If you are really into programming, there are 1000 times as much jobs in the "normal" software engineering. For me, the fun in programming is the same there. finding solutions and play around with whatever you've created
This is true, I can often get satisfaction in programming from the work I do in a normal job. Starcraft mapping gives me the satisfaction of the soul, where I have created something fun and awesome. This latter type of satisfaction is the reason why people want game industry jobs, but it is still hard to find even if you do land an industry job.
Im glad I posted here. Thank for some of the awesome stories.
I got 1 year left of my school, so I will have to wrap that up and after that go to worklife for a while. Allthough I do feel like I should pursue other things than my current education.
Last summer didnt brighten my future as "electrical engineer" either. I spent 4 months on a shit job that let me down even further. The pay was bad, the job was bad, the people I worked with were bad...and it doesnt come much better when I think about future jobs, I could have a job of designing electricity for houses. That would require sitting in office 90% of the time and looking trought catalogues...I cant imagine that being fun for long...I would prefer programming over this...
Its still probly not all about programming for me, I do think puzzle solving would be more fitting to that. Like in one course I took in school. We programmed machines to move in a certain way (with "blocks") I had a blast doing it. It was rather simple but its fun to actually do stuff like that. Sadly this was only like one course and its only the bare basics of automation...I guess I might try to discuss with school if I could take some other courses and spend like a year mastering stuff so I could actually work with the cool stuff.
In the end so many factors affect wheter you get perfect job or not, but god I just cant see a bright future yet -_-....
Its still probly not all about programming for me, I do think puzzle solving would be more fitting to that. Like in one course I took in school. We programmed machines to move in a certain way (with "blocks") I had a blast doing it. It was rather simple but its fun to actually do stuff like that.
Not to be a downer, but are you absolutely sure of that? Consider this a word of caution; because so much stuff in high school sucks so badly it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you really like something and aiming to pursue that after school, but then finding out it wasn't what you were after at all. I only barely avoided this pitfall; the only subject I kind-of liked in High School was English, mainly because I was good at it and could just mess around and do my own thing during those lessons. I actually dabbled into seeing if I could become an English teacher for some time, but I'm now very glad I never pursued that route and woke up in time. There's plenty of stuff I like about English, but good god would that be a ridiculously boring career for me to actually specialize into.
<Heh>, just thought I'd share my story here as well. Been playing with Blizzards map editors since 7th grade. High school never really gave me a chance to learn programming though, so I learned it all myself. By the end of high school I was looking for a job that would let me design stuff and program, so I went for mechatronics engineering. Not quite what I was looking for though. I ended up using high level statistical programming software more than I did C. C+ + and Java weren't even in my syllabus. Most of the programming I did was hardware/firmware programming. If I had a chance to choose again, I would probably have gone for computer science, but I get the impression it's stick heaven over there.. Hardly any opportunities to meet girls.
So i graduate in '08 during the shitty recession period, can't find a job I like and get persuaded to take postgrad upon a promise that was made to me that I would get to do programming. To my despair, I spend more time having to read literature and write journal papers, research in general. Thats where I realized research is not my thing. Got to teach classes on how to program firmware in C as well, I enjoyed it very much but was assigned other subjects that I didn't like so much in the later years of my postgrad. Thats where I realised Academia is not my thing.
During my masters I also worked part time with a semiconductor company, developing web applications on Java and SQL, despite not having any prior training. Had to reverse engineer code just to get everything working... I found that I really enjoyed it and would like to learn more about it, so upon my recent graduation from postgrad, I've signed up for a Java/SQL training course that will be commencing in February :) I'm really looking forward to it as it's something I've wanted to learn for a very very long time. Hopefully all goes well and I'll land a job working with Java thereafter. It's something I know I won't feel miserable doing. The frustration and the thrills of piecing together applications sorta cancel one another out for me. As for map editing, it's a nice hobby to have in the sidelines.
