I started programming C as a pre-teen about 15 years ago, because I wanted to make games. I spent a lot of time (badly) re-writing routines for stuff that already existed (sorting, double buffering, file management, resource packing, etc).
I never really got to the actual gameplay mechanisms as I'd always get stuck at points like double buffering so my graphics wouldn't flicker, or reading interrupts from the game port so the joystick would work properly, or how to read a bitmap image saved out from Deluxe Paint.
Now, chances are I'd be much closer to getting an actual game up and running as there's plenty of libraries out there to handle all that stuff. I am glad I learned it and know it, but it doesn't create end results and means a lot of duplication of effort.
The modern approach where programming is more like plumbing - efficiently connecting existing libraries (and now, services) - allows creation of quite fantastic ideas in very little time. I can create things in a day that would literally have taken years in that low-level age.
This is a good thing and just as fun, albeit in a different way.
I never really got to the actual gameplay mechanisms as I'd always get stuck at points like double buffering so my graphics wouldn't flicker, or reading interrupts from the game port so the joystick would work properly, or how to read a bitmap image saved out from Deluxe Paint.
Now, chances are I'd be much closer to getting an actual game up and running as there's plenty of libraries out there to handle all that stuff. I am glad I learned it and know it, but it doesn't create end results and means a lot of duplication of effort.
The modern approach where programming is more like plumbing - efficiently connecting existing libraries (and now, services) - allows creation of quite fantastic ideas in very little time. I can create things in a day that would literally have taken years in that low-level age.
This is a good thing and just as fun, albeit in a different way.