So yesterday, Christian asks me if I’ve got any programming books he can read. “What kind?”, I ask. “C”, he says. “Why?”, I say.
A while ago he downloaded this RPG maker application that let’s him make his own RPG games, but now he wants to take it to the next level and actually start programming his own stuff. He looked around in the message boards and the consensus he gathered was that C (or C++) is the language of choice for games.
I warned him that C may be a bit much to bite off for his first attempt, especially trying to program a game, but he told me that the people on the message boards said it was “pretty basic”. I had to take a brief moment to re-explain the principle that 90% of what you read on message boards is pure crap, while at the same time resisting the urge to make a programmers-only joke reference about how I do think C-syntax is pretty compared to the more unstructured basic-style syntax (get it? - “pretty basic”).
Anyway, he did really want to check it out, and since he’s basically a genius, who am I to underestimate what he can handle? So, I pulled a dusty old three inch think C/C++ book down from the garage atic (where C books belong) and let him go to it. After about an hour, he brought it back to me and asked me if I had any easier suggestions to get him started.
I suggested that since he has also been talking about learning how to build web sites, that he should try learning HTML first, since it really is “pretty basic”, and I have no doubt that he can fully grasp it. So, I ended up buying him an HTML book tonight that looks pretty good. I had to thumb through a couple at B&N and disqualify them for doing things like mentioning the <font> tag, or teaching the table-grid layout technique that was OK for 90’s “dot com”ers, but is now most certainly obsolete (or should be - unfortunately it’s still pretty widespread). In the end, I found one that’s pretty good, and it teaches them from the ground up using a text editor, the way HTML should be coded - no lame WYSIWYG stuff.
The funny thing is that Martha told me that he ended up picking up the C++ book again during the day today while I was gone, so who knows, maybe he’ll still get into that too. I used to have an entry level Java book around somewhere, but I think I lent it to someone a long time ago and then forgot who.
