ut3 linux poll

[xav1r]

Anybody read that interview that Ryan "Icculus" did, where he said that he learned everything he knows on his own? And that most schools' programs are crap anyways, so you need to go your own way to learn your stuff, otherwise youre not going to learn anything? And that he has a degree in theater i think.

btw, im so glad im learning plain C, not C++ yet.

[RobbieAB]

Anybody read that interview that Ryan "Icculus" did, where he said that he learned everything he knows on his own? And that most schools' programs are crap anyways, so you need to go your own way to learn your stuff, otherwise youre not going to learn anything? And that he has a degree in theater i think.

btw, im so glad im learning plain C, not C++ yet.

Well, not wishing to belittle Ryans achievement, but...

That is a typical comment from someone without the qualification. A good degree course is not so much about teaching the advanced methods, but about teaching the underlying theory. It should expose you to ideas and concepts you may rarely see in the real world, so would not "learn on the job", but which may occasionally prove useful.

Yes most schools programs are crap, but only in the sense that most schools don't really have people good enough to push the very best students. After all, the schools don't always get the best people, and it's not unknown for final year students who are seriously good to be better than their teachers. But a good student should still gain from the structured environment, the structured teaching.

Take two equal student just out of high-school, and send one off to work and learn on his own, and send the other to do an "adequate" CS course. Which will be the better all round computer guy after 4 years?

[Dragonlord]

I have to precise this a bit. I've seen at university a couple of morons ( excuse the term ) which could not commit compiling code in MCS courses or that still had no idea about what a Singleton is or other elementary things ( we always said they slept well with the teachers to get through... o.=.O ... anyways those students are good ate caughing up what they learned but can't reuse it to form new stuff ). CS gives the basics and allows you to grow but if the student in question simply sucks at informatics he's not going to get far with the degree alone. What it needs is CS + own-skills. Own-Skills alone can get you far but CS alone ( without the skills and dedication of your own ) doesn't get you far.

[me262]

It's a bit shallow on what you need to get ahead. It's all practical application, and nowhere near enough of that to be useful. As RobbieAB indicated, some of the coursework is more of an intro than sufficient to teach you enough to be useful with developing for it. You MIGHT get your foot in the door with it if you've got a hot enough title in your resulting portfolio with a studio- keep in mind, though, you're going to be very, very specialized (not a good thing, really) and there's a lot of people also trying to do the same thing that'll be competing for those same possible slots.

Like I said...it's more like a Tech School degree on steroids...

$75k for this? I'm not going to tell you that it's a bad idea, but you might want to get a more generic degree, even if it's online, with that cash- but then, that'd be me. Ever given someone like University of Phoenix a check-out?

Some of it possibly, however there is practicality at the end, so if everything's used at the end to make a game, there's something to be said for it I guess. I nearly have a double associates in CS and General (5 classes away, but lately everyone's looking at bachelors and higher).

Shall I post the course detail then? It seems like you guys aren't really getting how much is covered in these classes. Either that or that it's covered too quickly. Let me know your thoughts.

I haven't really looked at UoP, but I'm not sure that's accredited, or what the program entails.

[trepo]

IF it comes out, I WILL buy it. I want my copy to be on their books as a sale for Linux. Even if I'll play it a few times only. I'm not really a shooter fan, but I'm willing to to pay extra just to send a message. It may not be heard, but it's still cheaper than travelling to London to deliver a speech at Hyde park [EDIT:] I only registered to be able to vote. Why is the vote available to members only? 'Ph'orum limitations?

[trepo]

Java's good for making UI apps or web applications.

Java is NOT good for making peak performance applications or applications that you need consistent operation. A real-time system pausing for GC operations (which is where your "not leaking memory" from Java COMES from...) will cause things to kill people.

Count me ignorant, but... Java is a language like any other. It's "easier" than C, and it's designed to run on a VM, but it should be compilable to machine code just like any other language. The only difference is whether the programmer or the compiler is smarter...

And yes, 'programmers' using Java (or any other interpreted language - bytecode _is_ interpreted) for RT apps either don't know what they are doing or have incompetent management. (As if there was any other kind )

[trepo]

Well, not wishing to belittle Ryans achievement, but...

That is a typical comment from someone without the qualification.

Qualification means fsck all in this industry.

A good degree course is not so much about teaching the advanced methods, but about teaching the underlying theory.

