What are some of the best programming problems for amateurs?
Solve programs on SPOJ and projecteuler.net/
What are some good programming blogs for amateur and young programmers to follow?
The site Java web development tutorials houses many tutorials for java based development. These are easy to follow & cover various topics in particular framework/technology.
How does one become a full grown programmer from an amateur level?
I see other answers suggesting things like learning a language and such like things, but that isn’t it. Learning those things is learning how to use the tools for making programs - it is not programming.Programming is about creating programs that do useful or entertaining things. It involves understanding the problem to be solved or the opportunity, designing a solution, implementing that solution, debugging and testing the solution, and then delivering it to its users.To that end, I strongly suggest that you come up with projects to work on - these can be existing open source projects or ones that you come up with yourself (or with friends). If you want to do your own, then you should think about what interests you, what programs you wish existed or worked a bit differently than what’s out there.Basically, practice programming by doing it, but do it with a purpose.As a professional, you usually won’t be in a competition (or, if you are, the rules are much more amorphous). You might use algorithms and such, but then again, you might not. You usually won’t know which ones you’ll need until you actually find a case for using them.So, don’t simply practice. Write a real program, one that will direct your learning, give you motivation to learn new things, and will reinforce what you’ve learned because you’ll actually use it for real.You have a lot more resources available to you now than I did when I taught myself programming back in the early 1970s. I was lucky enough to live near the Dartmouth College campus at a time when the public was given access. I spent hours a day at various places around campus with computer terminals, got to know some of the graduate students who worked on Dartmouth’s operating system, and got pointers from them. Mostly, though, I was on my own with just a few manuals for documentation.You have access to the Internet, which has a wealth of information. There are people out there who will answer your questions. You may even be able to find people willing to mentor you or at least review your code and make suggestions. Use all of these things to help you learn.
How can you tell an amateur programmer from a professional?
Great Q thanks for the A2AI’m self taught with programming, degree educated in Electronics.I’ve been paid to program for 30 years.I think the difference is process.As an amateur, I just made stuff work. I threw together lines of code until it did what I wanted.Now, I use a lot more process.I use principles like TDD and SOLID to help me create well factored, testable code.I put effort into naming and structure so that other programmers clearly see what I had in mind.I use source control workflows, continuous integration and automated deployment so I have reproducible work.I consider scaling, operations, logging, fail over, edge cases, running costs, maintainable issues, defect tracking.None of that stuff is necessary as an amateur: make it work and you’re done.But you can’t be a professional without it.
How profitable are computer language programmers?
If you are asking, as Michael M. Ross suggests, whether you can make lots of money developing a programming language, the answer is no. There are too many very high quality free programming language implementations available.Suppose someone developed a new, all singing, all dancing, programming language, and sold the compiler. Would you buy it? It's a brand new language, and no one uses it yet, would you want to gamble on them being around to support it in the future? I wouldn't. And if the language is really good, someone will usually come along and develop a free version of a similar language. That's how open Haskell language ecame to exist: in reaction to the commercial Miranda language.So what about developing the very best compiler for a popular language? Some companies would pay if your compiler generates better code that competitors. But for a popular language there are many people contributing to open source compilers already, so you'll have to compete with many large teams. That's not going to be easy. And compile technology has been around long enough and is well enough understood that even if you've got a brilliant new idea, it's unlikely to get much of a performance improvement over the best others have been able to do, and no one is going to pay you big bucks for a tiny speedup.
What programming language do people use to create games?
Ok I will answer your question. The main language for the gaming industry nowadays is C++. People use C++ because it's a low level language and because of that it's faster (nobody wants a slow laggy game) Low Level language means it's close to the processor which is why C++ is harder than most languages. It sacrifices usablility for speed. So something that would take 30 lines of code in Java could take 40 - 50 lines of code in C++ (maybe more , maybe less , depends on the situation , but most likely more) Java and C# are High Level languages which means they're farther away from the processor so it gives up speed for useablility. Java isn't all that much slower than C++ so you could still use it to makes games. (Runescape was made using Java). Call of Duty and games of that sort are created using C++ with additional library's such as the PS3 development kit. Now onto the Unreal Engine. Unreal is not a programming language. It's a game engine that lots of programming companies use as sort of a template to make their games. It's much easier than creating the engine yourself. The Unreal Engine is just really popular but unless you're willing to give up the cash then you won't be able to get the unreal engine. I think it costs about $200 not really sure though, you'd have to research on that one. Yes you can write a game using 2 different languages but sadly I don't know how to do that :( . I think you'd so the internet server stuff with say Java and make the game with C++ but I don't know how they'd interact with each other , that's still a mystery to me (guess I gotta do more research). If you're looking to get into 3d programming with java then you're going to want to learn Java 3d and if you're looking to get into 3d programming with C++ there's a number of things you can use but the common ones are: OpenGL and DirectX/Direct3D. Other ones are Unity 3D, Panda 3D , Ogre3D , DarkGDk and so on but those are game engines. Opengl and direcx are not game engines they are API's bascially they are what you use to create graphics and what not and therefore if you used them you;d probably be making a project from scratch (no engine) , although you can still use OpenGL or DirectX with the Engine. I know this is really long so I'll end it there. Any further questions feel free to inbox me Hope this helped :D