programming jobs without degree

[Feoggou]

to ninja9578:

Do you know OpenGL? The OpenGL API is bigger than the entirety of STL, and a must for graphics programming

Don't know OpenGL at all. I've started learning D3D but I'm still on the "starter" level. I'm using the book called "Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 10.chm", but it seems it's hard because I got to chapter 5 (which includes 18 topics) but I can't apply any of the topic in my program until I finish reading all the chapter. i.e. I can't start drawing a cube before writing an effect file and write a vertex shader and a pixer shader, and all the stuff is the entire chapter 5 - It's much easier for me if it is given a small info that you apply, see how it is, play with the code a bit, and then go to the next step. The other problem is that DirectX has functions that deal with mathematical issues like rotations. But if I know well, OpenGL does not use such things. So I have to learn Maths applied in game programming. By the way, do you know a good book for beginners on D3D 10?

to nuzzle:

Gaming AI is no fake. Just because some decisions can't wait doesn't mean it's not AI. When there's time the game AI can plan carefully otherwise it makes quick decisions.

The only AI I've learnt is basic A*. The rest of AI is my logic (i.e. you think about how things should be done). Something tells me I know the basics for pretty many things, but I'm "really good" at none.

to nuzzle:

To make it happen you need a theoretical foundation and the fastest and easiest way to get one is by the way of a degree.

Now I don't pretty understand well what you guys mean of "degree": you mean some kind of test that says how much you know? or some kind of courses that teach you something? Well, as I don't have a job yet, I might not have the money for such thing. And I don't think it's the brightest idea to seek a job where I'm gonna sell cookies, thus losing 8 hours or more per day, for that. So self-teaching sounds a better idea. I really think it's best to get hired as a c++ programmer rather than something totally alien to it.

If you had what it takes to get a job as game programmer or phone-app developer or whatever you'd already been busy doing it. It's a characteristic of the self-taught programmer.

I'm only close to it. I think. I've sent a CV for a job, filled an online test - and that was my first c++ test outside school and the only thing that gave me an idea about what programming elements I should expect to use. I'm still frustrated of not studying properly STL before (I was thinking even that making lists classes myself would be a better idea), because, for instance, I didn't know how to delete an element of a vector (STL) if the elements are pointers to structures. Now I didn't receive the result of the test yet, hope It'll be ok and I could go to the next test as well. Now I'm re-learning some C++ stuff from C++ The Complete Reference 4th edition, to be sure that I fix things that escaped me.

to JohnW@Wessex:

it might sound odd, but what is "design patterns"? I've heard the term before but I don't know what it refers to.

More important to us is their employment history including responsibilities and demonstration of creative thinking. These skills are much more valued by us than pure knowledge. Knowledge is good, but wisdom is even better.

I'm curios of something, if you wish to tell me: how would you regard a person that wants to be hired as a c++ programmer in the game programming field (for the first time, last summer has finished the faculty), that has 6/7 years of c++ programming at home (self teaching), alone, and his knowledge and wisdom are the result of what he put his hands on (he applied his c++ skills mostly for windows api, mfc) , what he found interesting to learn and the programs he needed to make (e.g. an aplication for sending files & folders, a faster search than the Windows Vista & 7 search and with more search options than it), who's teachings of programming learnt at faculty are useless for any real job (so he can really say that he learnt programming at home), and whose math skill are rusty (linear algebra, geometry, etc.), and who wishes to learn D3D but he is still a starter.

I'll explaini "rusty knowledge" of linear algebra below:
he tried to learn linear algebra at school, though the teachers were not caring too much of making the notions resemble something in real life (e.g. a definition like: it is called X something that respects the following conditions: a., b., c. . - and one makes him think, but what ACTUALLY is that?), the course was 14 weeks (2 courses each week), which was in the first year of faculty, after which the knowledge was never used. So this "knowledge" of linear algebra only makes it easier for him to learn linear algebra properly and more easily (e.g. from an ebook of maths applied in game programming) than someone that never interacted with it.

If I am right to feel inferior, perhaps you can give me some advices what to do (please).