Heya again guys. I have a question regarding software engineering. Now I have a few books on UML/Design Patterns and software engineering, but the problem these books seem to have is that they place emphasis on you as already being in the position of software engineering, and trying to teach you new and better techniques. This does not help much because I have never taken any classes on the subject, or have attended any school in programming/software engineering in general.
So my questions are, where would a good place be to begin, and get a solid foundation on the subject?, does anyone know of any good sources on that net to get you started?, or any good projects to try and get yourself acquainted with it?
I have been involved in C++ and APIs, made a few projects, but the subject of software engineering seems like it should go hand-in-hand alongside these. I really don't want to continue to go into more detailed projects without this general knowlege. Thanks for any insights guys .
Last edited by GameDevver4Evr on Sat Mar 27, 2010 10:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
From what you said it sounds like you are fairly new to programming and you want to be able to engineer your future programs so they are flawless. Sadly, this isn't possible no matter how hard you try, it just comes with lots of practice. The more you program, the more you will realize that your older programs are embarassingly ugly. I appologize if I interpreted your post wrong.
A good read. It is packed with information. Now as you gain experience in game development and development in general you'll learn what you will need to take from that information and what areas to do more reading and research about.
I also think there is a book available with design patterns specifically for games.
This is a very fair question, and I personally have asked similar back in the day.
However, I'd recommend you take a minute to affirm that you know what "Software Engineering" is and how it is different from "Programming" before you ask where to get learning resources. If you already know, then my mistake...However, I think it's a common misconception that "Software Engineer" is synonymous with "Programmer," and hope you learn to make the distinction early on before you spend your time plowing through Software Engineering books just to find that it's a rather dull subject (in my humble opinion. XD)
As for the answer to your actual question...I'm sorry, I really don't know of any good "ground up" software engineering resources. Also, I think that Software Engineering is a field almost bred entirely out of project experiences (as it focuses primarily on development "processes"), so the vast majority of the books out there would be pretty daunting to somebody with little actual coding experience. I would perhaps recommend sticking with good 'ol programming books, like the one you have on C++, until you're ready to understand and apply Software Engineering methodologies to your projects in a productive way rather than basing your projects off of them.
<qpHalcy0n> decided to paint the office, now i'm high and my hands hurt
Arce is right. There are several design questions you have to answer in a project where a though knowledge of the language(s) that you are using is a very good idea.
Thanks for the replies you guys . Yeah this defiantly helps because I always thought that in order to be a good programmer you would have to be capable of Engineering, and vice versa. I thought that Engineering was a subject that went hand-in-hand with programming like they supplement eachother or you would base your projects off certain designs and such through Engineering, but as it was stated that's not the case. Thanks guys i'll also take a look into that book as well .
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