New games programming course: what's the story?

rainbow kirby

Just saw this, wondering what the story was?

seanos

heh, old news.
It's 100% sponsored by Microsoft.
It's the second course in world to be sponsored by Microsoft.
Carlow's Networking courses, are to say the least .... bad - head of networking course has no regard for networking students, and programming students do about as much ... proper networking [i.e. non-maths algo's] as networking students.

Programming courses in Carlow [There's one degree one, and one diploma one ? - awaiting corrections from i_am_dogboy], are damn good.
Have some brillant programming lecturers, programming seems to be IT Carlow's Forte.
Carlow is very Java-orientated.
I'd say this course, will be very interesting, and bring a lot to the college - looking at this course irrespective of the rest of college/courses, it's great.
Course is good idea, sounds brillant, and we [Carlow] have the lecturers for it.

Everything in perspecting [rant continues ], I'd say this will put Carlow, if possible, more into MS's Pocket.
Carlow is 100% Dell/MS [we have 2 Macs I believe].
I somehow doubt Carlow will announce that they're going to get a few linux servers/clusters in now if M$ is paying for our spany new shiny course, on flip side, college prob get new stuff for all to play with.

Expect more coohierent/on-topic replies from i_am_dogboy.

In one line : Course sounds excellent, we have the lecturers to support it, and it'll bring more people & equipment, downside ... We move to third base with Microsoft.

rainbow kirby

It's the same in UCD with all the M$/Dell computers EVERYWHERE. They got rid of a lab of Macs to put in more Dell PCs at the start of last year. Just wondering, cos the course sounded interesting. It's just funny that in the press release, Xbox is mentioned last...

seanos

I found it quite amusing that they didn't mension M$s backing.
I presume a lot of places going for Dell [Cheap & cheerful ... well ominous black...sorry charcoal black, but still...cheap!].
I just re-read article you posted, Joe mensioned maths a few times - Maths is going to be damn hard on that course, let it be a warning.
On my course [Comp Networking Degree], Maths [I think are damn hard], however a C [I think] in Pass was enough, their looking for higher in this - not good sign.

Maths lecturer is genious, however doesn't always get his point accross.

There will be high drop-out rate on this course, like all others [most are 50-75% dropout - in computers - our year started at 20, reduced to 10 doing exams, and 4 passing], mainly due to maths/physics content of them.

I'd be interested talking to some doing the course next year alright.

elvis2002

I remember Ross Palmer was presenting something on this one day in the library.

Im sure there's only one straight four year degree in computing at carlow, the rest are get ur diploma, cert, degree.

I personally dont think carlowit has the lectures to teach this kind of course or if they do Im not aware of them. I think there must be new staff coming in for this because you can program java all day but thats a world apart from programming in game physics.

I think there will be a huge drop out rate in this course. Predicatably because it will be hard, and people just wont have what it takes. B in pass maths isn't too hard get I think.

They'll probally stick Joe Bennet or Diarmuid o Se into teaching a maths course in first year that will finish off most people, then there'll be some sort of physics subject that will kill off people who didn't do physics in school.

The IT will be happy with ms support, more machines etc. In carlow, lectures have heard of linux but never used it, but games in linux are few and far between. Im going into third year in Comp Networking and have never used a Linux installation in carlow (i've never actually set up a lan either). I wonder will this course be the same, people will be in third year saying "I've never evenprogramed a game, or any characters, all we do games in java like Rob the robot (*)"

I hope this course is good, but i dont think any course in carlow is. Computing lectures generally believe and have told us so before, ie keith smith, computer networking is the best course in carlow... We always have arguments about this but he is persistent.

I wonder will they but some new machines in 303 and 305 with great graphics cards......... oh the joy of playing games when a lecture is talking bullshtie....

Hehehe... My advice... Go to carlow, if you want to take it easy and not have any work to do and basically you can pass by just going to class and not staying in bed until 12 o clock.

elvis2002

I wonder how many points thier looking for, i think comp net is around 150 now... in all honesty how could someone who got 150 points in leaving cert do the kind of maths and communications theory we have to do... If this course is around 200 points, i'd be suprised if more than 5 pass first year.

