At 11/4/09 04:32 AM, GodsBitch wrote:

Thanks for the advice. We do have an optional computer game programming module in our 3rd or 4th year which I'm pretty keen to take, but I'm not sure how much help it will be, as it will only be a 12 or so week module I think. I know they teach you C++ in it though, so I think it will be worth my time.

Both C and C++ are some languages that are very interesting to know because they don't add that extra abstraction layer over computer resources (I'm talking mostly about memory management).

Even though this means it's a lot easier to screw up, I tried benchmarking a simple OpenGL app by displaying a simple model made out of 100 or so vertices on a Lenovo 3000 N200 with 2GB memory. By dropping /clr from the compile options in Visual Studio, it gained another 100 frames per second.

Also, I like pointers.

On the topic of that programming module, I'd advise you to go, even though they might not teach you everything you want to know, the course will be full of people with the same interests you have, maybe you can learn from them too, or pair up to make a game for a competition

Thanks. I'll definitely look into this.

You've been a great help Kiwi.

Glad to be of assistance.

At 11/4/09 12:22 PM, Sonik-Team wrote: A lot of information.

Well, you seem to be doing a lot more than me so far. This year is split into two semesters for us. This semester (the first one) which ends just before Christmas we have the following modules: Software Development 1, Interactive Systems, Emerging Technology and Praxis. We don't have any real exams this semester, other than a multi-choice exam for Software Development.

Next term we have Software Development 2, Introduction to Computer Systems, Introduction to Database Systems and Discrete Maths.

This semester we are pretty much marked entirely on coursework, which I enjoy. I much prefer the hands on stuff as oppose to reading books and writing up a lot of theory stuff, although I know it is important as well. I'm not sure if there will be more written exams next semester. I'm pretty sure maths will involve one, as it seems the only real way to assess it.

Anyway, congratulations for getting into Cambridge. That's quite an achievement in itself!

At 11/5/09 06:58 AM, Sonik-Team wrote: Thanks, I'm hoping coming here was worth the trouble.

It should be. I mean Oxford and Cambridge degrees are looked at highly by almost everyone.

I've had barely any experience coding before. But hey, that's what I'm here to learn.

I'd programmed using Visual Basic 6 before starting this course. The syntax is a lot different to that of Java, but I feel having the experience of programming before I came here really helped me out, as I knew what I was doing, to an extent.

At 10/15/09 03:39 PM, GodsBitch wrote:

At 10/15/09 02:58 PM, snapper5 wrote: I am currently studying IT in general, that covers computer building, technical problems, networking and programming.

Just out of curiosity, is this at university level?

its college level, which is about the same as high school in america methinks, i'm 16, if that helps

At 11/8/09 06:07 PM, snapper5 wrote: its college level, which is about the same as high school in america methinks, i'm 16, if that helps

Ah, okay. You will have to let us know what sort of things you are learning every now and then. I've always been interested in building a computer of my own. I was very close to doing so, but then decided that a laptop was more practical for university so I ended up with a MacBook Pro, which I have to say is a great machine.

Also, I'm not sure if Kiwi-Kiwi want me to be advertising this or now, but I don't see how it can be of any harm. He is working on the Microsoft MSN Casual Games Program and is looking for a team of people to work with. If anyone thinks they have the appropriate skills to be working on a game, then I don't see why they shouldn't drop him a PM.

At 11/9/09 11:47 AM, GodsBitch wrote:

Also, I'm not sure if Kiwi-Kiwi want me to be advertising this or now, but I don't see how it can be of any harm. He is working on the Microsoft MSN Casual Games Program and is looking for a team of people to work with. If anyone thinks they have the appropriate skills to be working on a game, then I don't see why they shouldn't drop him a PM.

I'm not sure if working on the program is the right syntax, I recently found out about the program and want to submit a game.

I want to set up a team mostly because I'm curious about working on a project over the internet. I'm not sure if there's any remuneration to be had, if there is, we'll just split the money evenly.

And thanks a lot for the advertisement.

Well, that's another piece of coursework out the way. It was more of an Information System than a Computer Science piece of work, but for the first semester the two courses share classes. It's didn't involve any programming. It really wasn't hard at all. We had to create some "rich pictures" and UML class diagrams. It didn't really excite me to be honest, but then that's why I'm doing Computer Science and not Information Systems.

The new project does sound rather interesting. We will be programming mobile apps using a simplified version of Java for mobile devices (although I forget the name). I don't think we have to make anything advanced. From what I gather it's a simple question game, where the user must select between to answers. If they answer correctly, they move on to the next question. If they get it wrong it's game over.