Feel like a scumbag to my parents sometimes... 6 years in engineering and now I'm branching towards software development. </Heh>
I have worked in pretty much every type of design you can imagine ... from the obvious - graphic, down to architecture and interior design. In the early 2000's I did website development and commercial graphic design because the pay was so high, come mid 2000's everyone and their cousin wanted to study graphic design so I got out of it foreseeing a crash in rates ... I was pretty much right, here graphic design went from $165/h to $11/h. So I decided to get into another field, I was in that and ahead of the pack, but it seems now that everyone wants to do that as well. It always seems that I choose things I like and then the rest follow, I have been so unlucky in that regard because come now I am thinking of game design as a permanent career, at least for as long as it can hold - and it appears that everyone wants to do that, and I believe a larger population will start going the indie route with the amount of money that can be made with a good unique idea or a good stolen/copied idea (Minecraft/Dota).
The way I look at it ... it is not my dream to do game design, it is just something that comes naturally to me, and I believe that I can make a shitload of money, and if funded, can make my employer a shitload of money ... I do not have a million dollars to drop on a project ... so obviously the best choice I could make is applying for positions at a major company (Say Blizzard/Valve) or going the indie route if the first is uneventual.
I have dreams, but at this moment, I have lost so many it seems unlikely that the rest will come true ... I do have some really refined ideas for games, and in hindsight if I had done them when I thought of them I would have been ahead of the pack ... in terms of voxel terrain (Minecraft) (I thought of the idea in 1998 for a high school project but never did anything about it) all the way through to a futuristic MMORPG mixed with a tiny bit of fantasy (wrote down before WoW came out). But being in the most isolated city in the world, if I want to do anything I have to leave, and at this moment I am sadly not free to do so unless a real opportunity appears (say being invited for an interview for the above) I am stuck in my never changing sad existance.
For the people who live in the USA, you really have no idea how lucky you are. You have the ability to go to big studios, to get interviews, to get funding etc ... and the ability to hire talented people. Here in Australia we had Auran, who made games like Dark Reign and Train Simulator, who abused government funding ($15,000,000) and was very very naughty indeed and kind of destroyed the whole Australian game industry single handedly. Everyone who studies computer science at university goes the route of industrial applications (like backends for companies) rather than game design because there are simply no studios that exist, let alone hire. Whilst I am comfortable at this moment in my life, I need to decide upon what I wish to do for the 'rest of my life' because I am older than the majority here, and certain things are expected of me.
If I could go back and do it all again I would do Civil Engineering/Architecture double degree ... and learning C+ + when I had the change back in 2003 ... but some things you cannot control, such as certain events in your life, and you gotta just keep walking no matter how badly people hold you back.
I am a roofer, that is; in the summer time, I climb up on roofs, tear the old shingles off, and put new ones on. I love the work, it is great exercise, you can see what you are accomplishing; and 30 years later it is still there. I started roofing when I was 15 (8 years ago) and have been doing it ever since. I have just recently started leading my own operations this last summer. The money is pretty nice. If I work a long summer, I can take the entire winter off to go snowboarding.
The downside? Weather sucks. Rain days can really hurt a years income. The local flooding last summer cost me about 6,000 dollars in work that I missed out on. To make up for it, I now need to work through the winter. You cant roof in the winter. I have been stuck running electrical work in the basement of a flooded out apartment complex for the past 3 weeks. Sub freezing, working with metal boxes with my bare hands for 8 hours a day. This makes me a very unhappy camper. ...Very unhappy... Just signed a moderate sized deal though; it will provide me a few weeks work inside doing drywall.
Overall, I enjoy my work. In America, you can go to any state and say "I worked construction up north" and get a good paying job. Hopefully technology and Mexicans (no offense Mexico) don't get too far ahead of me. The biggest problem with laboring jobs is technology. A new product comes out that makes 1 person as efficient as 2, and someone loses a job. I am pretty tech savvy though, so hopefully I will be the 1 who has a job in the end.
@Zenx1, replying purely to your OP. Take programming up as a hobby during your free time, add in some freelance jobs, become more competent and then phase out electrical engineering entirely. xcorbo has it spot on also, see image:
edit: I'm 100% happy in my chosen 'career' as freelance graphic design consultant, character artist, animator, poly modeller, architectural visualisation specialist, digital artist and all round awesome dude, who dabbles in the indi-game development circles.
