Hobbyist or Professional?

[Falco Girgis]

My engineering teachers preach the importance of having a life on the side. My instructor spent over an hour the last class talking about fine wines. He also said that if we were to buy him some suuuper ass expensive multi hundred dollar bottle of champagne, everybody would be given an A in the class.

[dandymcgee]

My engineering teachers preach the importance of having a life on the side. My instructor spent over an hour the last class talking about fine wines. He also said that if we were to buy him some suuuper ass expensive multi hundred dollar bottle of champagne, everybody would be given an A in the class.

Do I sense a Tip Jar creeping up?

[avansc]

i dont know if i would call the creator of gish an indy developer.
i would consider him a "professional".

and actually you have to be very carful with the word professional, because strictly speacing scomputer scientist are not professionals.

to be considered a professional there are some things your "profession" need to adhear by.

1. you have to get a degree from a certified institution. ie univirsity.
2. you have to be certified by some sort of board (computer science does not have a body like this)
3. your skill has to be of importance and great need. (some say computer science falls here but some say no.)

a doctor is a prime example of what a professional is. they go to univirsity, they have to be board certified, and their skill is greatly needed.

They (teachers) really hammer this into our head in CS classes at my Uni for some reason.

thats probably because you go to a decent university.

[trufun202]

I'm a software engineer. I build internal applications for an advertising agency - and before that, I did the same for the mortgage industry. However, video game development has always been my passion. It's the very reason I got into programming in the first place.

But, I got my first programming job while still in college and never had the guts to make the leap into the gaming industry.

So I guess I'm a hobbyist and a professional.

[Falco Girgis]

I'm a software engineer. I build internal applications for an advertising agency - and before that, I did the same for the mortgage industry. However, video game development has always been my passion. It's the very reason I got into programming in the first place.

But, I got my first programming job while still in college and never had the guts to make the leap into the gaming industry.

So I guess I'm a hobbyist and a professional.

Probably what I will end up being at this point.

[trufun202]

I'm a software engineer. I build internal applications for an advertising agency - and before that, I did the same for the mortgage industry. However, video game development has always been my passion. It's the very reason I got into programming in the first place.

But, I got my first programming job while still in college and never had the guts to make the leap into the gaming industry.

So I guess I'm a hobbyist and a professional.

Probably what I will end up being at this point.

My only advice is to make sure that's what you want - before the bills start coming in.

Car and mortgage payments are currently hindering my gaming dreams. :P

[ansatsusha_gouki]

I guess you can say im a professional , been going to school for programming for 2 years im about to graduate in March of 09. I really dont know wat i wanna do after I graduate though, may chill for 6 months and go get my Bachelors thinking about getting my degree in "Computer Science" but I may also get a degree in "Graphic Design" since I cant let my artistic side decline......lol

[ultimatedragoon69]

I kinda think of my self more of a hobbyist then anything else. I start programming because i thought it would be interesting at the time. I got to be a decent programmer so i decided to be a computer science major in college. That and everyone i know keeps telling me that i should continue to do this not because i like it or anything, but because they believe that's the only thing I'm good at. That's my background in a nutshell.

[cronjob00]

I am a hobbyist although I would love to work in the industry.

[Slacker]

Since I'm only in QA, the best I'll be able to do for now is just tools, with only having community college training. I'm hoping though that with enough time, practice, and connections I can roll over into a dev house in the future. From what I've seen so far is that having the right connections will get you far.
EDIT: Guess I didn't really answer the question... I'd like to end up being a professional game programmer, but the probability is pretty slim. But even so, I'm happy being a hobbyist, I just plain enjoy making games!

[RyanPridgeon]

There's kind of a divide in our computing class though (I'm saying this at the risk of someone in my class seeing this, if they happen to stumble on this forum), one side, are the maths/physics people, they sort of think they know it all, they play games constantly, and talk about them, at the top of their voice, all lesson!, they annoy the hell out of me.
Then there's my side, we're quieter, but we still have a laugh, we're not always talking about games, and we generally get on with the work, we usually also get the praise from our teacher, as we usually solve the problems they've set us first, it's good

I think the overall culture is a little different in the UK, we do our maths/science/English up until we're 16, then we get left to our own devices, and choose what we want to do (we choose based on our uni entry requirements I guess)

I think I know what you mean, but here it's different. There's 8 people in my computing class (I'm at AS - just started :P), and I know 2 other reasonably skilled programmers. Neither of them take computing.

In my class I'm the only one who can actually program, and there's only one other person in our class who can pass the tests :/ But still, he got E and I got C in our little mock exam. I also find that the people who don't know what they're doing, and don't take maths, are the ones who try to talk about WoW etc before we shut 'em up xD

I'm the only one in the class who takes both Maths and Further Maths, and it's helped me in all aspects of everything academic - including my hobbyist programming here.

I also take Physics and Art, which you don't really need any other knowledge to take. But drawing has always been probably my strongest skill until I learnt to program a few years ago, so Art means alot to me.

I definately want to go on to be a game developer professional, but I have no idea whether I want it to be in programming, or in the art side of it.

But as you can see, I'm keeping my options open and we'll see how it goes

[programmerinprogress]

it's good to keep your options open to an extent, but I think you have to kind of be passionate about a specific field if you truly want to do well in any industry really.

It's always good to be the jack of all trades, but if you want to manage your time effectively, I personally think you have to find something you really want to do and focus on it.

As for Computing, at AS, we had loads of people, our class was over-subscribed, but a lot of people just couldn't cut it, and most eventualy left (or left due to failing their AS pretty badly)

I'm certainly not the only person who can program, people in my class could do HTML and stuff, so i'm not going to put them down for that. There was also a tonne of stuff that I didn't have a clue about when I started the course, but I think I had a slight advantage over other people because I put in the extra effort of learning to program before I started college, and put in the reading time, as opposed to taking math-based subjects (what good is competency in maths if you're unable to implement it because you don't understand basic control structures or programming principles?)

PS: good luck with your AS exams, i'm assuming you don't get a january exams at AS (I didn't, but I do at A2)

[RyanPridgeon]

PS: good luck with your AS exams, i'm assuming you don't get a january exams at AS (I didn't, but I do at A2)

You'd be wrong there

I have a tonne of exams next month.

And what you said about learning maths if you can't implement it - I agree. I guess what you have to try and find is the perfect balance so that you can benefit fully :P

I hope :D

[avansc]

id rather be a great mathematician than a great programmer.

[teamtwentythree]

Currently I'm working in the test field, I run some tests and do some coding on the side. I'm pretty happy with it, thankfully the stuff I work on isn't shipped externally so I don't have to jump through all the hoops, but I can still solve problems and get stuff done.

I don't ever see myself going full time dev at any studio, too many annoyances getting in the way of producing good games. If I could support myself via my own projects then that would be an option for me, although atm I don't see myself dropping my day job.