Redrocket

Joe says it himself, a lot of maths, and lot of physics.
I was talking to a lecturer about it and he said it would be very difficult, but i dont have a lot of faith in that man. C or C++ is what you will be programming in and he said that you would definately want some prrogramming experience. Again, i dont have much faith in this guy.
I dont know how much microsoft are involved, they could only be endorsing or approving the course and donating some hardware and xbox developer kits.
Seems like a very interesting course, and i hope that it attracts good students and good gamers ( for compsoc like, we can be the test subjects, beta testers )

seanos

Firstly, why would you need good graphics cards ? ... No one will be using OpenGL + 3D rendering for a while...
Carlow has some excellent lecturers, Paul Barry - wrote O'Reilly book on Perl+Networking
David Kelly, I'm just finished first year of networking, and I know of two, so I'd say theres some more I don't know of - as has been said, a lot of maths/physics will be involved, so 2 programming lecturers would be more than enough [Unsure if I'd regard us as ever had any Networking Lecture[rs]']
This course will attract lots of gamers etc, who will then drop out accordingly heh

Stephen

We've had Keith Smyth for telecoms this year and had him last year for communications (or something to that effect), he's an excellent lecturer, but you'll feel the pain if you're a lazy git who doesn't go to his classes.

Redrocket

carlow has it's fair share of good and bad lecturers. all in all it evens it'self out.

i dont think the maths/physics would be impossible, just hard. and i dont think think they would be the students to get keith as a lecturer as he mostly deals with telecommunications and electronics.

hopefully this course attracts people like dogboy, the model student haha

elvis2002

ya There's no way Keith would be teaching this. I dont think Paul Barry would be either as he offloaded us last year because he doesn't want a busy schedule, ie 20 hours a week is too much for him... i never really liked him except for his 30 minute classes. His notes are rubbish, his book is a copy of "Learning Perl". David Kelly is a funny lecturer, i never had a problem with him, never really liked hardware because it's kind of the oxymoronic subject. You think your going to be working with computer hardware but instead its all binary and logic gates.

They'll probably throw Noel o Hara in there since he has noting else to do but scratch his arse..

I think for every good lecture in carlow there's 10 bad ones. There's too many stories of people going on about bad lectures in every course. How many people in 5 years have walked into computer networking in the first week, sat in a class of that retard that is Phil Hickey and never went to a class again. Im sure in my year at least 10 people were gone in 2 weeks mainly due to course subjects and bad lectures.

I just cant imagine either that any of the spa's at the college have played a game since pacman. It's very enticing though, just because it has the word game in the course title. :-)..... i'd say first year will be all physics, maths, programming, this gives the lectures a year to prepare a course for the second year.

Stephen

yeah I was just using keith as an example of a good lecturer.

Kain

Hell i'd do it if i wasn't already doining a course.... and if i knew more about computers... and if i was good for maths... and if i had a better leaving cert. What was i saying again?
Anyway, it would be an interesting course to do but the maths i'd say are absalutly **** hard.

rainbow kirby

I'd probably think about doing it, but I'm already 2 years into a maths degree... and the thought of paying fees for 2 years and living outside of Dublin is just painful.

i_am_dogboy

Last I was talking to joe(back in june)he said that the course would be starting in september and you could do a late application through the CAO for it. And from what I've heard from a few lecturers is that it will have some pretty intense programming right from the start and that the games design isn't as big a part of the course, which is a contrast to the programming, they put more emphasis on design for us. As far as lecturers go I would say you'll have joe kehoe, martin grogan and greg doyle teaching at some point, all of which I can say are pretty good at what they do. Also I would say that you wont have assembly or architecture courses.....and you wont have the all important business module.

Sean this is no place for your anti MS, it's a good thing that they are putting resources into the course...although I would prefer if it was a nintendo sponsored gaming course. Should be fun if it's done right, though I think it may be wise to know what you're in for before doing it, the drop out rate will probably be huge like in my course.

Kirby if haven't much knowledge of games programming or design http://gamedev.net is a good place to get some research done.......just warning you, I did have a friend drop out of programming after 3 days because he didn't know what he was in for.

seanos

Was making point in general, or trying to ... that Any company which puts so much into college, college is then oblidged to be 'nice' or 'good' to them.