Advanced methods of what? Programming? No advances in programming. Tell the computer what you would do if you had the time to make the calculations. Nowadays it's easier (less lines of code, less detailed instructions) to tell the fsckers what you want of them, but it's still the same.

It should expose you to ideas and concepts you may rarely see in the real world, so would not "learn on the job", but which may occasionally prove useful.

I'm not sufficiently versed in the English language to [not mis]understand the above sentence.
You WILL "learn on the job". You should. Given the diversity of the industry, there is no school that could prepare you for the stuff you'll find "in the wild".

But a good student should still gain from the structured environment, the structured teaching.

A good student will know what he/she/it[1] needs and find the knowledge/guidance on his own.

Take two equal student just out of high-school, and send one off to work and learn on his own, and send the other to do an "adequate" CS course. Which will be the better all round computer guy after 4 years?

The one keeping in touch and not relying on aged textbooks/COBOL programmers to learn his/her/its[1] trade?

[1] It's unnatural for me to use gender-specific personal pronouns (we don't have them) so I'll use this construct instead if you don't mind. And if you do, too.

[niniendowarrior]

I took CS before and C was the base language to use for everything. I always thought teaching pure Java is a huge mistake for any CS course.

[Svartalf]

Count me ignorant, but... Java is a language like any other. It's "easier" than C, and it's designed to run on a VM, but it should be compilable to machine code just like any other language. The only difference is whether the programmer or the compiler is smarter...

I've found that people that solely rely on the compiler end up not being as good a developer than the ones that use the brains they were born with more than the machine's "smarts". The main problem with using Java over C/C++ is that there's a HUGE range of development that just simply can't use the sort of model Java presents to the developer. Moreover, if you use that to show "fundamental concepts", you end up not exposing the students to critical theory and they won't understand when it's appropriate to use Java and when it's not. Moreover, the model produces code that still has the GC and the other stuff, even when you native code compile it- it HAS to do that much or it's not Java.

And yes, 'programmers' using Java (or any other interpreted language - bytecode _is_ interpreted) for RT apps either don't know what they are doing or have incompetent management. (As if there was any other kind )

Considering that if you're taught with Java, you won't typically be TAUGHT the distinction between VM/JIT interpreted versus native code compiled (After all, the stuff that doesn't use them are crufty old languages...), you won't KNOW the difference and try applying the only principles you know to all tasks. This is the reason why I consider it very iffy to be using it as anything to start people off with learning CS.

[Svartalf]

Shall I post the course detail then? It seems like you guys aren't really getting how much is covered in these classes. Either that or that it's covered too quickly. Let me know your thoughts.

Perhaps. But not on this thread. We've drifted RADICALLY from the original intent of the thread here, I'm afraid.
The gut level feel I've got is that you might get your foot in the door for doing game dev- but you won't have a good backing for things elsewhere if things go south on you or you don't get your foot in the door. It feels entirely too specialized.

I haven't really looked at UoP, but I'm not sure that's accredited, or what the program entails.

1) Accredited means that the coursework is recognized by other schools as being valid for a given degree program.

2) The Fullsail accreditation is through the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology, a national accreditation group primarily used by Technical Schools. Most four year schools will not recognize the accreditation or many of your credits- this also applies if you're going to gun for a Master's degree or higher. For Fullsail's credits to actually work the right way and have most of the credits count elsewhere if needed, they'd need to be accredited with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools- which, they're not. Only Tech Schools really use this accreditation board.

3) UPX' accreditation is via the Higher Learning Council, which is the accreditation board for the North-Central Association of Colleges and Schools, which handles pretty much all the schools in the Midwest US and some in the Southwestern US. Even DeVry University is accredited with this organization and THEY started out as a Tech School University as well.

As for the coursework from UPX... It's an actual CS degree with all that which it entails. Here's a thought to consider in addition to what all I and others have told you up to this point.

IF, for example, you find yourself unable to get a game dev job because of layoff or downturn in the industry, do you think you would be able to retain a "boring" job elsewhere in the computer industry doing end-user applications or something like client-server development? If not, you might want to consider what would enable you to hold something down that could mean the difference between staying in something that might eventually lead back to game dev or washing out and doing odd-jobs or flipping burgers for many years. Fullsail, unfortunately, will leave you somewhat at a disadvantage to getting into better situations. The UPX, DeVry, or similar degree for the same price they're charging you won't.