It can take hours, days or months. Some people see it and think wow thats easy, some people look at it like its an alien language. Some people start slow but become great programmers.

In general you should be able to write simple Hello world programs in a couple of hours though. I wouldn't start with windows forms or XNA programming if you are a totall beginner.

What tutorials are you using? Maybe they are not great and you ned a different approach.

I have taken the suggestions stated in this thread. I thought about the post I made, and it does sound ridiculous. I guess I still have that new angst, where I want to learn it now.

I guess I was just getting frustrated because it usually doesn't take me that long to pick up on computer stuff. I'm going to stick with it, and if I can't learn the very basics in the next few months, then I'll complain! =)

 

EDIT: So are there any very basic "Hello World!" like tutorials out there? Stuff like basic calculators, the basic framework of C#. That way I can know what each variable and statement mean?

Check the links in my post in this thread.

Thank you so much! Again, everyone in here is so helpful. Except for The ZMan, he is mean... J/K! =p

No, not months.  Actually, where you should start is with basic object oriented programming concepts.  Once you understand these basics, you can jump from language to langauge with less effort.  After that you can focus on the syntax and libraries specific for the language.  Good luck.

Cool. I keep on studying, and watching these vid's. They are a big help, but I am taking it really slow that way I don't get overloaded.

 I do have a theory though. Tell me what you guys think. Anyone can learn to program, however, some people are more geared to do the graphics end and concept work. These very basic principles just don't "click" with people like me. It's interesting, especially with studies of "Right Brained" people and "Left Brained People".

 

Just to clarify, I am not giving up, I'm still going. I am just taking it real slow.

Hey, I am 16 and I have currently been learning programming basics for two years in school. I really love this stuff, my friends think I'm crazy but I am actually interested in pursuing this field for a career. Of course, like anyone else here I would love to make games I have so many ideas and would really like to bring them to life. The biggest problem for me is to find that one tutorial out there that will put me over the edge. I am not sure if most are bad or if I am just ill equipped to understand them but none have gotten me going.

 I just can't find a "game making" tutorial, especially one geared toward XNA. After watching the GDC keynote and traveling to this webpage and I am dumb founded at the oppurtunity given here. Make games, release it on xbox live and get paid...are you for real???

 Well any tips would be greatly appreciate it, I am going to dwell on this site for a while trying to make sense of it all. I hope I can make a game, it would be great!

Which tutorials are you using? Since you're new, I'm going to go ahead and direct you to the "Help! I'm new!" FAQ. That will help explain things to you and get you going in the right direction. As for getting paid, yep, it's a reality. Make your game for the XBox 360 and you can release it on XBox Live Community Games (not to be confused with XBox Live Arcade). When you release your game, you can set the points your game costs and as people buy it, you get paid. Check out the FAQ on XBLCG for more information on that.

Finally, if you're really hunting for a great complete game walkthrough, I highly recommend Nick Gravelyn's Alien Aggressor tutorial. It takes you from  start to finish on making a Space Invaders clone. Great starter for beginners.

Welcome to the forums and best of luck as you learn to make games!

Thanks for the help. The tutorials I was referring to were random java and C++ tutorials that just didn't make any sense to me. Also I found a bunch of video tutorials for XNA but they were for the beta version so the code was different and the code they would use on there was giving me errors on my end. I will check out that tuorial!

Hey i can learn to program on my own but i was wondering how does it cost any money to download the software and if it doesnt do i need a higher grade account to download the studio. Plz help.

Rebelgamer:

Hey i can learn to program on my own but i was wondering how does it cost any money to download the software and if it doesnt do i need a higher grade account to download the studio. Plz help.

XNA Game Studio is free of charge. Read the Help! I'm New FAQ for more info on how to get started.

No your not slow, im new at this and iv downloaded visual c# and have looked at tutorials on youtube, xna.com, google, ect. for the past 2 months or so and have been picking up little things here and there. But i have yet to make a game (im working on one), just made simple little applications.

No I wouldn't say your slow at all...
The 2D tutorial is really good, but it is better geared towards someone who already knows programming fundamentals and is wishing to learn a new language.

If your really serious about learning and you have a microphone I can teach you a bundle in a couple of hours.

Same goes for anyone else who is serious about learning.

MAKILA:

No I wouldn't say your slow at all...
The 2D tutorial is really good, but it is better geared towards someone who already knows programming fundamentals and is wishing to learn a new language.

If your really serious about learning and you have a microphone I can teach you a bundle in a couple of hours.

Same goes for anyone else who is serious about learning.

I want to learn from you MAKILA, I've got a mic. So how do we get started?

