All gamers are nerds? or know alot about computers?

[Reaperman Wompa]

Well I'm the best gamer out of all my friends

...*ahem*...

I know absolutely nothing about computers but consider myself a gamer to the core. Just because I like something doesn't mean I have to know everything about it and shouldn't be expected to.
I just wanna kill aliens dammit.

 

[stompy]

I still hold that if you're ever gonna get into programming, Pascal is the very best starting point. I myself started with BASIC (the old one, where you had to start each line with a number to denote order) then moved on to C++. I had little experience with VB, for a project, but my groupmate decided that he'll do the coding.

When we had to create a mini-compiler for Pascal, I researched (for Syntax and usage) in the web. Turns out it would enforce good programming practices that will stick to you. Here's the tutorial I used. [http://www.taoyue.com/tutorials/pascal/] It's great because it assumes that the reader has no prior programming experience.

Really? My first instance of programming would be some kind of BASIC. In school, they started us off with some lame flowchart thingy called Crocodile ICT. From there, some HTML (if you count that), and we've just finished an assignment in Visual Basic. Next term, it's going to be PAscal, with seems interesting enough.

Oh, and, like someone else said, VB is boring as hell.

 

[perfectimo]

Oh, and, like someone else said, VB is boring as hell.

This guy, right here. Grab a ticket and line up for some more wisdom about VB.

EDIT: Stuffed up quote.

 

[Panayjon]

Back in the "day" if you even touched a computer for something other than word processing you could with some accuracy be labeled a nerd.

Nowadays though everything is so damned plug n play friendly that instruction manuals are more like pamphlets. Hell, you kids get instruction manuals. Back in MY day we didn't get no fancy schmancy manuals! You had to figure it out yourself with a soldering gun and 10 floppies. And I'm not talking about those 3.5 ones neither.

Even now, if your computer starts ah actin' up. You just google it an' ya git a whole mess of tech support links. You'd haffa be a damned lazy moron to not be able to resolve minor issues. Anyways, where was I going with this...

 

[Gitsnik]

I still hold that if you're ever gonna get into programming, Pascal is the very best starting point. I myself started with BASIC (the old one, where you had to start each line with a number to denote order) then moved on to C++. I had little experience with VB, for a project, but my groupmate decided that he'll do the coding.

*cries*

1. That's the only BASIC there is.
2. Don't give anyone that advice again.
3. Don't give anyone that advice again.

Pascal is an outdated programming language with little to no use in the industry today. If you need to maintain a legacy application written in this, then fine, but you're not going to be hired to do so if you're only just starting to program, but please don't suggest people should learn it.

Wait.

Suggest people can learn it AFTER you've learned, grasped, and understood lisp.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I still hold that if you're ever gonna get into programming, Pascal is the very best starting point. I myself started with BASIC (the old one, where you had to start each line with a number to denote order) then moved on to C++. I had little experience with VB, for a project, but my groupmate decided that he'll do the coding.

*cries*

1. That's the only BASIC there is.
2. Don't give anyone that advice again.
3. Don't give anyone that advice again.

Pascal is an outdated programming language with little to no use in the industry today. If you need to maintain a legacy application written in this, then fine, but you're not going to be hired to do so if you're only just starting to program, but please don't suggest people should learn it.

Wait.

Suggest people can learn it AFTER you've learned, grasped, and understood lisp.

Dude, I've had to deal with places that run Win 95, FORTRAN and CLI interfaces. Pascal and Modula-2 are quite good for getting the basics before you upgrade to OOP.

Pascal has these nice little catchers for errors and if you miss a semi-colon off it doesn't delete your hard-drive like fecking C.

 

[Gitsnik]

Dude, I've had to deal with places that run Win 95, FORTRAN and CLI interfaces. Pascal and Modula-2 are quite good for getting the basics before you upgrade to OOP.

So is ASM but I don't recommend people learn it (Edit: So early in their training). And thanks, I'd blacked FORTRAN out of my mind

Pascal *is* good for that, don't worry I'm not disputing it, but (dare I say it) if you insist on learning that sort of thing, go with Python.

Now I feel all greasy and unclean for recommending that

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Dude, I've had to deal with places that run Win 95, FORTRAN and CLI interfaces. Pascal and Modula-2 are quite good for getting the basics before you upgrade to OOP.

I repeat my previous statement:

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html

Heh, my gf quotes me that at times. I still say you've got to know how to structure before you introduce the true art of spaghetti programming. And starting programmers with FORTRAN would be far too evil, even for me.

"If builders built buildings the way the programmers write programs, the first woodpecker would destroy civilisation."

 

[Vortigar]

The early generation of gamers are nerds and geeks by default. You weren't interested in computers during the 80's if you weren't one. End of story. Later on the ranks of gamers grew and started to include the less-technically inclined because computers started to become a main-stream commodity. Adoption of new technology will always follow arcs like this.

Gitsnik:
Can you really engage in a conversation like this and say you're not a geek with a straight face? This kind if talk is the very definition of the word for most people.