Well,
Even though I've made a ton of maps in warcraft, some in starcraft and programmed some robots with c,i must say that
I actually don't like programming.
I gave up on learning how to program a simple homepage because it was so incredible boring. I like making a concept, an idea and then try to make it work. I like designing the house, see it finished, but i don't like putting on the bricks. It has also just been the means to an end.
So even though college was very mathematical, i dropped it and started a humanistic line of education, story creation in theater and movies, documentaries, fiction, etc.
It was actually that part of mapping i liked, the artistic one, not the mindless triggering. The goal is everything, the way there i do not care about.
So as there might be mappers that map because they like programming, there a those that just want to create a game, but unfortunately have to learn to do it.
Which is also why i dislike the new data editor so much, a lot of people simply can't learn it, it's to hard, but im 100% sure that absolute noobs in programming have potential to make maps with good ideas a lot better than the best programmer.
How do you get started programming though? Easy. You go to the documentation of the language. That's how you find out what you can do with the language. You don't have to be a guru in a particular language to program in it you just need to know your way around the documentation to figure out what you can do and to apply it to what you want to do.
For java it's the Javadocs, just google javadocs and find it somewhere. How to read the documentation. All of the packages are classes with properties and methods. Some of them you have to import into your program and some of them are part of the core- this is so that there is no wasted time in trying to compile for everything that is java inside of a program when you only need to use a portion of it.
I can testify based on my past experience when I was first getting into Java, I couldn't understand the documentation. Found it to be somewhat overwhelming. This was after about 5 years working with C. Then again, I learned all my programming myself... No thanks to any syllabus. Just lots of coding and reading, eventually understanding. Do first, understand later much? I'm overjoyed with my career choice though. Managed to land a job as a software engineer.
Come in on weekends? No problem. Something tells me I'm going to love my job. <3
What I find works for me when It comes to programming. If you want to learn,
First you need the fundamentals. Once you understand how it all works, it becomes very easy. But the process can take years of practice, not just theory. Once you attain an understanding of the structure of programming, you can hop languages simply by reading the documentations as suggested. Whereby reading documentation can be equated to learning vocabulary in say, the english language.
Edit: Those are some pretty tough challenges. Have to really think to come up with an answer. Little too lazy to think at the moment :P
I still havent started educating as anything yet, and wonder if programming would be fitting, as I do enjoy creating stuff. However, I do not want to end up as an asocial, fat monkey with low payment and long workdays of mindless typing on a keyboard. I've also thought about educating as a 3d artist, as that would be a good way to be creative aswell.
I should also note, that the game industry is very weak where I come from, so it will most likely not be game-related.
Since I have no clue what to do, and little experience in either job, I'd like to get some advices from people who have experience with one (or both) of the jobs.
Game industry where I'm at is not too established either. I've considered it as well, but I personally don't see myself as someone who could make games as a living. I have this tendency to burn out half way when I run out of ideas. Programming doesn't have to be all coding, if you wanna take it to the next level, start looking not just into implementation, but into the design and development aspects of it as well. It can actually be quite interesting, and the process of coming up with optimal business solutions for clients, then making them come to life can require quite a bit of creativity, IMO. Won't know till I get a few months feel of the job though.
Since I have no clue what to do, and little experience in either job, I'd like to get some advices from people who have experience with one (or both) of the jobs.
I for one staunchly believe that if we have the choice, find a job that works for you, not one that you work for. Of course this is quite idealistic and I'm sure there are those that would disagree. Its likely in the process of doing so, you will find something you really stand out at and enjoy at the same time. So another belief I have here is, find something you enjoy, and be damn good at it.
What worked for me was, I tried a lot of things over the years (during studies) and slowly filtered out what I wanted to do from the list of things I was unsure of. I've tried Accounts, Manufacturing, Research, Education, Commissioning equipment. Most which didn't work for me :/ Which is why I chose the Software Engineer path.
I am currently a plumber despite my computer science education. So if you get a job you want I say keep it...
