Photo by Ha-Wee

1. Is programming right for everyone?

Let’s get this straight. Programming is not for everyone. Programming is for those who have a passion for solving hard problems to make everyday life a lot better.

For example check this 16-yo Kid Makes a Million Dollars Following His Hero Steve Jobs. The only reason he is so successful is because he had a passion for what he was doing.

So if you find yourself lacking some motivation, maybe thats why you aren’t that great. Go find it and last time I checked, money pushes so many people forward.

2. It’s a skill that takes time to master.

Beware of my coding skills!

Many will be intimidated by the nerds, naturals, prodigy childs, or even how hard programming is. Just fear not, put them aside and focus what really matters, your skills. I didn’t know much about programming when I started in my CS career in college, and before I knew it, I became an Amazon Code Ninja (Arizona).

3. They have the wrong attitude

I’ve seen this way too many times where people start blaming the professor who can’t teach, the TA, the crappy compiler, the IDE, or even the OS. As long as you keep complaining, your programming is going to be just as bad. So get a positive attitude!

Did you know Roller Coaster Tycoon was written almost entirely in assembly? Yeah go figure. If there is a will, there is a way.

4. I just don’t understand these abstract concepts.

Programming requires you to think outside the box. When you are a beginner, you’ll come across algorithms, data structures, conventions, and an entire myriad of other things that will mess with your mind.

Take it slow, and just start learning everything one step at at time. If you don’t understand Wikipedia it, Google It, or ask someone who knows (That by the way, is my secret recipe for learning something new). Try out examples until you fully understand it.

If you don’t understand the basics, how do you think you are going to understand the advanced topics?

5. Wait, we can use Google?

When you have trouble debugging your code or can’t figure out how to do something, Google is your best friend. I don’t encourage it for plagiarizing code, I’m encouraging it because thousands of other people have probably had your same exact question. And guess what? Others help them to figure out their problem and provide a solution.

Just do it. Everyone does because its the smartest thing to do.

So if you forget about to make a random number, don’t understand a bug, or simply can’t figure something out, Google it!

6. Careful planning and design? Just code while you go!

Before I help anyone with their code, I ask to see their algorithm. If they can’t provide it, I tell them to develop one and nearly all the time they’ll figure out why their program didn’t work.

An algorithms is the framework, and basis, of a program. Many beginners don’t develop one, and write as it goes. When that happens, they lose track of their direction in solving the problem and it becomes difficult debugging. – Benjamin

So next time, save yourself some time and jot your plan of attack on a piece of paper. Start programming until you know how to solve your problem. I do it, and it works amazingly.

You don’t want your program looking like this poor guy, Asimo falling down stairs, do you? So plan accordingly!

7. I have a ton of Errors!! What do I do??

Calm down and relax. Errors are inevitable and happen more frequently than you might think. They are usually accompanied with a line number, simple explanation and sometimes a suggestion. Just go back and try understanding what went wrong. If not, just copy and paste the entire message into Google. Most of the time, it’ll work.

Another thing to try is, code in short snippets and compile your code, frequently. This method will guarantee that you won’t have a terminal full of error messages you don’t understand and will speed up your programming.

8. I don’t understand the language, syntax, or programming environment.

Well, if you don’t understand it, then there really is a problem. In my senior design class we were making a video game using Ogre3D. Let me tell you, it wasn’t the best experience since we were all coding as we went and never really had a great introduction to the environment. We ended up starting from scratch 8 weeks into our project and had to put in about an average of 8 hours a day for two weeks. The last few days we were putting in easily over 14 hours while taking 3-4 other classes…

This taught us to put in the time beforehand to really understand everything about the language, syntax, concepts, and programming environment before we started programming. This would’ve saved us not hours, but days.

9. But the problem is so hard!

Look how I jump into 5 million wallets!!

Many times all a programmer needs is some fresh air or even a distraction. This will free up your mind and possibly let you see what you didn’t before.

Even sometimes, the best way to solve your problem requires an elegant solution. So the next time you try coming up with a convoluted idea for an iPhone game, check out Doodle Jump. All you do is jump and this game has managed to sell over 5 million copies.

10. I’m waiting for my friend here to solve this problem

This is probably the top reason out of all listed above why some people just plain suck at programming. If all you are doing is waiting for your buddy to help you out, then you aren’t learning anything at all. Sure, they might spend hours trying to figure it out, but in the end that experience is what counts.

So stop depending on other people and learn to become independent. If you aren’t, maybe that’s why you aren’t that great (Or hey, maybe you can become lucky like Mark Zuckerberg).

Thanks to Tony, Jay, Chris, William, Miguel, Al, Roby, Joseph, Felicia, Benjamin, Jesse, Pierre, Erick, and Tony for your amazing input on my Why do people initially suck at programming? note on FB.

Have any other reasons you encountered that brought you down? Feel free to post them below and how you managed to do better, if you did! We’d love to hear from you.

Source: Blender – Features

Blender’s Gallery of Content

Still not impressed? Check out their Blender – Art Gallery and take a look at a video below created in Blender. Also be sure to check out my iPhone Development Flickr set where you can see my creations in Blender.

