The Benefits of Learning How to Program Computers
I still remember the excitement I had when I wrote my first basic program on BBC Micro at the school. It was a simple arrangement of four strings that drew a triangle on the screen. In the early 1980s we enjoyed playing games such as Chuckie Egg and the famous Granny's Garden on BBC Micro which was the first computer to be introduced, but we were very pleased to find the computer to perform tasks in the basic programming language. Simple programs that drew textures or printed text on the screen were not groundbreaking but were enough to deepen my passion for programming and set me on the path to gaming programming for other computers such as Spectrum, Atari ST and Amiga.
In the old days of Spectrum you could buy magazines that featured games written in basic code that you could write on your Spectrum and hope the system went well. This was a great way to learn how code works and what commands do. Books in basic programming were also released that would take you basically on instructions and structure, and finish editing the whole game. The satisfaction of getting things done was amazing.
So what are the advantages of learning the way to program computers? In my personal experience it gives you a sense of accomplishment to create the whole program from scratch and to see it work. Finding out how a computer can do something is challenging as you try to decide how to do it. The excitement of being able to create your own game where you make rules. The pleasure of other people playing it.
Process planning is good in mind because it involves problem solving. For example: how to get multiple sprites moving across the screen and throwing characters like a game known as Space Attackers. What to do if a player does something unexpected and the game crashes, how can you tell the computer how to handle these unexpected events. I once spent over a week editing the zoom work in the Art Package I wrote and giving me a good feeling of relief when I finally found it working.
Planning activities can also be fun and a great hobby. I met some good friends while writing tutorials for organizing different Atari ST disks in the 1990s that I still feel today. We were sending each disk full of planning tools and program and looking forward to the many programs we could create where we were only limited by our imagination. Our creations were analyzed in the high-end Amiga and ST magazines of the day which we all long for.
Ultimately plans can be a good source of your income. Creating your own applications can be one of the best programming languages available as an App Game Kit that lets you build software that works on multiple devices. People are always looking for new software and employers need to find programmers to build it.
There are many game creator programs on the market that do not require all the programs but I personally find them limited. If you want to make your own games or app then I highly recommend sticking to some good old code coding in one of the most popular programming languages on the market today.
In the old days of Spectrum you could buy magazines that featured games written in basic code that you could write on your Spectrum and hope the system went well. This was a great way to learn how code works and what commands do. Books in basic programming were also released that would take you basically on instructions and structure, and finish editing the whole game. The satisfaction of getting things done was amazing.
So what are the advantages of learning the way to program computers? In my personal experience it gives you a sense of accomplishment to create the whole program from scratch and to see it work. Finding out how a computer can do something is challenging as you try to decide how to do it. The excitement of being able to create your own game where you make rules. The pleasure of other people playing it.
Process planning is good in mind because it involves problem solving. For example: how to get multiple sprites moving across the screen and throwing characters like a game known as Space Attackers. What to do if a player does something unexpected and the game crashes, how can you tell the computer how to handle these unexpected events. I once spent over a week editing the zoom work in the Art Package I wrote and giving me a good feeling of relief when I finally found it working.
Planning activities can also be fun and a great hobby. I met some good friends while writing tutorials for organizing different Atari ST disks in the 1990s that I still feel today. We were sending each disk full of planning tools and program and looking forward to the many programs we could create where we were only limited by our imagination. Our creations were analyzed in the high-end Amiga and ST magazines of the day which we all long for.
Ultimately plans can be a good source of your income. Creating your own applications can be one of the best programming languages available as an App Game Kit that lets you build software that works on multiple devices. People are always looking for new software and employers need to find programmers to build it.
There are many game creator programs on the market that do not require all the programs but I personally find them limited. If you want to make your own games or app then I highly recommend sticking to some good old code coding in one of the most popular programming languages on the market today.
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