I'm teaching an Advanced Game Programming class in Austin

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    • I'm teaching an Advanced Game Programming class in Austin

      This will be my first time teaching anything to anybody, but I've been blessed with some good mentors during my career (including the McShaffry), and I'd like to pass on my knowledge to the local community.

      A draft of my syllabus is up:
      austincc.edu/techcert/GAME%201…%20Game%20Programming.pdf
      It's still a work in progress, but it should be done by the time class starts.

      For those of you in Austin, the class starts on June 7th. It's not too late to sign up. The only prerequisite is that you know C++.
    • This looks great Kain - my only concern is the density of the material, especially in Lesson 2 - it seems you cover a LOT of material there.

      On a scale of 1-10, how hard do you want this class to be, and how many hours out of class do you want people to work?

      Perhaps this class compares favorably in difficulty with the graphics class - in which case I say go for it. People always complain about boring classes more than challenging ones.
      Mr.Mike
      Author, Programmer, Brewer, Patriot
    • You could be right.

      I added a statement in lesson 1 saying "if the class is too hard, I'll make it easier". I intend to be very flexible in this. The only thing I won't bend on is knowledge of C++. I don't mind making the students better C++ programmers, but I don't think I want to start from scratch. That would be a disservice to the students who already know C++.
    • Agreed, both with Kain and Mike. But what are you aiming for Kain? The class looks like a blast, though. I wish I were in the area so I could take it.
      Feel you safe and secure in the protection of your pants . . . but one day, one day there shall be a No Pants Day and that shall be the harbinger of your undoing . . .
    • I am aiming to fill in a perceived gap in their program. I also want to expose these students to my own programming philosophy so that the industry around Austin might smell a little more like me (and kind of like McShaffry, too). I'm also looking to have fun, meet cool people, and generally feel useful in this world, somehow... all while keeping my day job as a programmer at Red Fly, which I am loving.

      The parameters of my class were handed to me by the head of the game programming department whose dayjob is tech director of Junction Point. I was specifically told not to overlap with other existing classes, so I'm covering everything I can think of that isn't covered in the other classes.
    • To answer Mike's question, on a scale of 1 to 10, I hope to keep this class at an even 5. The students in this class are not the typical students. They've been around the block and have day jobs of their own to maintain. By keeping the class as interactive as possible, I hope to be able to scale the difficulty of the class by gauging their needs in a regularly polled feedback loop during class.
    • Looks like you're off to a pretty good start with lesson 1. Wish i lived in the area so I could attend the class.

      item 3 in your quiz section. Write a class declaration... Do you really expect somebody to fail that? do really expect people to have next to no C++ knowledge when you've made it clear from the get go that they're are expected to know this stuff.

      I agree whole-heartedly with everything you have to say in section 5 Writing team friendly code. though you did forget to say that braces are indented in the white-smith style :)

      Put constants to the left of == tests ?? Are there still compilers in common use today that make writing expressions backwards useful? Honest question. my gcc, Microsoft cl and few versions old Borland give an assignment warning. I've done this for years but I've stopped after consulting with a group where I was told to stop it because it was confusing people and the compiler will catch it anyway.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by garbob ().

    • There are people in the class that run the spectrum of prgramming backgrounds. The quiz on the first day of class is to let the students know whether they should drop this class or not.

      white-smith... I was wondering what the formal name for that is. Thanks for the edification.

      The constant on the left is not for compiler optimization purposes, it is to thwart human error. Humans are error-prone creatures that spread upon this planet like a virus... but I digress. My point is, a human might accidentally use "=" when they meant to use "==". Putting the constant on the left will allow the filthy human to catch this error at the compile step.