Overview of Blender

For those wanting to get into 3D modeling, animating rendering, or making films, Blender is a great place to start. Sure, the UI isn’t that intuitive in the beginning, but once your check out the tutorial videos found on their website, you’ll learn that learning the keyboard shortcuts is your best bet. Just have patience and let your imagination do the work.

Blender
Blender – Art Gallery
Blender – Tutorials
Blender – Features
iPhone Development Flickr set
SIO2 3D Game Engine

Ah, it feels good be a student right? All you have to do is sign up by providing your school and major and you are good to go.

What does Amazon Prime offer?

• Unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on Textbooks and millions of other items
• No minimum order size
• Upgrades to One-Day shipping for $3.99/item

So head on over and sign up with your .edu address.

Amazon Student

So how does it work? Simply run the Wubi installer, enter a password for the account, choose some basic options, and click “Install”. Yes, it’s that simple. It’s not going to take any modifying of your partitions or boot loader. It just works like any other application. Yes, it’s that simple. If you don’t like it, simple uninstall it like any other application. Best of all, it’s free.

I’ve used it and to be honest, it’s great. Wubi is hassle free and extremely easy to use. Like mentioned, it’s extremely easy to uninstall and no need to worry about something going wrong.

What to know about Wubi

Below are somethings that you should know about Wubi before you try it out.

• Read the Wubi FAQ if you want to know how it works and answers to many of your questions
• To make it easier, pre-download the ISO and save it to the same directory where Wubi is extracted. That way, the installer doesn’t need to download it every time you run it.
• You can force Wubi to use a 32-bit verison of Ubuntu if you follow the previous step
• All you need is 256MB of RAM and an 1GHz or faster Intel/AMD processor is recommended for optimal performance. Installation requires 5GB. Bought your computer within the past 3 years? You should be fine.

Let’s take a look at their first problem.

Find the sum of all the multiples of 3 or 5 below 1000.

So, what do you think? Do you have what it takes? Solving the initial questions will allow you to easier understand more complex questions. At first you might not realize why someone would want to bother with these questions. Well, keep reading. I’ll tell you why.

Serves as great practice for interviewing for positions

Believe it or not, but all the interviews I’ve had have required me to solve at least one mathematical question using computer programming. How else do you think I became an Amazon Code Ninja? I solved a mathematical question involving fibonacci, recursion, and C++! When I interviewed with Google, that’s the first thing I encountered as well, another mathematical question! Unfortunately I wasn’t prepared (or the time allotted wasn’t sufficient and the fact it was over the phone didn’t help). Either way, I wish I had started practicing earlier.

That is why I recommend Project Euler. I’ll be diving into these questions and potentially going over them on Talk Binary later on. So if you need a buddy to solve the problems with, let’s do it together. This will allow you to develop and learn new concepts that might prove useful in the future. It also might be something fun to play around with on your spare time.

How to get started

You simply need to know C++ in order to start!

Codeblocks with SDL support – Check out this post in order to learn how to set up your environment in Windows using CodeBlocks

Download Pong – and get started right away!

So what do I do?

Simply open the project file once you extracted the files.

This will open the project in CodeBlocks. You can run the game by pressing F9. The game is also found under the bin/Release folder as an executable. If you want to give simply the game, just zip up the Release folder and you should be good!

What files to modify?

The only files you need to modify are paddle, ball, and game class to modify the existing game.

To add additional keyboard support, fonts, images, music, and more, refer to the other classes.

What now?

Visit the post on the forum for help or comments! Also, show us your creation! We’d like to see what you can come up with!

I hope everyone enjoys this. Tell me what you think!

Thanks to

Thanks to Roby Atadero’s comments and great OpenGL/SDL package! Couldn’t have done it without him.

Engadget – Bill Gates demonstrates his frustrations of XP through an e-mail – Bill Gates? Complaining about Windows? Got to be kidding me! No, its true.

ScoreHero – GameInformer article on Rock Band 2 – Check out the new peripherals for the upcoming Rock Band 2! The special edition drum kit looks so much better than Guitar Heroes! As a fan, I’m waiting for this to come out to purchase it!

Cracked – 5 most baffling explosions in history! – Hollywood does show some really weird stunts on the big screen! Thing is, the audience never says a thing! An example, a wooden cart blowing up after a collision!? Insane!

Cracked – 5 Terrible Lessons Hollywood Teaches You – Hollywood like always tends to put a bunch of gibberish out there. As a hot guy always falls in love with a hot girl, etc kinda thing. Check this out!

College Humor – Cyanide and Happiness – Gotta love these web comics!

College Humor – People and their non understanding of technology… – Older people and technology…pshh! They don’t know what burning a cd means or what the internet really is…

LifeHacker – How to make Windows Vista a little less annoying – How to get rid of all the RAM eating nonsense and tidbits that make you pull out your hair when you are asked if you are sure if what you clicked on was really it…

TechCrunch – 20k Reasons to Stay in the Basement – Make video games in Flash? Make 20k if you make it right! Check it out!

Gaming Blog – Call of Duty World at Way Screens – Will World at War be as successful or more than Modern Warfare? Let’s hope so!

Check List

1. Yellow Dog Linux Image: Terra Soft Download Section

2. A blank DVD to Burn the image.

3. Some Sort of External Media to Back-up Game Saves, Music, Pics, and Vids.

4. A High Definition TV

The next step is to Run through the install process and your done!