While I did expect that no set of online lessons (especially free ones) would be perfect, I don't think I was adequately prepared for how hard it is to find a high quality series that takes through for any real length of time. I'm all for everybody doing things their own way, but when you try to piece together complete concepts using bits and pieces picked up from 10 different people who all code things differently, using different API's and different combinations of methods... It's practically impossible to understand. Only now, after watching at least ten different sets that call themselves lessons in game programming with Java and trying to read what was definitely a great wealth of knowledge, but substantially outdated, do I feel like maybe I can wade back through it all and start to extrapolate the differences between them all and how they each contribute to different techniques to start a project. Yeah, just start one. None of them except for the previously mentioned PDF set go very far, people on the internet just have way too short of an attention span I guess, so they just drop everything and go a completely different
so then I went in and told him, "hey, I'm not gonna take this anymore!"
Alright, sorry, I couldn't resist the irony. It was too strong for me. So, if I come to decide once I have a good understanding of how to accomplish this from start to finish to put up what I know as lessons in any format anywhere, I have my list of what I wish to prioritize most:
1. Smooth lesson transition: don't leave people feeling like you skipped ahead between videos. It seems a lot of this comes from a good intention - planning. It looks like they go ahead and right stuff out and change things, then go back and do it again for recording. However, of course, this does leave a problem if they forget a side issue that they fixed or anything like that. My method for improvement: back up the project as it is between videos. If you want to mess around with it for planning purposes, then go back to the backed-up copy for recording, that way any changes you had to make will ultimately be rediscovered as you go along.
2. Completion: I am getting ridiculously sick of "make a map, put the character on it, get him moving, and then....!" nothing. You'd think I'd be a pro at this by now, but again, it's just too different every time. While I say again, I know learning various techniques is essential, so too is learning each technique from start to end. My solution: Don't even start releasing things until, at the very least, I'm substantially further along than the bulk of what is out there. Then, if I still feel the same drive and not like just fizzling out, at least I'm sure to be contributing more than most people will be able to find. Then, just apply some good ol' fashioned dedication, brought to you compliments of someone who can't stand leaving things unfinished (plus, of course, four years of military service to teach you not to just quit on things because you're "bored" or "distracted.")
3. Planning ahead: Perhaps my least common complaint thus far of what I've just listed, but it does still happen. The benefit to these people though is that they are usually the ones whose videos transition seamlessly, if only because you know they didn't touch the code until they started the next recording.
So, for now, that'll be my "Top 3 Utmost Tutorial Frustrations." I tried to just stick with the rather-outdated PDF lessons I have, but unfortunately I hadn't learned quite enough about the new methods existing in Java to correct the code for it. I still tried to stick through it, but it kinda seemed like some of what he used just simply didn't even exist anymore and as I tried to look elsewhere for an alternate means of accomplishing it, I knew I was setting myself up for more frustration later when I tried to follow through using my newly updated code in a slightly different context for some other part of the game... I do love fixing bugs and all that, but I'm really sick of learning 99% of the beginner stuff that one might usually learn in a clear lesson setting. I'd rather learn the usual trial-and-error stuff through trial-and-error, but until I'm out of the Army and going to school I just don't think it's going to happen. At this rate though I also worry a bit that I'm going to have developed quite a few terrible coding habits, but at all times I am additionally referencing what these people teach to sites like Oracle's tutorial trails to learn the proper conventions for how to use code in a reader-friendly manner. It's tough, I'll say, to set out to learn for free on the internet but my will is strong, and my bank account is... well, not so much. lol. But, I know it can be done and I want, at the very least, as solid a head start as I can get before I even enter into school. Even worst case scenario, my brain is finally getting back into working this way. It's crazy how the very way your brain operates changes so much that what was once second nature can suddenly become, well, yet another source of further hair loss.
That's it then: just now, I decided once I get through this, I will provide the very lesson structure I'm describing as I go along. I was inspired just now as a song got stuck in my head again, one that has been coming and going since this past Sunday, with the airing of "Doomstar Requiem: A Klok Opera." If you don't know how that Metalocalypse special might encourage me to give back to the community that is slowly and painfully but surely helping me to learn, then you obviously haven't seen it and need to. Not a matter of opinion, by the way, just science.
so then I went in and told him, "hey, I'm not gonna take this anymore!"
Alright, sorry, I couldn't resist the irony. It was too strong for me. So, if I come to decide once I have a good understanding of how to accomplish this from start to finish to put up what I know as lessons in any format anywhere, I have my list of what I wish to prioritize most:
1. Smooth lesson transition: don't leave people feeling like you skipped ahead between videos. It seems a lot of this comes from a good intention - planning. It looks like they go ahead and right stuff out and change things, then go back and do it again for recording. However, of course, this does leave a problem if they forget a side issue that they fixed or anything like that. My method for improvement: back up the project as it is between videos. If you want to mess around with it for planning purposes, then go back to the backed-up copy for recording, that way any changes you had to make will ultimately be rediscovered as you go along.
2. Completion: I am getting ridiculously sick of "make a map, put the character on it, get him moving, and then....!" nothing. You'd think I'd be a pro at this by now, but again, it's just too different every time. While I say again, I know learning various techniques is essential, so too is learning each technique from start to end. My solution: Don't even start releasing things until, at the very least, I'm substantially further along than the bulk of what is out there. Then, if I still feel the same drive and not like just fizzling out, at least I'm sure to be contributing more than most people will be able to find. Then, just apply some good ol' fashioned dedication, brought to you compliments of someone who can't stand leaving things unfinished (plus, of course, four years of military service to teach you not to just quit on things because you're "bored" or "distracted.")
3. Planning ahead: Perhaps my least common complaint thus far of what I've just listed, but it does still happen. The benefit to these people though is that they are usually the ones whose videos transition seamlessly, if only because you know they didn't touch the code until they started the next recording.
So, for now, that'll be my "Top 3 Utmost Tutorial Frustrations." I tried to just stick with the rather-outdated PDF lessons I have, but unfortunately I hadn't learned quite enough about the new methods existing in Java to correct the code for it. I still tried to stick through it, but it kinda seemed like some of what he used just simply didn't even exist anymore and as I tried to look elsewhere for an alternate means of accomplishing it, I knew I was setting myself up for more frustration later when I tried to follow through using my newly updated code in a slightly different context for some other part of the game... I do love fixing bugs and all that, but I'm really sick of learning 99% of the beginner stuff that one might usually learn in a clear lesson setting. I'd rather learn the usual trial-and-error stuff through trial-and-error, but until I'm out of the Army and going to school I just don't think it's going to happen. At this rate though I also worry a bit that I'm going to have developed quite a few terrible coding habits, but at all times I am additionally referencing what these people teach to sites like Oracle's tutorial trails to learn the proper conventions for how to use code in a reader-friendly manner. It's tough, I'll say, to set out to learn for free on the internet but my will is strong, and my bank account is... well, not so much. lol. But, I know it can be done and I want, at the very least, as solid a head start as I can get before I even enter into school. Even worst case scenario, my brain is finally getting back into working this way. It's crazy how the very way your brain operates changes so much that what was once second nature can suddenly become, well, yet another source of further hair loss.
That's it then: just now, I decided once I get through this, I will provide the very lesson structure I'm describing as I go along. I was inspired just now as a song got stuck in my head again, one that has been coming and going since this past Sunday, with the airing of "Doomstar Requiem: A Klok Opera." If you don't know how that Metalocalypse special might encourage me to give back to the community that is slowly and painfully but surely helping me to learn, then you obviously haven't seen it and need to. Not a matter of opinion, by the way, just science.
No comments:
Post a Comment