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[Aqizzar]

So hey, computer thread.  I'm seriously considering going to a computer trade school, in the hopes of getting a job eventually.  My uncle, who never finished high school and worked at 7-11 until he was 30, went to a non-accredited "MSN" school (I still haven't figured out what that means), and he got a database technician job at the biggest hospital in the state before finishing the nine-month course.

I've been reticent about looking into it myself, until I found out how short it was, and how I just picked up C# as a hobby this month and it's as easy as riding a bicycle.  Anyone have experiences with comp-sci vocational schools?

[GlyphGryph]

I haven't had personal experience, but I know plenty of programmers who didn't bother with a college degree that are doing fine, and a voc school seems like a good way to make some contacts and build your portfolio and skills. So while I'm not speaking from experience, it SEEMS like it would be a good idea, assuming they have a good program and you spend a lot of your free time filling in the gaps.

[Nadaka]

So hey, computer thread.  I'm seriously considering going to a computer trade school, in the hopes of getting a job eventually.  My uncle, who never finished high school and worked at 7-11 until he was 30, went to a non-accredited "MSN" school (I still haven't figured out what that means), and he got a database technician job at the biggest hospital in the state before finishing the nine-month course.

I've been reticent about looking into it myself, until I found out how short it was, and how I just picked up C# as a hobby this month and it's as easy as riding a bicycle.  Anyone have experiences with comp-sci vocational schools?

My 2 year degree was utterly worthless, but that was in 2000 right after all the y2k programmers got layed off. It might be better now though.

[nenjin]

Just about any programming education carries more punch now with employers than it used to, because everyone needs a website, a company network, a database to manage it all, a mobile app presence, a web app presence, possibly apps for other non-PC hardware.... And talking to a few programmer friends, being able to say you can code in something other than Java, like C++ or C#, is worth a lot.

Software development and database management are two places that always have openings.

[Aqizzar]

Especially reading through some descriptions of these certificates and the courses, it sure seems like they're more about charging people a few thousand bucks to get a piece of paper saying, "I am literate with Windows operating system and troubleshooting," more than any actual technical skills.  I wouldn't be surprised if I already knew enough to qualify for a couple of these certifications, I just have to pay through the nose to get the card to prove it.

Which isn't that different from most realms of American "higher education" in the 21st century, but if that's the way it is, that's the way it is.

[nenjin]

There's still a fairly big difference between troubleshooting (which is what most self-taught PC people start their experience with) and software development. And software engineering experience is one thing you really need to rise above the IT maintenance stuff. I know programmers who make their living solely off trouble shooting and debugging other people's code.

[MaximumZero]

Bluh C++ is hard why are you all so much better at it than me?

[nenjin]

They've probably spent more time coding. I know that's the one thing left I really need to start doing.

[Virex]

It just keeps going.

This.

This, indeed. My current attempt to overcome YAGNI is my game-design-document: It Needs Everything.

Not SMART enough...

[MaximumZero]

They've probably spent more time coding. I know that's the one thing left I really need to start doing.

I've just been having a bad day. I spent an hour of lab time beating my head in on the desk because I seemed to have forgotten that local variables are not global. ;_;

[nenjin]

That's why I opted to avoid schooling until I feel like I've got a firm footing in the depths. In school I was terrible at math because I always forget one of a dozen rules required to get an equation right. Timed tests? Hated 'em. Way too much pressure. So with coding I feel like I'd rather learn at my own speed than have to satisfy an assignment on a time frame.

[Gatleos]

The trick to learning any coding language is to apply it to something you want to do. Find a problem you want to solve, or a game you want to create, which requires that you do something with the language that you've never done before. The more you explore it, the more the parts will fit together.

[MaximumZero]

I'd love to make my game into a computer game. In fact, I plan to at some point. I'm just not comfortable enough with any part of any language to start putting those parts together to make them do stuff.

[nenjin]

So random question time.

Let's say you have a class and you initialize a pointer to that class. Does the pointer that gets instantiated with the object point to the object, or to something else? Do you initialize a pointer to the object that will be created, instead?

Also, if it does point to the object, what does that do for you? I guess what I'm asking is, if you've got a monster and you want pointers to attributes of said monster, do you have to create pointers to each individual attribute or do you create a pointer to the monster object itself and work from there? And pointers can be accessed from anywhere, right? So regardless of what scope you're in, you can call the pointer to get at the info you need from anywhere?

Because it seems like insanity to have to map out pointers for every separate object you're going to create, keep them updated and delete them when objects are destroyed. I suppose that's why you stick all of them in an array to track them better, but still.

[Gatleos]

By initialize, do you mean assign an object to it like this?

Code: [Select]

Monster mon;
Monster *monptr;
monptr=&mon;If so, then yeah, it points to the object itself. You can access the members of a pointer to a class with the -> operator. It's automatically updated, too. And if the object was defined at run-time (i.e. no use of the 'new' operator) it doesn't have to be deleted either.