At the same time I don't know if I like the industry right now. Project management for software is just about pushing the coders, the more they expect from them the more they think they will get out of them- there seems like there is no respect for the profession. Even with plumbing there comes a certain prestige that comes with the job where people usually respect your decisions by default because going into a project you are the plumber, you are the guy in charge of the pipes.
I go to a job interview and can't remember how to form an SQL statement and suddenly the company I am interviewing with aren't interested- I knew one time in my education what k6 complexity was and how to apply it to prove a problem is np complete and I forget the order of select from where in an on the spot interview and nothing else matters...
To be honest I haven't programmed in a while. I took up actionscript for a bit. I created a pattern capture for SVG with basic styles into Flash spark path primitive(I wasn't about to try to approximate the curve from cubic to bicubic).
Anyway I am thinking about ITIL. I hear people think that anyone with ITIL knowledge is some kind of project management guru. So far what I have learned seems like just one big extension of the red bead experiment(here's a hint, it's not really an experiment). Dr. Demming was such a troll. By the way, he had a degree in electrical engineering.
Ford motors asks him how to improve their productivity and he stays ambiguous with the simple statement "bad culture." Lol. But it's so true. Many Americans in the leadership roles have been lacking in the ability to see progress as a result of productivity as measured by determination to achieve a higher standard of quality. Many look at the paper currency and get distracted- afraid and unable to take initiative against investors that only want to see immediate incremental %growth.
Given that there are quite a few programmers here, you shouldn't just consider tech companies and what not only. There are many financial firms that want programmers not only for maintenance, but also to create new economic and financial models. I am leaving a link to an excellent website, not only for listing opening, but also providing advice on resumes, cover letters, and ect... (Check out the "how not to write a cover letter for an investment bank" post. Heck, there are 13 pages of openings just within IT Tech, many of which pay 100k over.
Above all, be confident in yourself, and never let the, "I won't get the job," attitude stop you. Hell, I never thought I'd land the internships I had, nor the workI have, but I did. Just stay positive.
Above all, be confident in yourself, and never let the, "I won't get the job," attitude stop you. Hell, I never thought I'd land the internships I had, nor the workI have, but I did. Just stay positive.
A good statement. If you don't believe that you're capable of working in the field that you want to, then you've already failed. Just because a few companies give you the cold shoulder doesn't mean that any of the others won't give you the chance you need. The important thing is to always be improving, whether it be programming or 3D art, so that you can create a good impression.
Also I didnt mention my previous dream job...Poker.
That was quite interesting career experiment. Poker is actually quite good way to make money while in school, but then I made the mistake of thinking of actually overestimating my skills and mental challenges of poker (yea dont underestimate the luck factor). 2 years back I had 2 most amazing months in poker. Won 5k dollars in 2 months (tax free, fuck yea). Thats when I started thinking I could do it...I was gona have internship that summer, but desided to rather pursue my dreams.
In the end I didnt win a single dollar in that summer, luckily didnt really lose either. But playing poker fulltime can be extremely mentally challenging. You need to learn to take breaks and not let the loses affect you. Probly one of the most important aspects of being pro in poker would be to minimize your losses in everyhand, which is suprisingly hard to do. After enough of losing...Its really hard to reset your mind.
After end of that summer I quit poker...I have to say it wasnt that fun of a experiment, but Im still quite happy that I tried it. When you are winning in poker it gives this amazing feeling like you could do anything. And needless to say I already had seen the potential that you can make money equal or more than in any normal job (tax free helps a lot).
I tried playing poker every now and then, but it seems Iv pretty much grown tired of it. I have too much other things on my mind right now so I dont really want to try my luck again.
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This is true, I can often get satisfaction in programming from the work I do in a normal job. Starcraft mapping gives me the satisfaction of the soul, where I have created something fun and awesome. This latter type of satisfaction is the reason why people want game industry jobs, but it is still hard to find even if you do land an industry job.
Im glad I posted here. Thank for some of the awesome stories.
I got 1 year left of my school, so I will have to wrap that up and after that go to worklife for a while. Allthough I do feel like I should pursue other things than my current education.
