You guys are doing a great job at the moment. I’m waiting for the more advanced chapters on pointers/templates before I start contributing more; however I am still reading the threads. Doing java before a lot of this stuff makes it pretty straightforward, but it will be helpful when pointers/templates/thread programming comes up. I also think there should be maybe a bigger project every so often, where we can post the code up and get comments from the experts. Im also using Dietel and Dietel: How to Program C++ since I had it lying around. I realise this is very hard to keep it at a level that is understandable for all, due to previous programming experience in other languages.

Looking at the numbers of C++ related questions asked every week in the beginners forum, one gets a bit puzzled over the lame interest so far.

But, as have been mentioned, this most probably is due to most people that find Gamedev.net have already learned the basic stuff covered in the first week. So had I when found this nice place some years ago.

However I strongly belive that the interest and questions asked will increase from week 2 and onwards when more diffucult and painful subjects are covered.
So don't take this lack of interest too negative, you're all doing a great job with this Workshop.

Suggestions..

I know that you're planning for a monthly project, which is great. From my own experience of creating several games, I know that there are really no better way to truly understand and get the pieces to fall in place than developing a bigger project.

Therefore it would also be of great benefit for those people following this workshop if there were a weekly smaller project covering that weeks material. And even better, those projects focused on making game related programs.

I realize that might be out of the scope for this workshop and your time, but maybe those with lots of ideas could post you them for evaluation and go from there.

[edit]

Examples, in increased difficulty could be:

* Make a simple game menu.
* Make a text name bounce around the screen.
* Control a text around the screen with cursor keys.
* A lottery producer.
* Make a simple guess game.
* Make a simple game like space invader with only one enemy going from left to right shooting at a cursor controlled ship.

etc.

[/edit]

Well, anyway good luck and keep this Workshop running. [smile]

[Edited by - DayZero on July 12, 2006 4:50:32 PM]

Would not the popularity of this increase if it did not require participants buy a certain book?

Maybe next time (It will just start over when it finishes, right?) you can figure out how to do it without the book.

The workshop is very helpfull for me. I'm already an experienced Java developer and I don't have a lot of problems understanding the C++ syntax, but sometimes I don't see how things can or should be applied in real world applications. The tutors are doing a great job of giving me real world examples.

For me the course is also a little bit slow, but since I have my work and sports too, this tempo allows me to keep up easiliy and review stuff when needed. I'm sure we'll get to more difficult chapters soon and I would like to have time to read and understand those. So I hope we can stick at one chapter per week.

Other than that I would like to say: Keep up the good work!

I like to follow this workshop, but I did find that is going a little bit slow, like other people have been posting. I also agree with them though that the speed that it is going at will be needed as the topics get more complex. One thing I was wondering was, when was the new programming project for the month going to show. I saw that jwalsh said that he was going to post it next week, but that was on July 7. So is there going to be this project, or will it just show up for next month?

The project is coming soon. I would have posted it sooner but I really needed pointers to be covered before I could do what I wanted to do.

It'll be posted soon.

Cheers!

The number of threads cotinues to increase and they seem to be listed in a rather haphazard manner. Is it possible to have them displayed in a logical sequence - perhaps all the chapter/weeks in order, then the quizzes in weekly order and then "the rest", or maybe the weekly chapters & relevant quiz in order, followed by "the rest"? It strikes me that over the next 12 weeks or so, the number of threads will increase dramatically and by having the threads listed in a logical order, it would make it much easier to find a particular thread that's of interest.

I realise that this might require the input or a moderator. I don't know how the software for maintaining boards such as this actually display the information listed.

I only just found out about this now, so it's after a fairly cursory examination, but here are my thoughts:

- It seems like you're targetting this at people that have tried C++ before but found it too difficult. If they're still around, odds are good that they've tried another language and have already figured out conditionals and loops enough to not have serious problems with the ones in C++. Those that went and learned Java (for example) probably won't be having much trouble with classes.

- The toughest parts of C++ (that probably caused the problems for the target audience in the first place) are the parts that don't show up much in simple programs. The big problems such as complicated memory management, dependancy mangagement, design, and organisation wont show up for a while. I'm sure once you get there many more people will show up.

- I like helping with C++, but loops and ifs really aren't all that interesting to me, so I don't think I'll be around until the topics get harder and the questions get more interesting.

- I'm glad you're giving decent exercises. I would have picked _Accelerated C++_ as the text mainly because it goes into more "real" programs quickly (and uses the standard library well). If you keep up the exercises though, I expect it'll work nicely.

~ Scott McMurray
Author of Modern C++ : Going Beyond "C with Classes".

Quote: Original post by CondorMan
The number of threads cotinues to increase and they seem to be listed in a rather haphazard manner. Is it possible to have them displayed in a logical sequence - perhaps all the chapter/weeks in order, then the quizzes in weekly order and then "the rest", or maybe the weekly chapters & relevant quiz in order, followed by "the rest"? It strikes me that over the next 12 weeks or so, the number of threads will increase dramatically and by having the threads listed in a logical order, it would make it much easier to find a particular thread that's of interest.

I realise that this might require the input or a moderator. I don't know how the software for maintaining boards such as this actually display the information listed.

GameDev's forum technology does not allow this. It always puts the most recently modified post first, even if its stickied. :( The reason it seems out of order is because we're getting people posting in previous weeks, which is to be expected.

Quote: Original post by jwalsh
GameDev's forum technology does not allow this. It always puts the most recently modified post first, even if its stickied. :( The reason it seems out of order is because we're getting people posting in previous weeks, which is to be expected.

I suspected that it might not be so easy, but when I check the forum, this workshop is the final topic in the list. I open this topic and then the various threads are displayed. All the stickied ones are first (but in no apparant order) and your post telling me about the software is about half way down ths list, not at the top! It was, indeed, the most recent post within this workshop.

I realise that if I simply look at the forum "active topics", it lists all posts since my last visit and, to my recollection, they are displayed in time order so the topics dispayed there hop around all over the place.