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[increpare]

I learned by wandering about with Delphi back years ago, stumbling around trying to somehow fit turbopascal tutorials to them.  And then a pacman tutorial on a cover-disk, that showed how to use directdraw with Delphi.  Learned C at some point in the middle, but didn't use it much unitl after college. 

From there I was able to pick up most stuff as I went along ...

[14113]

I learned by mashing around basically  , looking at other peoples code, compiling it, editing it, basically seeing what it did do. I finally moved on to writing my own stuff, but only after I felt I had a really good understanding of what I was doing.

[agj]

As a young kid I learned a bit of QuickBASIC, mostly by asking my dad whenever I ran into problems, or looking through the included reference; never got too far, the things I was able to make didn't amount to anything more complex than a few input queries and mathematical operations, with text output. Years later I got an Internet connection, and discovered HTML, which I guess helped me refine my understanding of syntax. Later I started using mIRC, and discovered scripting, so I got into that, and was able to make more complex stuff than with QuickBASIC, and stuff that was actually useful for something (like file servers, moderation scripts, etc.). Even later, in university I had to create a portfolio website, which I decided to make in Flash, so I learned actionscript 2 with Google as my tutor; it was really hard, because the object-oriented programming paradigm is so different than what I was used to (and that I could never find a single good guide), so it was not just a matter of learning the syntax, but I managed to understand it somewhat, though not very deeply. Two years later I had to come up with a project for my thesis, for which I decided to make a video game, so I decided I'd try to move on to actionscript 3. I found a book called 'ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University', which uses many coding practices I would not recommend, but was a good introduction that really simplified the learning process; during this year I can say I finally got OOP.

Derived from my experience, I'd say it's not a good idea to delve into programming with the intention to make a game; start by making other, much simpler kinds of programs first, and escalate when you feel comfortable enough. The main thing, which has been repeated through this thread, is to persevere, as there's much to frustrate you on the road, but when you finally get it it's quite rewarding.

A funny anecdote is that in the years when I was coding mIRC scripts I sometimes took a peek at available scripts to see how they did things, but was usually met with a garbled, unreadable mess; the code was obfuscated, but my young, naive mind interpreted that as my code not being advanced enough, so I always thought I sucked at scripting, whereas in retrospect I think I was pretty decent at it.

[Matt Thorson]

Game Maker! Picked it up when I was 13 or 14. Learned the "drag'n'drop" and used that for a while. Eventually I started to move to GML, which is where I learned "real" programming.

Then, in high school, I took a class on BASIC. That didn't teach me a whole lot but I guess it was good practice.

Continued using Game Maker, got really comfortable with GML. Then came university, where I learned Java, C, C++, PHP, Lisp, etc. But having used Game Maker for so long definitely gave me a leg up for the first couple years of university.

[Jasper Byrne]

I realise my post was a bit off topic, so I'll just throw in how I got started.  It was back in the ZX Spectrum days, and I typed in a breakout clone from a BASIC book, and started to modify it so you could shoot, and then added baddies, and so on.  I think this is the way I've always learned, by hacking the centre out of another program until it's something completely new. But when doing this, I think it helps to start with something simple, and build up.  Once you've understood a couple of simple, but fully working games that other people have written well, it's much easier to move onto starting projects with your own code.

[keith.burgun]

This is going to sound crazy, but since I started this post, I have been persevering, and by god I have learned how to code!  I mean, all the knowledge from doing the same tutorials over and over, it just kind of clicked!  Obviously I have a lot to learn, but I'm past the brick wall stage!  It feels awesome!

[iffi]

This is going to sound crazy, but since I started this post, I have been persevering, and by god I have learned how to code!  I mean, all the knowledge from doing the same tutorials over and over, it just kind of clicked!  Obviously I have a lot to learn, but I'm past the brick wall stage!  It feels awesome!

That's great! Sounds similar to the time when Java suddenly made sense to me.

[TheLastBanana]

This is going to sound crazy, but since I started this post, I have been persevering, and by god I have learned how to code!  I mean, all the knowledge from doing the same tutorials over and over, it just kind of clicked!  Obviously I have a lot to learn, but I'm past the brick wall stage!  It feels awesome!

