The python course london Awards: The Best, Worst, and Weirdest Things We've Seen

[Johnathan Racquel]

First of all, learn how to program. It is very essential to have a understanding of all the basic concepts regarding programming. If you don't know how to program, I would recommend starting with Python. It is a wonderful language that takes away the low level details for the programmer and allows him to focus on concepts. It is also a very fun language, I'm sure you'll love to program in it. I picked it up in just 3 days (although I had previous programming experience).

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Once you have picked up a language and know how to program, you need to decide which language you want to program the games in. That really depends on the kind of stuff that you want to do: engine development or game development. Engine developers create the core of the game, the engine, the stuff that powers up the actual game. If you choose this route, you will have to deal with all the low level details of programming. For this, you should pick up C or C++ since most of the engines are coded in these languages. You should also be very disciplined about memory allocation/deallocation and code optimization techniques.

The other path is to actually code the games, using a previously coded engine. In this path, you will use an engine created by someone else and use it to make your own game. Usually, engines have bindings in some scripting language (like python, lua or ruby) and thus you can code the actual game in a scripting language. You can focus on the game design rather than other low level details.

Obviously you can chose to do both things: code the engine as well as the actual game.

In the beginning, I think it's better for you to wait after you've made some games to decide which way you want to go. In your first few games, its better to code the entire game on your own. You will learn a lot along the way, and will also be able to decide which way you want to go.

To make games, you need certain extra libraries. If you know how to program, you must know what libraries mean. They are extra patches of code that you can link with your own code. To make games, you will need libraries for graphics, event handling, networking, etc. If you're using Python, Pygame is an excellent library for beginners that provides almost all this stuff. For C or C++, you have Allegro and SDL. A simple Google search will give you a list of game programming libraries for the language of your choice.

Start playing with the library your have chosen. Read its tutorials online. Learn how to make simple stuff like rectangles, circles, load images, etc. Try to make some animations. The fundamental concept behind building an animation is to draw the object, then draw another object of same dimensions on top of it of the background color and then draw the earlier object, with it coordinates displaced by the required amount. Of course, if you do this really quickly, you will be able to cause an illusion of movement.

After that, make a simple game like Pong or Tetris clone which uses just event handling and some basic physics (collision detection). Google for game loop structure, it will help you out in coding the game.

After you have coded it, move on to a slightly complex game, like a game with 2 tanks fighting it out. You don't have to get cute with graphics, just use whatever royalty free images you can lay your hands on. Try cloning more arcade games like breakout. To make these, you will have to use something called a Level editor, something that is used in almost every game.

After that, try your hand out at a game which uses some AI, like a pacman clone or a top-view soccer game. Both of them can be implemented using a FSM (Finite State Machine), a concept used for AI in 80% of commercial games. Then try your hand out at a side-scroller platform game like a Mario clone.

The games mentioned above, combined, include almost all the concepts used in 90% games. To make a game with a flashy 3d interface, all you need to do is use an engine which helps you to do so. It's just that in the beginning, programming in 2D allows you to focus on the more important concepts and also makes your code less complicated. Once you get comfortable, you can go for 3D games.

Full stack development is an extensive word that umbrellas various stages of software development such as 'project management, front-end as well as back-end technologies, database management system, and quality assurance.

Front-end technologies are the outer covers through which you interact with, while the back-end is a server-side technology that (user can't see in the browser) handles the user authentication, database interactions, logics, server authentication to name a few.

Digging deep, let's distill down and understand the front-end and back-end technologies on the layers of the type of programming languages/frameworks involved in it.

1. Technologies Encapsulating The Front-end

The most commonly used front-end technologies are:

- HTML/CSS

HTML is the foundation of any website development process. It's the building block that turns the text into images, tables, and links. The latest version of HTML is HTML5.

- JavaScript

A scripting language used to enhance the look and feel of HTML pages by infusing rich and interactive effects. It is commonly found embedded in HTML code.

- AngularJS

It is a JavaScript-based open-source structural framework built for dynamic web apps, beautiful web interfaces, and large scale/ high-performance applications.

- Node.JS

Node JS is an open-source, server-side platform wrapped around the JavaScript language for building scalable, event-driven applications.

- ReactJS

It is a fast and flexible javascript library maintained by Facebook and Instagram that enables us to efficiently build dynamic user experiences.

- VBScript

Visual Basic Script is a component-based scripting language developed by Microsoft. It enhances wen functionality with lightweight speed.

- JQuery

jQuery is a concise and fast JavaScript library that simplifies the HTML's client-side scripting and can be used to simplify event handling, HTML document traversing, Ajax interactions and animation for speedy website development.

- Bootstrap

Bootstrap contains HTML- and CSS-based design templates for typography, forms, buttons, navigation and other interface components, as well as optional JavaScript extensions.

Other than this there are other front-end technologies like Ember JS and Material UI as well.

2. Technologies behind Back-End

As discussed in the opening paragraph, back-end or server-side technologies are responsible for how the site works updates and changes. The most hard-hitting back-end programming languages are:

- PHP

Counted as the most popular language for web development, PHP's syntax is quite similar to C and Java. The classic and popular frameworks for PHP are Zend Framework and Symfony.

- PYTHON

Probably, a simpler syntax than PHP, Python is designed to have a legible code and is well tested. The most popular framework for Python is Django.

- Ruby

Designed to be a fun language, Ruby is often called as a programmer's best friend. Twitter was built using Ruby. The most popular framework python training london for Ruby is 'Ruby on Rails'.

- Scala

Designed to be concise, many of Scala's design decisions are aimed to address criticisms of Java. Scala is an object-oriented and runs on Java platform.

- Node.js (and JavaScript)

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform Java script runtime environment used for executing JavaScript code server side. It's best known to build real-time Web APIs.

3. Database Management System

MySQL is the most popular DBMS for websites. The other names in the database field are SQL Server, Oracle or DB2.

4. Quality Assurance

Full stack development also includes quality assurance and testing responsibilities. In this stage, engineers oversee the entire development process, from start to finish and check the security concerns, bugs throughout the program.

This was the breadth and depth of full stack development that comes with a full-time service of full stack developer or full stack Web Development Company. Right from the project analysis, UI UX design, and front and back-end development to Quality Assurance this promising line says it all.