Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: iamzack on January 18, 2011, 06:33:25 pm
-
my little brother is emotionally stunted and prone to bouts of delinquency, racism, sexism, and general trollishness
he likes programming, though, and has displayed interest in game dev stuff
i require a patient, not-easily-trolled, programming-type to assist in pointing him in the right direction so that he will focus his energies on something productive instead of on making our mother cry
oh yeah and please don't be a sexual predator or crazy murderer or something because this kid is intensely gullible and will fall for almost anything
that is all
-
my little brother is emotionally stunted and prone to bouts of delinquency, racism, sexism, and general trollishness
He plays Halo multiplayer?
-
no
-
Your description fooled me, then.
-
When you say you want him pointed in the right direction, are you talking about real-life mentoring? Maybe a psychologist would be better? I don't know. What I do know is, SpardaSon has just leveled up due to his awesome post above! Spend your points well.
You know, if it's getting to be an actual problem for the rest of your family, getting him to invest time into some specific thing like coding or whatever is probably not gonna change him. Work doesn't automatically make Jack a dull boy, though it keeps him occupied.
-
Many times, a problem with one member of the family has more to do with the family interaction as a whole. Could that be part of it?
I was the black sheep of the family, and I made my mother cry many times. The odd part was, it was because of her problems, and general problems with the family; not just because an inherent problem with me.
-
our family is intensely dysfunctional. my brother is pretty much just like i was at his age, but he is not as bright as me and so gets caught frequently. he does computer science in school and enjoys it and actually does his assignments and stuff for those classes.
but when i was his age, i got interested in chemistry and happened to have lots of dorky friends so my interest was nurtured and stuff.
all his friends are delinquents and morons, so.
-
our family is intensely dysfunctional. my brother is pretty much just like i was at his age, but he is not as bright as me and so gets caught frequently. he does computer science in school and enjoys it and actually does his assignments and stuff for those classes.
but when i was his age, i got interested in chemistry and happened to have lots of dorky friends so my interest was nurtured and stuff.
all his friends are delinquents and morons, so.
God forbid he get involved in warez scene.
-
hence my attempts to find a way to nudge him toward using his interest for good instead of for what will definitely put him in prison
-
What programming level is he at?
-
dunno
-
Well, if his CompSci experience is limited to something like HTML, then Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) would be a good place to start getting used to proper coding syntax.
Otherwise, there are a few game engines (Unity, Unreal, Etc.) out there that are free.
-
Well, if his CompSci experience is limited to something like HTML, then Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) would be a good place to start getting used to proper coding syntax.
Otherwise, there are a few game engines (Unity, Unreal, Etc.) out there that are free.
nonononononono
Scratch is really stupid. I had to use it in my first programming class and it was a pain in the ass. Stuff like Scratch and Phrogram assume that all people that want to learn how to program just want to make games, and that they're too impatient to actually bother learning anything about programming. If he actually really is set on making games and he doesn't have much experience, just get him to learn VB or something. To be fair, he probably does have better experience because zack mentioned comp sci courses and I have no idea why on Earth any high school level compsci class would teach HTML.
-
Zack, what about pointing your brother to HLP? We have many programmers and even a psychologist. Also, i'm sure that the mature members of our community will prevent stupid attacks. (also FS is the best game around).
-
Zack, what about pointing your brother to HLP? We have many programmers and even a psychologist. Also, i'm sure that the mature members of our community will prevent stupid attacks. (also FS is the best game around).
I might, but I hesitate because Tura and I live here. Him and Tura don't get along so well and he's prone to acting extra stupid around me because he thinks it makes him look cool to be a douchebag to his sister or something.
He's not doing HTML. I accidentally stole his thumbdrive that he uses for his programming classes, I'll take a look and see what's on it tomorrow.
-
You know we have a programming board....
-
Find him a girl. That will take care of the hanging with the wrong crowd part. Unless she is in the wrong crowd. Of course it won't help with schoolwork and may make things on that end worse.
-
id volonteer my services if i thought it wouldn't make things worse.
Well, if his CompSci experience is limited to something like HTML, then Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) would be a good place to start getting used to proper coding syntax.
Otherwise, there are a few game engines (Unity, Unreal, Etc.) out there that are free.
when i took high school level comsci, they threw us right into c/++. of course they required a semester of intro to computers, which was mostly a crash course in hardware, mac stuff (basic stuff like word processing, 2d/3d graphics software, and other bull****), some dos stuff, and a couple weeks where we got to use an antiquated mainframe. but our comsci instructor was a c programmer and made sure we could write and compile c code before he would give us the option to learn any other programming language.
-
Zack pay attention (yes i know drama :lol:)
What about some of us forming a team, create a IRC acount and contact with your brother. Consider me and my small experience with kids as volunteers. I also propose Nuke and i'm very serious about this.
-
Zack, what about pointing your brother to HLP? We have many programmers and even a psychologist.
We also have Nuke, Dekker, zack and woutersmits.
Woo. :p
-
woutersmits hasn't been around for a couple of years. You most update your knowledge!
-
brain not starting up please help me
-
but why
-
it's not working i already had those drivers
-
Find him a girl.
id volonteer my services if i thought it wouldn't make things worse.
