   age = noobness?
  I have been told many of times of many of forums that since im sixteen im a noob...whats with that stuff. i got 5 years of c++ under my belt like many of people...but since im young i guess it doesnt matter how much experience i got, i will never e taken seriously?so whats up with that i know guys in their mid twenties that got 2 of three yers under their belt and people consider them goow experience people(which i think otherwise). Im not considering myself a expert of even close to being a "experienced person". I just want to people to take people my age seriously even thoe we are young....seriosly if everyone started programming at this age the games would be better...since you would take a serious challenge when your twentiesh and with all this time thinking you get greater and more originals game ideas for the future. so whats up with the discimination thats all...   
  The people in their 20s, is that 2 years experience at work? Experience using C++ in a job is way more valuable than as a hobby. I had been programming in C++ for ~7 years when I got my first programming job, and had made some pretty cool things, but my code was really bad. I never knew it was bad though until a year or two later I went back to it...And saying you have X years C++ is all very well, but show us screen shots of what you made. A demo is way more convincing...And also, teenagers are simply less mature than people in their 20s - much more likely to think their idea is new and they are going to change the world, rather than think why nobody else already did what they want to. I'm talking averages here - I'm not saying you are immature just because you're 16.   ;  This is a point that is raised on IRC occasionally. We don't know you beyond what you've typed up on the screen, and thus our only impression of you comes from the way in which you present yourself.Sloppy spelling, lack of punctuation and inability to use the shift key, therefore, don't leave a very good first impression, no matter how good you happen to be with C++ - regardless of age.   ;  Why do you mention your age? If you do not consider that being sixteen years old is a relevant piece of information when assessing your messages, refrain from saying that you are. If you insist on mentioning it, people will use that information to estimate your competence by comparing you to the average sixteen-year-old they know. On the other hand, a 25-year-old has nine years of life experience that a 16-year-old doesn't have, including the bits about "learning how to learn". Without additional information, I would consider a 25-year-old with 2 years experience a more competent person than a 16-year-old with 5 years experience in about any domain of competence.Ultimately, "5 years of C++" is a very misleading sentence. C++ is a language which can only be completely mastered if you spend many years learning its intricacies, and this assumes that you were familiar with development, computer science, the C language, and language semantics theory. I'd say I need at least two or three more years to fully master C++, and I've been going at it since 1998.  So, "5 years of C++" could be "5 years of learning how to use Modern C++", or they could be "5 years of using the C-with-classes subset of C++ without any regard for defined behaviour". And this makes the statement worthless to assess your actual skill.   ;  Yea I understand all this I guess I was just interested in some replies from other peolple to conclude my theory. Where im from lots of people in their mid twenties take this as a hobby. I will say that my programming is more then a lil scratchy, I have troubles all the time remembering things since I have school and still program after and before it starts.But i will start presenting myself better by using shift and and punctuation marks more often.   ;  Guess what, people are going to make assumptions about you based on who you are, how old you are, what you look like, your economic background, how you write, etc. Here's the thing, you can't do a damn thing about. Just accept it and move on. The only way you will change their minds is with your actions. Your words are useless.   ;  Age is an arbitrary variable.Not quite so, of course; but for instance I'm nineteen but I like to present myself as a sixteen-year-old -- and people actually believe me this and don't find it unmatching for me.  What does my age of nineteen mean then?  Well, nothing.  Mental age doesn't have to correspond to your physical age -- and you can do something about your mental age -- as opposed to your physical age.  Let those people who tell you you're a noob just because you're sixteen be a motivation for you to get better.And as to the Internet subculture, age is usually not given much value -- at least not on the places that I frequent.  My e-friends (whom I actually do know personally) range in age from fifteen up to thirty-three -- it must be a funny look to see us gather somewhere, but so what?And then there's the thing that benryves mentioned -- all the people behind their screens can only judge you by the letters that you type.  If you look like a noob -- well, then you are a noob in their eyes.  Don't look like a noob and you won't be one.  Of course, this is not only about pressing Shift and paying some attention to your grammar, but rather your attitude to others in general.  Myself, I don't mind people using lowercase everywhere and forgetting to use proper punctuation as long as they're nice to others.People and interaction with them is a very broad topic about which many book have been written and your problem falls into the scope of these books.  You certainly can do something about that, but this is a game development forums, geeks live here -- it's kind of like asking a medical question here -- majority of the people here don't specialise on the topic, unfortunately..   ;  Don't be offended. You look like a noob because you started a thread saying that your gonna make an mmorpg with over 100,000 weapons and 10,000 spells, or something like that. Such is the stereotypical noob behaviour.For god sake, go and learn some python, then write a top down rpg. with 10 weapons and 10 spells. Then come back with screen shots or a demo and say "Look what I did this year." and get some opinions on what your next step should be.If you'd just gone into "For Beginners" and said you wanted to make games and what do you need to do now, you would have got better responses.So here is a list of facts:1) you CAN write an mmorpg but only as part of a large team.2) You can write a multiplayer rpg on your own but it takes time and years of practice.3) You can have fun making games if you stick to simple stuff. 4) You will get disrespected by some people if you don't use correct punctuation. Thats because they will find your posts harder to read; especially if your not posting in their first language.5) Your age is nothing to do with it; your mental maturity, and experience define your "noobness". Those things correlate with age but the correlation varies per person.Good luck with your game writing career. Your only 16 and have your whole life ahead of you, and the time you spent complaining could have bee spent installing python. <cough>install*python<cough>;  It depends on how you define noob, you're 16 so that makes you relatively new to life in general, new to programming and new to all other kinds of experiences.Your age isn't advertised (partly for privacy reasons) on these forums unless you explicitly give it to us, thus no-one can or will assess the aptitude of your programming abilities on your age; only on the quality of your written words and the standard of advice or questions you post.Saying you have 5-years experience in C++ holds little merit, it doesn't tell us anything about how well you know the language, for all we know that means you've been aware of the existence of C++ Classes for 5 years, or it could mean you've learnt its the intricacies and you're a master of design patterns, template meta-programming and are able to produce highly efficient yet portable code.You also have to consider that if you only know one flavour then you will always be a noob when it comes to knowing the best tool for the job - because you only know how to use one tool.I myself have 14 years experience in programming across a multitude of languages, using a multitude of APIs and can tackle a problem with a multitude of different design approaches.  My GDRating implies I am a moderately helpful person here on GDNet and yet I would not class myself above being an intermediate programmer.  Based on that could you guess how old I am?The old adage of you're too old/young to program is just a misnomer really.   ;Quote:Original post by dmatterSaying you have 5-years experience in C++ holds little meritI once knew a guy who had been skating for 8 years, and still couldn't do a kickflip 