Last summer didnt brighten my future as "electrical engineer" either. I spent 4 months on a shit job that let me down even further. The pay was bad, the job was bad, the people I worked with were bad...and it doesnt come much better when I think about future jobs, I could have a job of designing electricity for houses. That would require sitting in office 90% of the time and looking trought catalogues...I cant imagine that being fun for long...I would prefer programming over this...
Its still probly not all about programming for me, I do think puzzle solving would be more fitting to that. Like in one course I took in school. We programmed machines to move in a certain way (with "blocks") I had a blast doing it. It was rather simple but its fun to actually do stuff like that. Sadly this was only like one course and its only the bare basics of automation...I guess I might try to discuss with school if I could take some other courses and spend like a year mastering stuff so I could actually work with the cool stuff.
In the end so many factors affect wheter you get perfect job or not, but god I just cant see a bright future yet -_-....
Not to be a downer, but are you absolutely sure of that? Consider this a word of caution; because so much stuff in high school sucks so badly it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you really like something and aiming to pursue that after school, but then finding out it wasn't what you were after at all. I only barely avoided this pitfall; the only subject I kind-of liked in High School was English, mainly because I was good at it and could just mess around and do my own thing during those lessons. I actually dabbled into seeing if I could become an English teacher for some time, but I'm now very glad I never pursued that route and woke up in time. There's plenty of stuff I like about English, but good god would that be a ridiculously boring career for me to actually specialize into.
<Heh>, just thought I'd share my story here as well. Been playing with Blizzards map editors since 7th grade. High school never really gave me a chance to learn programming though, so I learned it all myself. By the end of high school I was looking for a job that would let me design stuff and program, so I went for mechatronics engineering. Not quite what I was looking for though. I ended up using high level statistical programming software more than I did C. C+ + and Java weren't even in my syllabus. Most of the programming I did was hardware/firmware programming. If I had a chance to choose again, I would probably have gone for computer science, but I get the impression it's stick heaven over there.. Hardly any opportunities to meet girls.
So i graduate in '08 during the shitty recession period, can't find a job I like and get persuaded to take postgrad upon a promise that was made to me that I would get to do programming. To my despair, I spend more time having to read literature and write journal papers, research in general. Thats where I realized research is not my thing. Got to teach classes on how to program firmware in C as well, I enjoyed it very much but was assigned other subjects that I didn't like so much in the later years of my postgrad. Thats where I realised Academia is not my thing.
During my masters I also worked part time with a semiconductor company, developing web applications on Java and SQL, despite not having any prior training. Had to reverse engineer code just to get everything working... I found that I really enjoyed it and would like to learn more about it, so upon my recent graduation from postgrad, I've signed up for a Java/SQL training course that will be commencing in February :) I'm really looking forward to it as it's something I've wanted to learn for a very very long time. Hopefully all goes well and I'll land a job working with Java thereafter. It's something I know I won't feel miserable doing. The frustration and the thrills of piecing together applications sorta cancel one another out for me. As for map editing, it's a nice hobby to have in the sidelines.
Feel like a scumbag to my parents sometimes... 6 years in engineering and now I'm branching towards software development. </Heh>
I have worked in pretty much every type of design you can imagine ... from the obvious - graphic, down to architecture and interior design. In the early 2000's I did website development and commercial graphic design because the pay was so high, come mid 2000's everyone and their cousin wanted to study graphic design so I got out of it foreseeing a crash in rates ... I was pretty much right, here graphic design went from $165/h to $11/h. So I decided to get into another field, I was in that and ahead of the pack, but it seems now that everyone wants to do that as well. It always seems that I choose things I like and then the rest follow, I have been so unlucky in that regard because come now I am thinking of game design as a permanent career, at least for as long as it can hold - and it appears that everyone wants to do that, and I believe a larger population will start going the indie route with the amount of money that can be made with a good unique idea or a good stolen/copied idea (Minecraft/Dota).
The way I look at it ... it is not my dream to do game design, it is just something that comes naturally to me, and I believe that I can make a shitload of money, and if funded, can make my employer a shitload of money ... I do not have a million dollars to drop on a project ... so obviously the best choice I could make is applying for positions at a major company (Say Blizzard/Valve) or going the indie route if the first is uneventual.