I'm not 100% sure this is the actual project, or if this was just an example showing us something similar to what will will be working on. I also still have to start scripting my Second Life pet. I tried to give it a simple "follow me" sort of feature but that produced some weird effects to say the least.

I'm also still working on improving the text based adventure game "World of Zuul". I can't imagine this becoming very exciting, but as it's a game, and that's where my passion lies, I think I'm going to try and making something that I will be proud of.

Anyway, apologies for what was potentially a blog post, but I'm hoping it might spark some discussion. We need to add some coal to this fire.

At 11/13/09 10:21 AM, GodsBitch wrote:

The new project does sound rather interesting. We will be programming mobile apps using a simplified version of Java for mobile devices (although I forget the name). I don't think we have to make anything advanced. From what I gather it's a simple question game, where the user must select between to answers. If they answer correctly, they move on to the next question. If they get it wrong it's game over.

That actually sounds very nice. I always said that I'm gonna try to do some sort of app for my phone, specifically something that would take advantage of my phones' accelerometer.And maybe someday I'm actually gonna do it.

I'm also still working on improving the text based adventure game "World of Zuul". I can't imagine this becoming very exciting, but as it's a game, and that's where my passion lies, I think I'm going to try and making something that I will be proud of.

You could use your imagination for this project if you want to make it interesting. For instance try to make the text update using a Matrix text like effect

I'm also doing mostly homework these days because I let them build up and now I kinda have to start making them. They're not that hard, but they're about 90% math. I'll get them done... evetually

I was really getting into my World of Zuul project yesterday. I spent quite a few hours working on it. Most of the work I done was paper based planning. I designed the map, which consists of 18 rooms and made a quick walkthrough on how I plan the game line to be.

I got some of the programming done as well. The map has all been programmed, as wall as which rooms a linked and so on. I've also set up an Item class to store items, and I now have certain items stored within certain rooms.

I'm having a few problems now. Firstly, I don't quite know how to get my "take" command working. All this does is pick up the item from the room (if there is one) and add it to the inventory.

Another problem I'm having is with the doors. I want some of them to be locked and only open if the player has the "key" in their inventory. There's a similar problem I face with the NPCs. There are only 2, but I want them to say certain things depending on what the user has done.

This is by far the biggest project I have worked on, so I knew I would run into problems. If anyone has advice on how I can solve my problems, I would be most grateful. I'm not looking for java code from you, more pseudocode.

Surely you just need something like this:

where room.hasItem loops through everything that the room contains, room.remove just removes it from your room's list of things, inventory.add adds something to your inventory's list of things, and item.toString() returns a string representation (ie: the name) of your item, if you didn't know.

public void takeObj(Item item){
if(room.hasItem(item){
room.remove(item);
inventory.add(item);
}else{
System.out.println("You do not see "+item.toString());
}
}

Decided to do Computer Science at A level. :o

Talked to a guy who works for microsoft and he said it's a rewarding job, and that maths goes well in hand with computer science, so I may choose that also.

I'd strongly recommend doing Maths A-Level, not only does is it a decent A-level in general, but it really helps. I have friends who in the first year had to do a catch-up maths module, forgoing a more interesting one to make sure they knew enough, and we're doing some more advanced maths this year that some of them are struggling with.

At least do an AS in it.

The guy I talked to said when he gets students in for work experience, those with a maths A level, generally work better and have a much better understanding of computer science and stuff.

Although I've heard maths A level is pretty tough, I'm more better with the statistics side of maths. :x

At 11/19/09 02:10 PM, BananaBreadMuffin wrote: Surely you just need something like this:

public void takeObj(Item item){
if(room.hasItem(item){
room.remove(item);
inventory.add(item);
}else{
System.out.println("You do not see "+item.toString());
}
}

What I've been trying to do is almost identical to what you've just written. I think the problem I'm having quite possibly lies within the hasItem() method. I've made so many different attempts at this program over the last two day, so I'm getting a little confused now.

I think it's time for a fresh start.

Thanks for the help BBM.

I'm not doing Computer Science but I'm doing computer games programming, currently in my 2nd year at Teesside University. We're mainly using C++ and the first year was basically a catch-up year to get everyone to the same level in terms of programming, maths and presentation.. this year with module choices it's much more specific, I'm doing graphics shading, graphics programming, animation and simulation programming as well as 2 games programming modules (games software development). Assessment wise we have to make a 2D and 3D game this year for the games modules, which should be fun.