Welcome to the world of programming.  I have been in the business for 36 or so years and I still have to spend time trying to figure stuff out.  I realize it has been some months since you posted here, and I don't see any other responses.

I hope you are getting somewhere.  I do have a blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/devschool that is written for people getting started in game programming, which will be going through some changes to improve it.



Please pop over there and leave a comment, I plan on setting up a system for beginners to get through the excellent material that Microsoft as well as others such as Ziggyware have, but it is quite difficult to get started.  A FEW people get started and have no problems, but most of us have difficulties and I hope you are still hanging in there via RSS feed or something.  Let me know.

Sam Stokes
http://blogs.msdn.com/devschool

If you have no previous programing experance it does take time to learn. I found this site and hopefully it helps.
I have just started learning to use vs 08 and the video tuts are not of much help. Seems I would have been better off installing VS 05.
Here is the link for some information I have found so far. 

http://searchwindevelopment.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid8_gci1280711,00.html

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vs2008/bb507746.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb198548(XNAGameStudio.10).aspx

Search for something like "c# ebooks" or something similar, there's loads of books out there.

Don't you learn java in Grade 11?

Oh well, here goes nothing.I am completely new to all this and know nothing about programming or where to start.I am going to put a lot of time into learning evertyhing that I can.This will be a big challenge for me as i have never took a project like this on before so i just hope I dont fall at the first hurdle.

Can anyone help me out here - I looked at those Microsoft tutorial pages, but they have nothing to do with XNA - the first video is showing me options that aren't anywhere to be found in the XNA screen.

I wanted to mess around and learn how to make a little tic-tac-toe type game or something, but apparently I cannot make a 360 game unless I pay $100 (which I'm not going to do)... So I tried making a windows game, and well still none of those options from the tutorials are actually on my screen.

So are there specific XNA tutorials that actually show me how to start learning with XNA?

Wizzykin:

Can anyone help me out here - I looked at those Microsoft tutorial pages, but they have nothing to do with XNA - the first video is showing me options that aren't anywhere to be found in the XNA screen.

I wanted to mess around and learn how to make a little tic-tac-toe type game or something, but apparently I cannot make a 360 game unless I pay $100 (which I'm not going to do)... So I tried making a windows game, and well still none of those options from the tutorials are actually on my screen.

So are there specific XNA tutorials that actually show me how to start learning with XNA?

Go here: http://www.xnadevelopment.com/  Work through the beginner tutorials.
The first one you should do is: http://xnadevelopment.com/tutorials/gettingstartedwithxnadevelopment/GettingStartedWithXNADevelopment.shtml  (This will tell you what to download, and how to get started.)

If you are trying to program for the first tim I would suggest you try BBC Baisc.

If you just want to try making some tic tac toe games and such then you best try Visual Basic. You can use the forms projects to make games like tic tac toe. I have just moved on from Visual Basic but there are a couple of good places to try. You could try my wiki at www.helpfulfiles.wikidot.com . I found a couple of good documentations to making games with Visual Basic but don't use Dark GDK it is much more complex than visual basic. Only use it if you are serious about programing.

If you want to use XNA don't ask me anything! I don't know.

Hope this helps!

If you want to learn to program go to your public library and get a bunch of books out. All libraries have them. The best ones are the ones that teach you through a series of example programs (not just code snippets) which start out simple and get more and more complex. I remember getting ones using BASIC back when I was little, but these days you may well be able to get them for Java or C#. If you're interested in making games, definitely start with something like Java or C#. Part of me wants to suggest C++ because all big titles are still made in it, but I'm not convinced whether C++ is the best language to learn in because it dumps a whole lot of complexity on you all at once.

Having said all of this, if you get the opportunity to go to University and study computer science or software engineering, definitely take it up. We not only learnt to program, but we actually learnt how the hardware works, from how logic gates are made, to how the basic building blocks of a CPU work, to how CPU's are designed on a block-level, how memory works etc. This might seem a little "irrelevant" when all you want to do is make computer games but this broad knowledge of the entire playing field - wide reading, as they call it - gives you a solid understanding of how your program actually works at the end of the day, and without it, I think writing high-performance code (aka Computer Games) would be a struggle.

That's not to say that you can't learn all this stuff yourself, but it is a lot easier to have someone else perscribe the course for you.

Just how much C# do I need to know? I've been doing the "Absolute Beginner's C#" from MSDN; the course goes through the basics of C# programming and, as a project, creating an RSS reader program in the end. Do you think that this should be enough, or should I learn more C# before going on to learning XNA in specific?

That will be enough for you to get started with XNA.  I would suggest you get a C# book as a desk reference though.