******** damn schools!!!

[Spotted Cheetah]

I think you all know what i want to talk about: They seem to just make people hating computers and programming! My experience was that everywhere if they came to programming then they would force poor children to write dull database editors and such things. It more like killing all the hope of looking at programming like something interesting! Through forcing poor young people to program these they make them hating everything!

Hope i was not so nervous during writing this that it remained understandable...

If i ever will create something that might be used up for "forced educational purpose", it is sure that i will prohibit that somehow, and will deny the use of my software to them.

I am not against education by it's real meaning. But what happens at scools, or at any "forced education" is horrible. Possibly not everywhere, possibly partially it is a Hungary - specific thing, but this is the best way of making youngs hating any form of work.

As i said i think i will do what i said if i ever get in such situation.

I wonder how others think about this, but as i had seen here with those homework looking things at the "QB Newbie Help", or the "QB Programming Help" forums... No, i will not try to say anything about anybody, just only me: i hate it how they are doing. So i would like to know: who thinks what about this...

[SJ Zero]

I believe the problem is the nature of modern languages. I'd like to give schools FB. The problem with the tools they teach now, C/C++ or Visual Basic, is that in order to be able to get the tools to make a fun game, you have to know a LOT. In VB you can dick around with objects well enough, but in C/C++, you don't even get to do anything graphical until you're an accomplished programmer.

Compare this to fb:

Code:

Screen 13

line (x,y)-(x2,y2),colr

That's why I'll only teach people to program using fb -- it's no fun if you can't show them something they actually want to play with.

[Rhiannon]

I took a VB class in college. On the first day the prof said that no two people code alike because we would develop our own style. Then she set off to teaching everyone how to code the same way.

[Neo]

Exactly Rhia,... I'm taking mandatory Java classes at the moment, and the first thing they did was show a piece of code and say "the style used in our programs should be the same as yours". Me, being the arrogant person, immediately went to the highteacher and asked him if I could skip the whole course and just do the exam. However this was out of the question
Oh well, now I'm stuck to a 7-week course of 6 hours per week listening to a dull and boring person telling how to do PrintLn and how to do simple things I already knew when I was 10. The bad thing is, they have comments on MY style...

Meh 5 weeks to go... =)

[LooseCaboose]

Its because they are preparing you for the real world. If you join a company as a programmer, you will more than likely get told that you must follow a particular coding style (brace layout, naming conventions, commenting etc), this is so others in your development team can easily work on your code.

Learning to program by making games isn't necessarily the best way to teach people. Making a graphical game (even in a language like Basic) requires some understanding of things like co-ordinate systems, key handling, physics, etc. While this seems easy to most people here, it would baffle some beginners enough to make them think that programming was simply impossible.

[SJ Zero]

LooseCaboose, I think you overestimate introductory computer courses.

They're designed to take people who have problems with the concept of a mouse and teach them the basic concepts of programming.

That said, my teacher was cool and all I had to do was write a challenge exam to get out of my programming courses this term. Thank god, I hate computers.

[NovaProgramming]

I'm taking a C++ class right now, and the entire idea behind it is that "YOU KNOW NOTHING" which, for almost all the kids in that class, is true. The fact that they're trying to get across is some real-world applications that you can learn to make... like "How to calculate a monthly payment" and all that sort of thing. Just because someone is interested in programming does not mean that they are interested in games and graphics and all that stuff, it could just mean they want to learn how to make the computer do stuff for them (which is, essentially, what programming is, is it not?)

But overall I don't blame the teachers or the courses for the blandness.... I blame the books they teach out of. Alls I know is that the book we use in my class is reaaaalllly slow and some of the concepts they teach in it are way too elementary. It's a system that's flawed, but what can we do about it, really?

[ShadowWolf]

introductory text book writers in any subject have to write for the stupest person that ever going to read there book that way they can get as largest of segment of the population. the idea being the smart people can simple skip ahead .

[adosorken]

introductory text book writers in any subject have to write for the stupest person that ever going to read there book that way they can get as largest of segment of the population. the idea being the smart people can simple skip ahead .

Too bad the teachers don't grab this concept of "the smart people can skip ahead". I took the same course as Rhia when we both went to the ICPR and I blew away every student there but wasn't allowed to do anything beyond what was required for the course. My final project almost killed the teacher from shock and so did Rhia's.

[TheDarkJay]

LOL, i know these courses are boring, but when i look at the thinks c++ can do (doom was programmed in c++ with a few handwritten asm bits thrown into it i belive), i remember why i wanted to learn it. UNFORTUANTLY i am having to take them dodgy "online courses" which are really just old courses put onto the web. I really want to go to a public class, but the only c++ ourses around here are 16 and over ones. CURSE THE FACT THAT I AM 13 YEARS OLD, I ALREADY KNOW MORE ABOUT PRORAMMING THAN MOST 16 YEAR OLDS. Ah well, at least i could always save up for that £40 c++ book that was so large i dropped it whan i first found it (theres WAY over 1000 pages in it)