I don't think Comp Sci. would be very fun, I see it as leading to a job like in Office Space >:/

I am VERY glad I stumbled on this crew!

I havn't read through the entire thread yet but I plan on it in the next few days.

I guess I'll just post some information about myself.

I'm a freshman at the University of Michigan and I'm currently planning on declaring as a Computer Science major. I'm currently taking one programming class called EECS (Electrical Engineering & Computer Science) 183 : Introduction to C++ Programming. I love it.

The course is very fast paced and intense, but the support from our Professor and GSI's is amazing. On day 1 we started out with "What The Hell Is Programming?" and we just finished learning about structs and classes. We have also completed 5 projects and working on a 6ht, which is a knock-off/variation of sudoku and is a bitch to program, but still fun to attempt.

Though I'm currently earning an estimated C in the class, I have learned a large quantity of material and I am confident in m abilities, limited as they are, to make basic programs, or at least design them. Just as how I started to look at animations and analyze how the artist made it when I started animating, I now do the same with programming when someone asks, "How does this work?" and I do my best to explain how I would do it, even if I have no idea how to implement it. Basically what I'm saying is that I LOVE the subject matter and material, even though I hate the late-nights and dozens of Red Bulls in my recycling bin.

My plan is to get a Master's Degree in Computer Science or something related and try to pursue a goal in the Video Game industry as a programmer of some sorts.

My personal goal is to learn a new language over the Winter Semester or Summer. Perhaps Actionscript 3.0 or Java. Ionno, I just want to continue to learn as many languages as possible.

Again I'm extremely excited to have come across this group and I plan on staying.

At 11/20/09 04:44 AM, liaaaam wrote: I don't think Comp Sci. would be very fun, I see it as leading to a job like in Office Space >:/

Eh, I think you're thinking too hard about it. To me, writing thousands of lines of code for a database program seems not very different to writing thousands of lines of code for the back end of a game, and if I learnt anything over the summer before last, is that what you do in your job doesn't have that much to do with your overall opinion of it. I was answering phones in a car finance company, but I loved it because I got on well with everyone else there.

At 11/20/09 05:24 AM, dirtshake wrote: Again I'm extremely excited to have come across this group and I plan on staying.

I'm glad to hear it.

Still having bother with this damn game though. I've got until Thursday to get this thing working, and I think we are allowed to work with a partner. I have a friend who is really good at coding, so I think I'm going to have to ask him for some help. I can imagine he finished this project a good while ago.

At 10/3/09 05:40 PM, Obvious-M wrote: Can someone explain to me what computer science is? All I really know is that it's a popular course at college, and I'm sending my application of soon, so I'm interested.

It's basically the study of how computers work, in a sense. There a fair bit of programming involved, but it's far from the only topic covered. This semester, for example, my modules are Software Development, Emerging Technologies, Interactive Systems and Praxis (Very much like English, but focuses on writing essays and giving talk on a computing related topic). Basically, if you are interested in computing you should find it interesting.

If your more into hardware and how it's made then a course like Electrical Engineering would probably be better, because I'd say Computer Science is a lot more software orientated.

It's really quite hard for me to sum up exactly what Computer Science is, but that was my definition.

Here's a link to the Wikipedia article is you want to do some further reading.

Well, that's the semester pretty much over for me. Just got an A for my mobile device application, although it has to be said I think someone with no programming knowledge could have done that. It wasn't hard at all.

My scripting project was a little more stressful and a lot harder. I'm so glad that it's over and done with.

Now that I have a fair bit of time on my hands until after the new year, I might have a crack at making another text based game.

Just finished my 3D noughts + crosses program in prolog. It's pretty hench.

And it was fucking impossible to do. May go back and try and change the AI from random moves to proper intelligence tomorrow, if I get time. However I think I'll stick where I am most likely, since I'd have to change my code so drastically.

It's quite nice not having any work to do for a bit. I still plan to actually make my own non course based text game, but whether I'll get around to it or not is another story.

I'm not looking forward to having a maths module next semester, even if it is meant to be easier than Advanced Higher maths which is the highest level you can sit in secondary school in Scotland. I got the level before that, but Advanced Higher was just too hard for me.

Right now I'm not really working on anything computer science related, like I've already said, but I've gotten into WoW to fill the free time I have between now and the Christmas holidays. Lets just hope it doesn't become an addiction, which i doubt, since I have self control. :)

This thread doesn't seem to be getting used as much these days. Come on people, look lively.

