I make games

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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • As someone who makes indie games professionally, I taught myself how to program by making video games. Maybe it’s just my adhd, but I have a difficult time with organized learning, but I pick things up really quickly by doing. I wouldn’t get too caught up in the “I need to learn it the right way before I make games” part, since the making games part is exactly what kept programming interesting and engaging enough to prevent me from getting bored.

    Second I also wouldn’t get too locked up trying to decide which programming language to use. Modern programming languages are all conceptually pretty similar. It’s really only minor syntax differences. Learning a new programming language is mostly just a matter of “how do I write a for loop in this language again?” It doesn’t take too long to adapt.

    I use Unity and C# right now, and I’m in the middle of learning Godot to make the switch. I would generally agree with what other people have said. C# is a pretty good language to start with. Just low level enough to make sure you learn fundamentals without being so low level that you have to fiddle with memory addresses and pointers like c/c++.

    As for codecademy, I tried it when I was first starting out like 10 years ago, so I can’t vouch for it now, but it seemed to very much be “Learn how to type code” and not “learn how to actually program.” Just explaining how to write if statements and for loops isn’t really teaching programming. I still don’t think there’s really a good universal way to teach it, even after taking programming classes in college. Everyone sort of picks it up differently, at different paces, and enjoys different parts of it, so I still think picking a project you think sounds cool and finding and following along with YouTube tutorials and just trying stuff out until it works is a pretty good way to get started. You can always take the time to read a book or take a course after you’ve determined if programming is even something you’re vaguely interested in.










  • mozingo@lemmy.worldtoWikipedia@lemmy.worldMonty Hall problem
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    5 months ago

    So in the simple version where the host doesn’t do anything, there’s 3 possibilities for the car. It’s either behind door number 1, 2 or 3. So when you pick one, there’s a 1 in 3 chance you pick the door with the car.

    Now as for why the host’s choice matters: The host always opens a door that you didn’t choose and that also does not have the car. This information seems like the useful part, but it’s actually not. No matter which door you pick, one of the other two will always have a goat. He’s just showing it to you for the show, but that doesn’t change anything, because you don’t get to pick which of the two other doors, only “switch,” that’s the important part. This recontextualizes the choice you made, effectively your choice is now between the door you picked, or the other two doors combined (the one he showed you which is wrong, and the other one).

    When you first picked the first door, the odds of the car being behind it were 1 in 3, and those odds still haven’t changed. There’s still a 1 in 3 chance that your door has the car behind it. And when you first picked, there were 2 in 3 odds that the car was behind one of the two doors that you didn’t pick. Having the incorrect door revealed after the fact doesn’t change that fact about both doors. So now the door you chose initially has 1 in 3 odds and the other choice - switch to both doors - has 2 in 3 odds. That’s twice the odds, so you should definitely switch. You’ll be wrong 1/3 of the time, but it’s the best pick.

    At least that’s how I think about it: by staying, it’s like you only got to open one door, and by switching it’s like you get to open both of those two doors.

    If the host showed you the wrong door ahead of time, you’d be right though. Your choice would be between two doors and be 50/50, but by showing it after you’ve already picked one, the likelihood of the car being one of the doors you didn’t pick stays the same, and since the revealed door now has a 0 in 3 chance the last door must have that remaining 2 in 3.