I have dreams, but at this moment, I have lost so many it seems unlikely that the rest will come true ... I do have some really refined ideas for games, and in hindsight if I had done them when I thought of them I would have been ahead of the pack ... in terms of voxel terrain (Minecraft) (I thought of the idea in 1998 for a high school project but never did anything about it) all the way through to a futuristic MMORPG mixed with a tiny bit of fantasy (wrote down before WoW came out). But being in the most isolated city in the world, if I want to do anything I have to leave, and at this moment I am sadly not free to do so unless a real opportunity appears (say being invited for an interview for the above) I am stuck in my never changing sad existance.
For the people who live in the USA, you really have no idea how lucky you are. You have the ability to go to big studios, to get interviews, to get funding etc ... and the ability to hire talented people. Here in Australia we had Auran, who made games like Dark Reign and Train Simulator, who abused government funding ($15,000,000) and was very very naughty indeed and kind of destroyed the whole Australian game industry single handedly. Everyone who studies computer science at university goes the route of industrial applications (like backends for companies) rather than game design because there are simply no studios that exist, let alone hire. Whilst I am comfortable at this moment in my life, I need to decide upon what I wish to do for the 'rest of my life' because I am older than the majority here, and certain things are expected of me.
If I could go back and do it all again I would do Civil Engineering/Architecture double degree ... and learning C+ + when I had the change back in 2003 ... but some things you cannot control, such as certain events in your life, and you gotta just keep walking no matter how badly people hold you back.
I don't fit with the majority of you I guess...
I am a roofer, that is; in the summer time, I climb up on roofs, tear the old shingles off, and put new ones on. I love the work, it is great exercise, you can see what you are accomplishing; and 30 years later it is still there. I started roofing when I was 15 (8 years ago) and have been doing it ever since. I have just recently started leading my own operations this last summer. The money is pretty nice. If I work a long summer, I can take the entire winter off to go snowboarding.
The downside? Weather sucks. Rain days can really hurt a years income. The local flooding last summer cost me about 6,000 dollars in work that I missed out on. To make up for it, I now need to work through the winter. You cant roof in the winter. I have been stuck running electrical work in the basement of a flooded out apartment complex for the past 3 weeks. Sub freezing, working with metal boxes with my bare hands for 8 hours a day. This makes me a very unhappy camper. ...Very unhappy... Just signed a moderate sized deal though; it will provide me a few weeks work inside doing drywall.
Overall, I enjoy my work. In America, you can go to any state and say "I worked construction up north" and get a good paying job. Hopefully technology and Mexicans (no offense Mexico) don't get too far ahead of me. The biggest problem with laboring jobs is technology. A new product comes out that makes 1 person as efficient as 2, and someone loses a job. I am pretty tech savvy though, so hopefully I will be the 1 who has a job in the end.
Skype: [email protected] Current Project: Custom Hero Arena! US: battlenet:://starcraft/map/1/263274 EU: battlenet:://starcraft/map/2/186418
I'm an architect. Love every second of it and if I had to do it all over again I would every single time.
I'm of the idea that if you don't enjoy what you do, you shouldn't be doing it. Period.
@Zenx1, replying purely to your OP. Take programming up as a hobby during your free time, add in some freelance jobs, become more competent and then phase out electrical engineering entirely. xcorbo has it spot on also, see image:
edit: I'm 100% happy in my chosen 'career' as freelance graphic design consultant, character artist, animator, poly modeller, architectural visualisation specialist, digital artist and all round awesome dude, who dabbles in the indi-game development circles.
Oh boy, I'd so love to see that, Cardinal. :P
Well, Even though I've made a ton of maps in warcraft, some in starcraft and programmed some robots with c,i must say that I actually don't like programming.
I gave up on learning how to program a simple homepage because it was so incredible boring. I like making a concept, an idea and then try to make it work. I like designing the house, see it finished, but i don't like putting on the bricks. It has also just been the means to an end. So even though college was very mathematical, i dropped it and started a humanistic line of education, story creation in theater and movies, documentaries, fiction, etc.