At 12/2/09 08:04 PM, BananaBreadMuffin wrote: Just finished my 3D noughts + crosses program in prolog. It's pretty hench.

And it was fucking impossible to do. May go back and try and change the AI from random moves to proper intelligence tomorrow, if I get time. However I think I'll stick where I am most likely, since I'd have to change my code so drastically.

3D in prolog, that actually sounds way cool.
I heard it's easy to program AI in prolog, or at least easier than using procedural or OO programming languages. I always said I'm gonna try it out sometime.

Right now it's 00:07 here and I'm relaxing after sending my java assignment (some easy homework, all I had to do is find the quickest routes through a maze, made it using lee's algorithm)

Probably gonna hit the sack right now, gotta wake up early tomorrow

At 12/6/09 05:28 PM, kiwi-kiwi wrote: 3D in prolog, that actually sounds way cool.

Yep. Awesome.

Right now it's 00:07 here and I'm relaxing after sending my java assignment (some easy homework, all I had to do is find the quickest routes through a maze, made it using lee's algorithm)

Is Lee's Algorithm a lot easier to do than A* Search? Sounds fun... Shame all my coursework appears at the same time and gets piled up.

AI in prolog is much more straightforward than many other langauges thanks to its overloading feature, where you can write several methods with the same name and parameters and the compiler will run through each one.

Bit of a head fuck to get working though.

At 12/6/09 06:29 PM, BananaBreadMuffin wrote: AI in prolog is much more straightforward than many other langauges thanks to its overloading feature,

Sounds interesting. Think I'm still only working on Java next semester. Not sure about next year though. I'm sure there is a computer games module in one of the later years which focuses on C++ which I hope to do. I've no doubt mentioned this in here before, but I wan't to give games programming a shot. At the end of the day, coding is coding, but I'd rather the final output was a game than some server code or something.

Not sure when I get my marks back for this semester, but I think I've done fine. I'd be disappointed with myself if I actually managed to fail something.

I've also been looking into the MSDNAA service offered by Microsoft where students (think it may only be CS students) get free software. Anyone else here familiar with this system? I've though about sticking a copy of XP on the MacBook for gaming purposes, but I don't really game all that much on computers, so it's a little pointless. Still, nice to know it's there.

At 12/6/09 08:07 PM, GodsBitch wrote: I've also been looking into the MSDNAA service offered by Microsoft where students (think it may only be CS students) get free software. Anyone else here familiar with this system? I've though about sticking a copy of XP on the MacBook for gaming purposes, but I don't really game all that much on computers, so it's a little pointless. Still, nice to know it's there.

I know Microsoft has a program called Dreamspark. If you're a student you're able to get free developer software. I used the program to get Visual Studio 2008 for my EECS 183 class. I think there are at least a half-a-dozen more software deals through the program, but I didn't pay any attention to them.

I'm not sure if it has anything to do with getting discounted versions of operating systems. My university had a program where I was able to get Windows 7 for $20 bucks, but not sure if there's a universal program for that.

Check into dreamspark though if you want any developer software. You might have more uses for it than I currently do.

At 12/6/09 08:07 PM, GodsBitch wrote: I've also been looking into the MSDNAA service offered by Microsoft where students (think it may only be CS students) get free software. Anyone else here familiar with this system?

I'm running Windows 7 that I got through MSDN-AA, there's nothing I can say bad about it. It processed quickly, I just had to take a blank DVD to my CS tech-support office, specify 32 or 64 bit, and then went back in an hour and picked it up. It's valid forever, even after I leave uni, it's great.

At 12/7/09 05:36 AM, BananaBreadMuffin wrote: I'm running Windows 7 that I got through MSDN-AA, there's nothing I can say bad about it. It processed quickly, I just had to take a blank DVD to my CS tech-support office, specify 32 or 64 bit, and then went back in an hour and picked it up. It's valid forever, even after I leave uni, it's great.

From what I can gather from friends who have gotten free copies of WIndows 7 from MDSNAA, it will only work on the one computer. Once you've registered it, that's it stuck on that machine and no other. I thought this was pretty stupid, since as computer science students I'm sure they will go through several machines in their time at uni. I suppose this method would prevent people from abusing the system though.

Also, as far as I can gather, we don't have to goto the CS office to get the software. We get our own username and password and have to do everything ourselves.

The copy of Windows 7 I have is indistinguishable from regular copies other than the serial didnt come from a sticker on the side of my PC or whatever, but from a letter.

There's no reason why it won't work on a different pc provided I uninstall it correctly. My flatmate's already done it.