That's one of the fun parts of programming. You'll spend hours, or even days, trying to solve a problem, and suddenly it makes sense. That problem can be anything from a little bug to an entire language, but man does it feel good when it's all figured out.

[agj]

Yay!

[Matt Thorson]

Awesome man! Keep working at it, the hardest part is over (probably)!

[floatstarpx]

This is going to sound crazy, but since I started this post, I have been persevering, and by god I have learned how to code!  I mean, all the knowledge from doing the same tutorials over and over, it just kind of clicked!  Obviously I have a lot to learn, but I'm past the brick wall stage!  It feels awesome!

That's one of the fun parts of programming. You'll spend hours, or even days, trying to solve a problem, and suddenly it makes sense. That problem can be anything from a little bug to an entire language, but man does it feel good when it's all figured out.

I find I solve most of my problems while away from the computer... I'll be on a bus, or in bed, or going for a walk - and suddenly it'll click "ohhh yeah...that's what's happening!". Sometimes I'll just wake up in the morning and the ideal solution has popped in to my head.
The brain is an incredible thing..you might not even realise but it's working through all your problems in the background while you're busy doing other things!

[BitShift]

This is going to sound crazy, but since I started this post, I have been persevering, and by god I have learned how to code!  I mean, all the knowledge from doing the same tutorials over and over, it just kind of clicked!  Obviously I have a lot to learn, but I'm past the brick wall stage!  It feels awesome!

That's one of the fun parts of programming. You'll spend hours, or even days, trying to solve a problem, and suddenly it makes sense. That problem can be anything from a little bug to an entire language, but man does it feel good when it's all figured out.

I find I solve most of my problems while away from the computer... I'll be on a bus, or in bed, or going for a walk - and suddenly it'll click "ohhh yeah...that's what's happening!". Sometimes I'll just wake up in the morning and the ideal solution has popped in to my head.
The brain is an incredible thing..you might not even realise but it's working through all your problems in the background while you're busy doing other things!

I'll second that.  I find that I do my best thinking right as I'm drifting off to sleep.  I keep a notebook by my bed just in case.  I've solved many programming problems this way.

[Player Ʒ]

Took a Java class in my freshman year. It got me into the advanced programming field instead of stuff like Flash. Had the best grade in there too, I did. It's a wonder how I never learned BASIC first.

The best solution I can think of is learn and perform the examples a programming book of any language tells you. You could find some at your local library (glad I found some ActionScript 3 ones there) or at a thrift store. There's bound to be something there.

Being another of an artsy guy, it's hard to grasp something like C++ after you go through enough easy things and not enough of the hard ones.

Man, I wish high schools offered more programming classes.

[bvanevery]

I think programming is significantly more difficult than it used to be.  When I started, a computer fit into 48K.  You could buy a book that told you what every single memory address actually did, and change what was going on using PEEKs and POKEs to memory addresses.  It may have been grungy and low level, but there was a hard limit to the amount of complexity and crap that could be pulled in.  Now, it's just overwhelming the amount of stuff that is attached to any of the major programming language universes.  The skill of cutting through the crap becomes important.

I think you have to not take things too seriously, and not treat APIs (particularly Microsoft APIs) with any respect.  Just keep in mind that the people designing your tools are often jerks.  If you RTFM a lot and still don't get it, just remember that it's a failing of all those contractor jerks who are writing shoddy documentation and test suites, not you.  They aren't doing it for quality, they're doing it so that they can take their next ski trip in the Cascades.  It's not that different from navigating a government bureaucracy, which most people assume are a bunch of jerks, with the rare shining exception or two.

I have an iPod developing friend who says the Apple universe is a lot better, although personally I'm deeply cynical and have my doubts.  I can assure you that the Microsoft and Linux universes are equally bad and will spend a lot of time frustrating you.

[nikki]

That reminds me of this video i saw once, it's Stanford's own little computer language (Karel) and really simple, so you arent as lost in the gigantic syntax of a new language.

its especcialy geared to new programmers and very educational. And it oozes you into JAVA

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