Programming as a minor
- by Tomas Cokis
Hello Everyone! I've never asked a question here at programmers, and for reasons which will become obvious later I've never answered one here, but I do poke around in short bursts.
Anyway, I'm 15 right now, and I've been programming in C++ for 4 years, just working on my own projects that are aim so high as to never be finished. I've been working on a single project for the last year, and every 3 months, I add a new system into it. It might be a value tabling directory enabled log system, or a render system, or a class to load up xml files, whatever it is, I don't mind too much that the overall project (a 3d engine) isn't ever going to get finished, I just get some satisfaction from getting what I have done building and running.
I don't know what I want to do when I grow up, although I suspect I'll go into some form of engineering, but I was interested in knowing if I do choose to go into a career as a developer, what kind of material I could look at to push myself up and get myself experience that might help my career later.
I'm not talking about books in particular, I'm more interested in subjects areas that will get me access to good job opportunities, or that will give me a hand-up if I do computer science and software related courses at uni.
One of the things I was thinking of doing was designing some of the logic gate components of a small computer - which I started briefly over the holidays, working out integer addition, subtraction and multiplication. That kind of stuff interests me, but is it really useful - or more useful then just more programming?
But anyway,
Any advice? Should I continue on my perpetual 3d engine? Are there any other projects or particular accomplishments that would help my education?
Perhaps I should mention that I live in Perth, Australia, so local software companies are likely to be more scarce then usual.