Sorry but I can't help but laugh at those two being next to each other. :p
-
He has a longtime girlfriend who irritates me to no end and fails at life really hard.
Anyway, I could possibly get him on irc one day for y'all to ask him some of these questions yourselves. Iunno if he'd be into freespace but I figured you lot would know of other modding groups if he was into some other kind of game. Or something.
As for Nuke, they are already too similar. I worry that he will think his current trollish, antisocial behavior is acceptable long-term. Maybe I'm wrong, though. :|
-
C++ is the way to go, and being a high-level programming language can do things Java cannot.
As far as getting your sibling out of trouble goes, I don't know quite what to say. In high school, I spent most of my time getting into higher-level courses so as to escape from the idiots, which I did. Breaking out of a system of making poor life choices is not easy, and I'm not sure what would encourage your brother to re-orient himself in terms of his peer group. However, if you think we could help, IRC or HLP might not be a bad idea.
-
Breaking out of a system of making poor life choices is not easy, and I'm not sure what would encourage your brother to re-orient himself in terms of his peer group. However, if you think we could help, IRC or HLP might not be a bad idea.
Speaking from some experience, this is really something that has to come from within, in my opinion.
Are there any out of school classes on this stuff that you can get your brother to sign up for? Perhaps if you surround him with some people who are like minded in the sense that they're into the comp sciency stuff but aren't anti-social assholes, it'd be better for him.
And upon thinking back on that sentence, that's sort of what you wanted to do here, I'm guessing. >> But perhaps it'd be more effective if rather than being a faceless bloke on the internet, they become a circle of people who could perhaps invite him over for LANs/parties/whatever, and some of their personality traits may rub off on him a little easier?
-
Outlets to bring him an interest are good things, but they don't address the behavioral issues. People tend to look for one solution to cure a myriad of problems, remember that he hasn't got just one issue to deal with, he has many. There will be many small solutions, furthering an intererst with guidance is a good step, as it opens eyes to a larger world. As that world opens up, other venues must be explored, and this has to be done without lecturing. I can tell my kids do the math homework, cause they need those good grades for college etc. The only thing they see of me is someone who works hard and plays hard. I don't want them to make the mistakes I made and finally end up gearing up to go to school 20 years later than they should have. So trust me one this, anything that even resembles lecturing will shut him down. He will close up, his eyes will glaze over and he will go to that land inside that we have all run to at some point.
I disagree with the course you guys are setting, this needs to be handled by professionals. If you do go through with it, I applaud you for being willing to help, but tread carefully. Please, think before you act, and then think again. I screwed my life up long ago, and am finally fixing all of it. My big fear now is screwing someone else up. Be very careful with this endeavor, because it isn't your future hanging in the balance.
You know of course that our admins will have to do what they hate, and delete this thread, as him seeing it would be very detrimental to what you are trying to accomplish.
-
Outlets to bring him an interest are good things, but they don't address the behavioral issues. People tend to look for one solution to cure a myriad of problems, remember that he hasn't got just one issue to deal with, he has many. There will be many small solutions, furthering an intererst with guidance is a good step, as it opens eyes to a larger world. As that world opens up, other venues must be explored, and this has to be done without lecturing. I can tell my kids do the math homework, cause they need those good grades for college etc. The only thing they see of me is someone who works hard and plays hard. I don't want them to make the mistakes I made and finally end up gearing up to go to school 20 years later than they should have. So trust me one this, anything that even resembles lecturing will shut him down. He will close up, his eyes will glaze over and he will go to that land inside that we have all run to at some point.
I disagree with the course you guys are setting, this needs to be handled by professionals. If you do go through with it, I applaud you for being willing to help, but tread carefully. Please, think before you act, and then think again. I screwed my life up long ago, and am finally fixing all of it. My big fear now is screwing someone else up. Be very careful with this endeavor, because it isn't your future hanging in the balance.
You know of course that our admins will have to do what they hate, and delete this thread, as him seeing it would be very detrimental to what you are trying to accomplish.
He sees professionals and all that good stuff, don't worry about that. But he's the type of kids who really just does not care about almost anything. When he does care about something, he's like a different person. Girlfriends come and go and he's sort of lost interest in music so I figured this might be something that would be good for him. Like I said before, he is exactly how I was at his age.
My brother goes to the same high school I went to, but he's not as academically capable (if he is, then he isn't as academically minded) as I was at his age, so instead of being in all the AP classes with dorks and nerds, he's in the base-level classes with all the wannabe gangsters/actual gangsters/junkies/etc. so that's where his friend-pool comes from.
Oh yeah and about the last bit, I had hoped that if he came to HLP, the admins would take my word for it and just ban him from GenDisc from the start, at least until they could see how he'd behave elsewhere. :P Trust me, if you think I'm bad, well...
-
C++ is the way to go, and being a high-level programming language can do things Java cannot.
As far as getting your sibling out of trouble goes, I don't know quite what to say. In high school, I spent most of my time getting into higher-level courses so as to escape from the idiots, which I did. Breaking out of a system of making poor life choices is not easy, and I'm not sure what would encourage your brother to re-orient himself in terms of his peer group. However, if you think we could help, IRC or HLP might not be a bad idea.
(http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2010/2/6/129099886145036139.jpg)