Student

[darkcloud92]

I am a CS student, I have a strong knowledge of C++ and C itself, I know a fair amount about data structures, I am in a theory of computation class. So i guess my question is what is an adequate knowledge base before diving into Windows Programming and game development. I have been doing a lot of reading over the past week, and I wrote a basic windows program that does nothing creates a window.

I understand what each component is supposed to do, but I couldn't necessarily write it without seeing how I am supposed to, is this because I don't know enough yet or should it be mildly difficult to learn?

[Paoletti301]

both i suppose. for me, looking at windows code makes me want to gag cause it just looks so ugly to me. i'm just now starting to learn it ( mainly because of it's abilities to search directories )

i would recommend SFML, it is much more user friendly and has alot of documentation to it. i've been enjoying it and i usually can find a solution to any problem i run into

[Computergeek01]

_{OP said:}

... but I couldn't necessarily write it without seeing how I am supposed to, ...

Don't worry about this. When I write anything I usually have 20+ tabs open for reference no matter what API I'm using, even if I think I know the arguments that the function wants and the data that it will return some times I just find it comforting to have the tabs open. You will probably memorize a few functions but don't force it on yourself, it'll happen on it's own.

As for when to start programming, now is good. If you run into something you don't know how to do then that is probably the next thing you should study.