It was actually that part of mapping i liked, the artistic one, not the mindless triggering. The goal is everything, the way there i do not care about. So as there might be mappers that map because they like programming, there a those that just want to create a game, but unfortunately have to learn to do it.
Which is also why i dislike the new data editor so much, a lot of people simply can't learn it, it's to hard, but im 100% sure that absolute noobs in programming have potential to make maps with good ideas a lot better than the best programmer.
9 to 5 office job? Sheesh I work 6-6 and come in on weekends, sometimes longer depending on my clients needs.
Edit: I should add that I freaking love my job.
Ok so you want to learn how to do programming but you don't want to do boring stuff. Here's one thing you could do. Competitive programming, maybe not available in your area but you can still look at problems made for major competition. You have to find the optimal solution as fast as possible. http://icpc.baylor.edu/past/icpc2007/Finals/2007WorldFinalProblemSet.pdf http://icpc.baylor.edu/past/pastproblems.html
How do you get started programming though? Easy. You go to the documentation of the language. That's how you find out what you can do with the language. You don't have to be a guru in a particular language to program in it you just need to know your way around the documentation to figure out what you can do and to apply it to what you want to do.
For java it's the Javadocs, just google javadocs and find it somewhere. How to read the documentation. All of the packages are classes with properties and methods. Some of them you have to import into your program and some of them are part of the core- this is so that there is no wasted time in trying to compile for everything that is java inside of a program when you only need to use a portion of it.
For developing with java you just need the jdk: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk-6u25-download-346242.html and use the commands javac and java which are executables. In order to use this from command line you have to set up the environment variables so the operating system knows where to look for executables for the environment. http://db.apache.org/derby/docs/10.0/manuals/getstart/gspr11.html Otherwise you can be lazy and compile inside of the bin of the java folder where all it's executables are.
Java also has a main method. http://csis.pace.edu/~bergin/KarelJava2ed/ch2/javamain.html Which is the starting point of the program when it's executed.
@adovid: Go
I can testify based on my past experience when I was first getting into Java, I couldn't understand the documentation. Found it to be somewhat overwhelming. This was after about 5 years working with C. Then again, I learned all my programming myself... No thanks to any syllabus. Just lots of coding and reading, eventually understanding. Do first, understand later much? I'm overjoyed with my career choice though. Managed to land a job as a software engineer.
Come in on weekends? No problem. Something tells me I'm going to love my job. <3
What I find works for me when It comes to programming. If you want to learn, First you need the fundamentals. Once you understand how it all works, it becomes very easy. But the process can take years of practice, not just theory. Once you attain an understanding of the structure of programming, you can hop languages simply by reading the documentations as suggested. Whereby reading documentation can be equated to learning vocabulary in say, the english language.
Edit: Those are some pretty tough challenges. Have to really think to come up with an answer. Little too lazy to think at the moment :P
I still havent started educating as anything yet, and wonder if programming would be fitting, as I do enjoy creating stuff. However, I do not want to end up as an asocial, fat monkey with low payment and long workdays of mindless typing on a keyboard. I've also thought about educating as a 3d artist, as that would be a good way to be creative aswell.
I should also note, that the game industry is very weak where I come from, so it will most likely not be game-related.
Since I have no clue what to do, and little experience in either job, I'd like to get some advices from people who have experience with one (or both) of the jobs.
My carrer Choice is simple, Get a job, Have a family, Play video games. Play Starcraft 3....
@ScorpSCII: Go
Game industry where I'm at is not too established either. I've considered it as well, but I personally don't see myself as someone who could make games as a living. I have this tendency to burn out half way when I run out of ideas. Programming doesn't have to be all coding, if you wanna take it to the next level, start looking not just into implementation, but into the design and development aspects of it as well. It can actually be quite interesting, and the process of coming up with optimal business solutions for clients, then making them come to life can require quite a bit of creativity, IMO. Won't know till I get a few months feel of the job though.
Since I have no clue what to do, and little experience in either job, I'd like to get some advices from people who have experience with one (or both) of the jobs.
