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[player2]

For those who don't know about it, Academic Earth is a newish website that uploads real academic courses from a variety of topics in Ivy League schools (and honorary Ivy League members). The topics include astronomy, biology, chemistry, economics, English, history, law, math, medicine, philosophy, religion, poly sci, and, most importantly, computer science.

Computer science courses available right now are as follows:

Computer Science I: Programming Methodology - Stanford
Computer Science II: Programming Abstractions - Stanford
Computer Science III: Programming Paradigms - Stanford
Introduction to Robotics - Stanford
Machine Learning - Stanford

Introduction to Computer Science I - Harvard
Understanding Computers and the Internet - Harvard

Operating Systems and System Programming - Berkeley
The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - Berkeley

Circuits and Electronics - MIT
Introduction to Algorithms - MIT
Computer System Engineering - MIT

Personally, I found it difficult to move through some of these and had to give up because, with my low-level (har har) understanding of coding, I felt I needed more of a physical presence to learn, say, Java from scratch. Additionally, you obviously can't get the lessons and experience from labs and groups, either.

However, I think people with even just a slight working knowledge and some real experience with coding could get a lot out of these courses by just watching and taking in the discourse. Furthermore, I think Academic Earth could potentially be the instigator for a humongously important paradigm shift in education and culture if it develops to include better access to course materials (some classes do!) and maybe even interaction with teachers and students.

Seriously, it's an incredible resource. Put on a class during your lunch break when you'd just be dinking around anyway.

e: Holy forgotten linkage.

[JoeHonkie]

Are the Stanford ones the same ones from see.stanford.edu?  I know for those you still need to buy the textbooks (not that it makes it less of a deal).

EDIT, and MIT has MIT open courseware, although not all the classes are that complete.

[player2]

Yeah, it's a work in progress. Some courses give you materials online, and others don't. For example, you can download Stanford's version of Eclipse that has all their premade code templates and exercises made for their book, but the other book is like $90 used and not available online. You do get access to the course website, though, with all the handouts and assignments and stuff. Some classes, like you said, are more complete than others.

[nihilocrat]

Coding as taught in a CS class is going to differ signifcantly from coding used to write games. It will get deeper into theory and math that don't normally come up in "on the ground" coding. Don't feel too bad if it seems like a lot to swallow. Also, remember that these are top universities, in one week they will cover what might really take you a month to learn on your own.

However, it's useful to know this stuff if you do any kind of programming as a career.

I wonder if anyone has put together a series of tutorials / lectures in video format that covers a large range of pretty core game concepts... rendering, collision detection, moving stuff around, events, lerping / timed events, etc..

[Problem Machine]

Oh my god I'm going to lose so much time to this 

[MrChocolateBear]

Thanks for pointing this out!