It’s been a very long time since I’ve done any C programming. I started a subject on it at RMIT in 1997, but dropped out when I found they’d stuffed up my enrolment. My only other real experience in programming of that style is my dabblings in javascript for websites. Not quite real I know.
This semester I’m doing Object Oriented Programming as one of my subjects. It’s more about the OO side of things than the language itself, and as such you can choose to either do the work in C# or Java. I’ve chosen C#, but am expecting to pick up some of the Java along the way.
We’re using a template for C# called SwinGame. It’s an environment that allows you to create 2D games in the C# or Java environments.
We’re only 2 weeks in and have had to do an assignment already. It’s relatively simple. Using SwinGame create a window that shows a Mandelbrot image that you can zoom in on. It took me a while to work out, bit that was more because I didn’t know the syntax for C#.
So far the lectures for the subject have been good. They’re taken by Andrew Cain, and they aren’t your typical kind of lecture. We’re supposed to read the material and then send him an email by Monday evening, asking questions. Plus he likes doing “Role Playing” to explain how things work. I’ve never seen that used as a teaching tool in an IT subject before, but it’s actually pretty effective.
The other thing we’re supposed to do for this subject is write a diary of what we have learnt. This is so when we submit our folio of work (there is no exam) at the end of semester, we can comprehensively explain what, where, when, how we have learnt stuff.
And yes, that is partly why I started this blog of mine.