I for one staunchly believe that if we have the choice, find a job that works for you, not one that you work for. Of course this is quite idealistic and I'm sure there are those that would disagree. Its likely in the process of doing so, you will find something you really stand out at and enjoy at the same time. So another belief I have here is, find something you enjoy, and be damn good at it.
What worked for me was, I tried a lot of things over the years (during studies) and slowly filtered out what I wanted to do from the list of things I was unsure of. I've tried Accounts, Manufacturing, Research, Education, Commissioning equipment. Most which didn't work for me :/ Which is why I chose the Software Engineer path.
Hell, not everyone gets the job they want.
I am currently a plumber despite my computer science education. So if you get a job you want I say keep it...
At the same time I don't know if I like the industry right now. Project management for software is just about pushing the coders, the more they expect from them the more they think they will get out of them- there seems like there is no respect for the profession. Even with plumbing there comes a certain prestige that comes with the job where people usually respect your decisions by default because going into a project you are the plumber, you are the guy in charge of the pipes.
I go to a job interview and can't remember how to form an SQL statement and suddenly the company I am interviewing with aren't interested- I knew one time in my education what k6 complexity was and how to apply it to prove a problem is np complete and I forget the order of select from where in an on the spot interview and nothing else matters...
To be honest I haven't programmed in a while. I took up actionscript for a bit. I created a pattern capture for SVG with basic styles into Flash spark path primitive(I wasn't about to try to approximate the curve from cubic to bicubic).
Anyway I am thinking about ITIL. I hear people think that anyone with ITIL knowledge is some kind of project management guru. So far what I have learned seems like just one big extension of the red bead experiment(here's a hint, it's not really an experiment). Dr. Demming was such a troll. By the way, he had a degree in electrical engineering.
Ford motors asks him how to improve their productivity and he stays ambiguous with the simple statement "bad culture." Lol. But it's so true. Many Americans in the leadership roles have been lacking in the ability to see progress as a result of productivity as measured by determination to achieve a higher standard of quality. Many look at the paper currency and get distracted- afraid and unable to take initiative against investors that only want to see immediate incremental %growth.
Given that there are quite a few programmers here, you shouldn't just consider tech companies and what not only. There are many financial firms that want programmers not only for maintenance, but also to create new economic and financial models. I am leaving a link to an excellent website, not only for listing opening, but also providing advice on resumes, cover letters, and ect... (Check out the "how not to write a cover letter for an investment bank" post. Heck, there are 13 pages of openings just within IT Tech, many of which pay 100k over.
Above all, be confident in yourself, and never let the, "I won't get the job," attitude stop you. Hell, I never thought I'd land the internships I had, nor the workI have, but I did. Just stay positive.
http://www.efinancialcareers.com/
Oh, and if you don't have one, make a Linkedin account.
A good statement. If you don't believe that you're capable of working in the field that you want to, then you've already failed. Just because a few companies give you the cold shoulder doesn't mean that any of the others won't give you the chance you need. The important thing is to always be improving, whether it be programming or 3D art, so that you can create a good impression.
Also I didnt mention my previous dream job...Poker.
That was quite interesting career experiment. Poker is actually quite good way to make money while in school, but then I made the mistake of thinking of actually overestimating my skills and mental challenges of poker (yea dont underestimate the luck factor). 2 years back I had 2 most amazing months in poker. Won 5k dollars in 2 months (tax free, fuck yea). Thats when I started thinking I could do it...I was gona have internship that summer, but desided to rather pursue my dreams.
In the end I didnt win a single dollar in that summer, luckily didnt really lose either. But playing poker fulltime can be extremely mentally challenging. You need to learn to take breaks and not let the loses affect you. Probly one of the most important aspects of being pro in poker would be to minimize your losses in everyhand, which is suprisingly hard to do. After enough of losing...Its really hard to reset your mind.
After end of that summer I quit poker...I have to say it wasnt that fun of a experiment, but Im still quite happy that I tried it. When you are winning in poker it gives this amazing feeling like you could do anything. And needless to say I already had seen the potential that you can make money equal or more than in any normal job (tax free helps a lot).
I tried playing poker every now and then, but it seems Iv pretty much grown tired of it. I have too much other things on my mind right now so I dont really want to try my luck again.