I think if college was all RedHat, I would disagree just as strongly, I think a college is a place for experimentation & playing ... for instance, wouldn't you like to see a room of Mac's

i_am_dogboy

There is a room of mac's......they just don't get turned on or used.....ever, which is a shame because I really want to do assmebly on another platform

The college will be nice by producing developers, the best of which I'm sure will be offered internships by MS, maybe a bit of advertising, but to be honest it probably wont affect anyone outside the course so stop complining.

elvis2002

yah that seems like carlow dogboy.. create a course for game design and then just turn it into a proggy course, they'll probably have them doing assembly and cobol (the best). haha.

Sean0S - Its fairly sad that we have 2 macs. One sat permanetly plugged out on a table last year and the other has no software on it. I think when lectures see a mac they go running away. I'd love to have a chance to have a class a week dedicated to using a mac.... oh like thats ever going to happen... Keith smith said third year was going to change for us but I highly doubt it cuz they dont like change.... maybe I will put my accountancy skills that I will learn in a third year Networking to good use in the future....... :-(

i_am_dogboy

I don't think it will be inappropriate languages or anything, if anything I would say it will be pure visual c++ or code warrior(code warrior better though I don't think the college would be willing to fork out what they woud have to pay for such a toolset). I'd say it will be a whole lot of data structures and games related algorithms, then in later years AI and animation and whatnot, which is covered in my course anyway. I would be interested to see what they would have in sound programming and story development though.

I don't see why you networking people have to do accountancy at all......at least as programmers we'll more than likely be working on accountancy software at some point, and loads of companies prefer graduates with a business module, but does it tie in with networking in some way that we haven't been told?

lulu

Have to say, im nearly finished a degree in computing and am just finished work placement and i remember having this argument with a few lecturers about the need to do accountancy and HRM (seeing as we are being primarly trained in sys admin) but it has come in handy in the work placement. At least i can read the reports and understand the lingo.

That saying it was still useless to the degree of the amount of time they made us spend on it, they would have been better spending time in the labs letting us do more practicals on what we really needed to know well such as linux.

TomTom

I asked that same question and was given the dumbest answer. 'College is about preparing you for life not just you chosen career' ehhhhhh, no wrong answer. School prepares you for that.

Redrocket

that gives me the impression that i could choose any college course if all it does is prepare me for life
its gonna be c or c++ in this course for definate.
its also going to be about design, like there may be an art class or something

elvis2002

wow, an art class. The would seem logical, i guess in any game they do storyboards and stuff like that. I would fail that as I can't draw nothing. useless at it.

Redrocket

does that mean you can draw everything??
haha yeah i think Noel mentioned something about they dont just wanna make the students into pure game developer programmer physics types, they want the students to be more involved with as many aspects of game production as possible

Stephen

3d modelling/texturing etc would be interesting. Programming physics engines, however, would make me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.

Spacedog

By my understanding, Pete Lowe is doing a lot of the groundwork for this course and man, that guy is one hardcore gaming nut! For that alone I'd say the course will definatly rock. I think they should involve aspects of the gamemaking process such as artwork, sound engineering, design etc. many of which are available within other courses established in the college. Any gamer knows that the most important thing is GAMEPLAY. This course should encourage enthusisam and originality in designing and making fun games if it is to be a real success. Maths and Phisics is a load of balls. It seems that every IT Carlow course has to have at least 2 non-relivant subjects per year inserted to ensure crapness. would be a shame if this course became another example of this unofficial policy.

the_syco

course info wrote:

At the end of the third year of the course, students will go on a six-month work placement with a games company.

Yeah... sure. Just like ITS1 and 2... it was b!tch hard trying to get work experience for most of the class, so trying to get experience in a games company would be pretty hard

elvis2002 wrote:

have never used a Linux installation in carlow (i've never actually set up a lan either).

I've used linux as part of year2 of my course; the whole class had their own linux machine as weel as their own windows machine. And those machine's were sweet. Was able to play the Doom3 demo on it (not the recent demo, the old one).

SeanOS wrote:

Firstly, why would you need good graphics cards ? ... No one will be using OpenGL + 3D rendering for a while...

Any excuse to upgrade compoc's machine's :cool: