ADVICE!!!

Question

Hi I’m new to the app and to coding in general i start my first day of college in October and I’m feeling pretty excited I’m going to get my BA in Game Programming and development and I’m honestly just looking for some advice like good laptops for school new study habits even just really good tips on C++, JAVASCRIPT And, JAVA because that’s what I’ll be mainly focusing on looking forward to meeting new friends that have great and creative ideas maybe we’ll end up working on the next big project together or even some people who are willing to show me the path 😄🍻

Answer 1

I'm a software developer with several years experience and finished a bachelor of computer science. Some friends were paid to make games and one went to college for a game development program.

For the laptop, I wouldn't be too picky. A budget of $700 to $1200 Canadian dollars or $600 to $1000 USD should get a fairly good laptop for your studies. More money than that seems like a waste because the laptop will lose value quickly and you won't really need the extra CPU, graphics card, or memory. Cheaper than the lowest of that might slow you down if you want to connect with more monitors and give it a lot of work.

If you have time in the next month to get a head start on game development skills, go for it. In 5 years, you'll be far better off in the kind of work you get by creating and learning well beyond the minimum requirements of the courses.

Out of c++, JavaScript, and Java, JavaScript should be one of the best languages to start with. With the time you have from now to the first day of class, focus on creating something instead of trying to read or watch a lot of tutorials. Focus on a goal of making something simple and iterating improvements on that. Let tutorials and other learning resources be a means to that end. Learning a creative field is most motivating when focused on creation rather than focusing on learning for sake of learning.

Start by copying code from Sololearn's Code Playground, removing a lot of the code, and figuring out why it breaks, how to fix it, and how to make it completely your own game. There are many examples in Sololearn's Code Playground.

Look into playing sound with JavaScript and drawing graphics on an HTML5 canvas element. Look at how you can handle mouse, touch, and keyboard input events. Get creative with how you mix all these features together. Add some of your own visual art even if it looks funny. If a friend is also studying, share ideas.