Introduction
The goal of this organisation is to be able to produce useful software to aid in the production of next generation film and games.
The way to get there is to learn by example and complete small projects, one at a time, together, on-line and document our progress in GitHub issues, wikis and chat rooms.
To participate in this organisation, you are assumed to have touched source-code before - be it in Python, Lua or any other higher level language. If you haven't, I recommend having a look at Learn Python the Hard Way to get you started.
To join, either follow the assignments at your own pace, or join the chat-room and share insights and ask questions.
Someone will add you to the organisation once you've shown interest, and from there you can add your own projects and share your progress with others.
You'll notice that I use C and C++ interchangeably. That's because, as I understand it, C++ is (almost) a superset of C and that most of what you learn through C is applicable to C++, but not much the other way around. But perhaps more importantly, C is smaller and might provide an easier transition into thinking like a programmer than C++; although this seems to have been argued both ways if you go Google about it.
In any case, if you're questioning your own motivation for learning either C or C++ - especially when you already know Python, Lua, Javascript or some other high-level langauge - take a moment to read through the following articles.
- http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/14744/i-dont-know-c-and-why-should-i-learn-it
- http://www.cprogramming.com/whyc.html
- http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/06/why-learn-c.html
- http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/C_Programming/Why_learn_C%3F
Why am I personally doing it? Put simply, I'd like to manipulate and generate:
- Geometry
- Motion
- Sound
- Images
And harness the available and distilled expertise available on-line, such as these:
There are newer and more modern languages that accomplish the same thing in less code. Why not learn those instead? My primary motivation can be summarised in one word; resources. The C-family of languages have a long history and the internet and bookshops are filled with resources to get you familiar with how the computer works in ways that resources of newer languages simply cannot match.
By learning C/C++, you give yourself the advantage of getting up to speed in Computer Science quicker and can then move onto more modern, specialised languages like Go and Rust.