Quote Originally Posted by Bubba View Post
It will do you no good to read a book like the 'Guru' series that insists on creating software solutions to problems that can easily be solved using the hardware alternative.
Just to clarify, I didn't and don't recommend any of the Guru series books either; I only mentioned the book because it's what I got off to my false start with.

However, two of the five books (K&R and TCPPPL) I recommended are more or less the authoritative texts on programming languages used widely in game programming, which goes to establishing a strong foundation. Write Great Code and Computer Organization and Design would also go towards establishing a strong programming foundation by developing a general understanding of computer hardware and software. While they don't relate to game programming directly, I still believe such an understanding could help a novice programmer a great deal.

I will concede that time spent reading Petzold might, realistically, be better spent elsewhere if game programming is one's objective. It couldn't hurt, though, to be able to decipher all that API "boilerplate" you're copying and pasting from your game programming book. Recommended toilet reading for a game programmer, perhaps?