Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post

It's more to do with the fact I personally think wanting to learn how to make games by means of learning a programming language is a sure shot way to produce a bad programmer.
This is in fact quite true, this was my original motivation when I decided to go to Barnes & Noble when I was 11 years old and picked out a C/C++ book, then I came home and registered on this forum. I didn't turn out well, being 20 years old and having the amount of years of programming under my belt I'm a complete moron. Can I program any game I like and finish it if I wanted? Yes, I can get any project done no matter what it is or what I want done. It's just the way I get it done--my style of programming has developed very slowly and I've always refused to do things other people's ways. I can match anybody when they write a program, but when it comes down to it, my programs are going to be very memory inefficient and more hard-coded compared to somebody who has been programming for two years and has read ten programming books and studied non-stop and consequently adapted efficient programming strategies. I have experience under my belt, but that's all I have. I've always wanted the end result worse than learning the means to get there, and as a result I'm a mediocre programmer(in my opinion).
If you want to program games, your programming language is going to be your damn best friend. You will want it badly. More than your girlfriend. If you learn to love to program, if you really want to learn how to program, if you really study your programming language and try to master every nut and bolt, inspect every dark corner, then yes; You are in your way to become a damn good games programmer.
You put it perfectly -- you have to learn to love programming. To me at first, I looked at it as a means to an end, a tool(which it is), but after a decade I learned that I have to enjoy and love programming in order to really get that end result I've always desired -- like how an old baby boomer in his retirement loves the tools in his garage he's gathered over the years and can efficiently work on any project he wants and finish it better than most people who are fresh out of school, simply because he's been doing it most his life.
Why do I know this when I'm not even a games programmer, never was or ever will be? Because games programming is no different from any other type of programming. Same rules. Don't trust me? That's cool. We'll talk in a few years.
Programming is programming, whether you're a kernel junkie, an OpenGL guru, or somebody who writes software mainly for networking purposes.