Rak, Root, Git:
Fortran? Noooooooo, I'm melltttiiiiiiiiiiinnnggggggggggrgrgrgrhrhajugrhgrugh hyuck.

I got started off on Delphi, pretty easy to read if you've got no prior programming experience. With all its IF THEN BEGIN END ELSE FOR WHILE LOOP tags making it pretty obvious what is what. I think that's still one of the main arguments why you should start with one language or another.

 

[Carter06]

wait did u say other then WOW that odd i get the opposite resonse for playing wow although i will play most other games but everyone that knows me knows i'm not a geek because geeks are considered to be smart and i'm an average student at best.

 

[perfectimo]

wait did u say other then WOW that odd i get the opposite resonse for playing wow although i will play most other games but everyone that knows me knows i'm not a geek because geeks are considered to be smart and i'm an average student at best.

Yeah, people who play WoW aren't too bright. Just kidding, it's just mainly people who talk about games and computers outside a classroom/gaming environment that are usually classed as nerds by the general public.

 

[Gitsnik]

Gitsnik:
Can you really engage in a conversation like this and say you're not a geek with a straight face? This kind if talk is the very definition of the word for most people.

Touche.

Yep, but only because I'm a geek 8 hours of the day, when I finish work most days it gets turned off for pub crawls and late nights.

 

[searanox]

In my experience, most people who play games are fucking morons. At least in media-saturated urban areas, video games are the new cool, but only if you play certain ones and only in certain company (i.e. Rock Band while drunk off your ass). The fact of the matter is, people throw around words like "hardcore" and stuff, yet the vast majority of people buying these triple-A hardcore games like Guitar Hero, Halo and Call of Duty aren't really hardcore gamers at all. When I start talking about S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Crysis, Mass Effect, even Half-Life, 99% of the "gamers" have no clue what the hell I'm talking about.

 

[Altorin]

The limit of my computer knowledge is actually quite fitting considering I'm a gamer.

I know how to blow everything up and start all over again.

everything else I have no idea.

 

[Dommyboy]

I got called a Nerd by a fat guy who has 4 level 70's on World of Warcraft. Quite a shock really, though I really don't care if people think I am a nerd at all.

This reminds me of the episode of Pure Ownage when the bandanna fella (Jeremy, I think his name is) meets the girl of his dreams and he asks what type of games she plays. She says
Girl: "Oh I play World of Warcraft."
Jeremy: "What is that? The new Warcraft RTS?"
Girl: "No its a MMO."
Jeremy: "Oh, okay. Pfft.. Sounds.. Fun."

Than the girl across the table goes "Oh I like Minesweeper, that's a lot of fun." And so forth the episode continues with Jeremy realizing that a MMO does not require skill which I somehow find relevant to this topic. *Pull a relevant point out of arse* Being Nerdy is not bad at all but they are defiantly not what people make them up to be. I know quite a few *nerds* and they don't know really anything about computers except that the more expensive computer is generally better. Except if you get a Dell.

 

[KittywifaMohawk]

I'm a gamer, and I will talk about games a lot with my friends at school. Most of my friends are gamers, I wouldn't say I'm the best, I would say I'm an average gamer at that. And I've always been called a "nerd" or a geek" because I play games. I use to care about it, but now I just don't give to shits.

And yea I also get asked to help with computers a lot, I'm not much help because I don't know much, but I am taking computer classes in high school right now. But as of it now, I'm not much help at all.

And it's always nice to meet a new gamer.
But most of the new gamers I meet just say they like Final Fantasy.
That kind of annoys me, I can't carry on conversations with them because that's all they play. And I, personally, can't stand the FF series, some games were decent, but it's been going on to long. Just end it.
But other then that, meeting new gamers is nice, one of the main reasons I joined The Escapist.

 

[Syntax Error]

I said it's a good starting point (because it's relatively simple). Just to get a whole feel for the whole programming thing. I did not say that you'll have actually have to use it in the industry.

 

[tobyornottoby]

Yeah, I tend to get put into the "He plays games, he must know heaps about computers," catagory alot. I know jack about computers. Hardware goes inside the PC, software is discs and stuff. And that's still techno babble to me.

Person who plays some games: "Oh cool! What do you play? The Sims? Final Fantasy?" (gender profiling)(I really hate FF)

Thank god someone said it.

I was talking to this girl and found out she liked games:
"Cool, so what type of games do you like?"
"Oh I like Final Fantasy..."
"Oh. Ok then."

Sort of the opposite of what you said, but this time I had your reaction. I thought I was reaching out to someone only to get stabbed.

Yes girls are such strange creatures. You better not get near or else you'll get stabbed again...

I know very few gamegirls than do NOT like FF ^^

OT: would it be accurate to say that PC gamers have a higher change to know about computers and console gamers to be computer nitwits too?

that was a good point. some gamers just arent smart enough to be a nerd. All they really know is how to win in a certain game or two, and know nothing else about technology.

rite, here's one for ya'll: What's the difference between a Nerd and a Geek?