Thread: How should I proceed?

  1. #1
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Posts
    8

    How should I proceed?

    I want to create a site like wowhead.com. They have a client that collects information from World of Warcraft and uploads it to their site. Their site is basically a World of Warcraft database. What language should I learn for this?

    I would like to state that I'm fairly intelligent. That being said, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around programming. It's not like math that can be taught from the ground up. 1 apple and 1 apple equal 2 apples. I get that. Programming is something else.

    #include <iostream>
    using namespace std;

    Why am I typing #inclu...
    You just do.
    Why am I typing using namespa...
    You just do.
    Okay...

    Did any of you have trouble wrapping your head around programming? What am I not getting? How did you get past the fact that there are all of these things put in to place before you arrived and you just have to use them without even understanding how they work just that they do?
    Last edited by gmichael2000; 05-04-2009 at 11:36 PM.

  2. #2
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    United States
    Posts
    9,613
    >> I want to create a site like wowhead.com.
    Okay

    >> Did any of you have trouble wrapping your head around programming?
    Yes, but it's all about how you handle it. Some of the best advice is to just start learning and not worry about what you don't know. If you do worry too much then it just becomes this huge, frustrating obstacle.

    >> What am I not getting?
    Apparently include directives and the using namespace directive.

    >> How did you get past the fact that ...you just have to use them without even
    >> understanding how they works just that they do?
    Well you're learning the language. That is very different from how an employed programmer uses the language, so don't put everyone in your shoes, ok? The best thing you can do is try to learn about the things that confuse you. Think about it like when you first learned math; it didn't always make sense; with practice it became useful in daily life. Maybe you learned some things on your own, too, and that's probably a good skill to develop... programmers are good researchers.

  3. #3
    Registered User
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Posts
    147
    If you do worry too much then it just becomes this huge, frustrating obstacle.
    This is a very key point. It's key to learning, it's also key to programmers in the long run, too.

    If someone frets and fusses over every compiler complaint or imperfection, then even a well educated programmer will find the practice excruciating.


    For a student it's even worse. Frustration is like noise in the mind. It distracts from learning.

    The state of mind you can expect just before you understand something is confusion. It is something to become accustomed to, as if it is the signal that the mind has finally come to sense what is not known about the subject. That's actually good news, because prior to that point, the mind is simply unaware. The sense of that unknown subject teases the mind's basic function into action; it is a problem solving, solution finding system. It must simply be allowed the time to work its magic.

    There is, unfortunately, a certain critical mass of knowledge that begins to make the whole thing understandable. If all of these things were explained first, you'd loose patience for the other half of "why" this is done.

    It helps to establish a habit of accepting such things as unknowns in an algebraic statement. It is not necessary to understand what Z is at the moment, merely that Z is there, and at some point it will be described.

    This is one of the reasons many schools teach Java or C# before something like C++. There are hardly any languages filled with so many of the issues you described as C++, though Java and C# both have includes (well, import - same idea).

    I started learning this stuff when I was very young, when a home computer was a rare thing and 32 KBytes was a lot of RAM. It was both confusing and fascinating.

    It still is, over 30 years later.

  4. #4
    Weak. dra's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    166
    I took a quick look at the wowhead.com's client and it seems that the real work is done by the ingame addon, which collects information as you play, and a separate client does the uploading. If the ingame addon is what you're wanting to emulate, then then you need to learn Lua, a very small language that all addons are written in.

  5. #5
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Posts
    8
    First, I would like to thank everybody for taking the time to respond.
    dra, thanks for going the extra mile and looking at the client. So, I need to learn Lua for the addon. What language would you recommend for the uploader? And is there any reason why the uploading process couldn't be done automatically without human interaction or is that for me to find out? Thanks.

  6. #6
    Registered User
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Posts
    16
    Quote Originally Posted by gmichael2000 View Post
    First, I would like to thank everybody for taking the time to respond.
    dra, thanks for going the extra mile and looking at the client. So, I need to learn Lua for the addon. What language would you recommend for the uploader? And is there any reason why the uploading process couldn't be done automatically without human interaction or is that for me to find out? Thanks.
    the addon itself is done in XML and LUA, the uploader can be made in any language just about.

    the site itself can be done in javascript.

    i suppose you could do the upload process automatically but that would require a lot of downloading power from your server.


    lets say you have 1000 users, if you have an automatic upload at 1pm you have 1000 connections to the server simultaneous trying to upload the information making it very slow, and requiring a very high end internet connection on the server side.


    while if you have it done manual those 1000 people will not upload simultanously, saving you some $$ on the server connection side and not bogging down your resources.


    thats all theory however, if anyone wants to disagree with me go ahead >.>
    Last edited by vampirekid.13; 05-06-2009 at 10:42 AM.

  7. #7
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Posts
    8
    Ah, so much to learn. I envy all of you.

  8. #8
    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Portland, OR
    Posts
    7,396
    Quote Originally Posted by gmichael2000 View Post
    Ah, so much to learn. I envy all of you.
    Actually, I envy you. It's the learning which is the best part I think. As you gain experience it gets harder to find stuff you don't know yet.
    Code:
    //try
    //{
    	if (a) do { f( b); } while(1);
    	else   do { f(!b); } while(1);
    //}

  9. #9
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Posts
    890
    Quote Originally Posted by brewbuck View Post
    Actually, I envy you. It's the learning which is the best part I think. As you gain experience it gets harder to find stuff you don't know yet.
    Have you seen job listings recently? :-) I don't know anyone who knows everything they're asking for...

    To the OP: If you're trying to create a website, I would not suggesting using C++. Google for "Python/Django" and/or "Ruby on Rails" or "PHP" or any other web language/framework.
    Last edited by medievalelks; 05-06-2009 at 08:01 PM.

  10. #10
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Posts
    8
    Yeah, after researching the different types of languages, I realized C++ was way more than I needed. On an interesting note, I've been a member of this site since 2002. lol- not really, but I guess whoever had this email address before me was.

  11. #11
    Registered User
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Posts
    16
    Quote Originally Posted by gmichael2000 View Post
    Yeah, after researching the different types of languages, I realized C++ was way more than I needed. On an interesting note, I've been a member of this site since 2002. lol- not really, but I guess whoever had this email address before me was.
    the guy that sold you the wow acct forgot to empty the email before he handed it over to you?

  12. #12
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Posts
    8
    Ahhh, WoW...Brings back memories...
    I had the most badass level 19 hunter. So much fun.

    Actually, this email address was suggested to me by hotmail. I recently told my brother what I wanted to do and he referred me to this site. When I tried making an account to post, it said I already had one. So, I just had it reset the password. And now, I'm an older member than all of you! But, know far less =*(

Popular pages Recent additions subscribe to a feed

Similar Threads

  1. Odd problem in main(), code won't proceed
    By aciarlillo in forum C++ Programming
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 06-05-2005, 11:00 PM