary and concepts before programming,
as well as knowing where to get some basic questions answered when you run into
problems. |
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