Would a C# class help?

Just learning Unity through TeamTreeHouse.com. I have no programming experience at all. The local college offers online C# classes. Would it be beneficial to take them? Or is it best to find some classes specific to Unity?

Thanks for any input,

-J

 

This gets asked about once a week, it seems. Would a class teaching C# help you learn C# for Unity? Sure. Is it the only way to learn? Not at all.

Unity's official tutorials do a good job teaching the basics of programming. There are also free resources online for learning, such as Rob Mile's Yellow Book. Or you could buy a traditional book on Amazon, or watch YouTube videos.

Choose whatever method works best for you. If you prefer a classroom environment, by all means do so. But don't feel like it's the only option you have, by any means.

 

Thanks @Schneider21. If you have a moment, could you look at the attached course outline? I'm not sure if it's the right course.

 

Yeah, that's pretty much the same as the first chapters of your typical C# or other programming text book. How much does this course cost, out of curiosity? If it's any more than $26, I'm not confident you'll be getting your money's worth, as it seems like what you'll be doing is exactly what you'd learn from reading a good book.

 

It's an online course offered free through our library. I understand the general concepts of programming. I have been trying to teach myself php for years and have a very basic knowledge of that. Signed up for freecodecamp.com but am floundering since you are really teaching yourself and many times I'm not even sure what questions to ask. I think I will try the Unity videos today and see how that goes. Thank you for your time,

 

Well if it's free, then absolutely take it!

Don't worry about getting lost. It takes time and just pounding the same things into your head over and over until it clicks. Just put in the effort, and eventually you'll be wondering what was even confusing you in the first place.

 

Thanks @Schneider21, just signed up for the class. I hope it helps. And at worst case, I haven't lost anything ($$$) for trying. I'm doing the Unity learning video 'Coding in Unity for the absolute beginner' and have learned things already. This is really quite enjoyable if I can wrap my head around it.

 

It all depends how you learn. I tried an online course & really struggled so I did an in class course from the same provider where I was able to ask, & have answered, questions as soon as I thought of them. I could also join in in conversations which taught me a lot as well. I liked it so much I have started full time with the same provider & whilst not confident in my ability, & really, really slow, I'm starting to be able to nut things out using all of that learning as a base to help me understand what I'm finding online & then asking in this forum or back in class when I get stuck.

 

Thanks for that input @tedthebug. I am self taught (google is my best friend) on building websites, creating Wordpress themes from scratch, 3d Renderings and virtual tours. This programming has been a bit more of a challenge so far. But I did learn to create a light switch today and turn it on / off with the spacebar so I feel pretty good about that! I do agree if I could just get a basic understanding, then I could probably find answers online / in the forum. Having said that, I did a google search earlier today for "C# get.key" to see what other inputs there were. Stack Overflow seems to come up pretty high in the rankings a lot. Do you know if a solution I find there would work here? Or is there something special about C# and Unity?

I may also price some in-person classes tomorrow and see how it compares.

Good luck to us both!

 

That's a lot of self learning, well done.

My teachers recommended stack overflow. Unity answers was ok but personally I think it needs a bit of tidying up. I usually use the unity scripting api to read up on options I find from starting to type & seeing what options come up on the auto complete then just stuff around. If I think I'm getting close but can't quite get there I check out the code in the unity tutorials & if they do I watch the tutorial so I can get the explanation that goes with it. It's a really slow way of doing it but I'm not in a rush at the moment.

 

One thing you don't want to get caught and confused by is references to .NET C# libraries when you really want Unity C# functionality. The best reference for finding out what functions do in a Unity context or how to do something based on what you want to do are the scripting API and the Manual (use the search field at the top right).

When I'm Googling stuff, I tend to preface my search term with "Unity" first to look for examples specific to Unity. This is, of course, unless I'm just trying to read about generic C# Lists or something, so use your judgement.