Question for those who consider themselves developers

[InfamousNoone]

What I am going to discuss has become the norm here and I figured it was about time I address this manor.

There are far too many people who dive into Conquer servers, or attempt making bots who have little to no programming experience. I'm not quite sure I understand the mindset or logic of these people, so if someone could explain it to me, I'd appreciate it. I wonder, do these people not humble themselves to think, "perhaps, this is a little too hard for me to start with". Or, are these people the geniuses who picked up a calculus text book before learning basic math and understood it immediently -- cause from what I've seen, I would say otherwise.

The same logic applies to programming as it does to math. It's hard to learn multiplication before you learn addition. It's hard to learn integration without differentiation. It's a cumulative process, not something you dive into and understand immediently. So, I ask the 100's of people making Conquer servers with no programming experience, why? Do you think you'll learn something staring at something you barely understand? How long have you been trying to learn and made little to no progress -- Do you not think it's time to try a different approach?

When someone asks me for help with something, I usually give them a hint in the right direction, however, that said direction makes the assumption you actually know what you're doing and you're capable of putting the puzzle together yourself; Given this most the time they still cannot accomplish it. I'm not going to show you where every piece fits, and neither should anyone else. The main issue is people lack the problem solving skills require to program an advanced application such as a server, or bot for Conquer, or for any game for that matter -- yet they try it anyways just to fall flat on their faces...

So I ask you, why?

tl;dr that the people who this is targeted at will never read --
learn general programming before trying to make a server or go run a binary server like the norm'

[_DreadNought_]

Well, It was almost 3 years ago now, I was one of those "norms".

I think my mindset was, well, I didn't really think about it, I just wanted it with no understanding on what's required, such as before 5180, I wanted the RC5 cipher, the resources were out there, I was shown them, but I couldn't make it work due to my lack of knowledge, so I simply paid someone, and then thought I was all pro.

To sum it up; Most people don't really think about it, nor care, they just want it.

[I don't have a username]

It's because people come into this community thinking they can just setup a server for fun, but they don't realize it takes works to make a server. They think it's just download and run, which is not only happening in this community, but basically anywhere in the world. Humans wants the easiest way to do things, they don't want to work if they can avoid it.

[Spirited]

I dived in because I had the right mindset. I started with if else statements in npcs and worked my way up. My eye has always been on becoming a programmer. Never has it been aimed at quickly making money, and I think that's where a lot of people in this community fall short.

[pro4never]

I learned programming from conquer sources (to be fair I'm STILL trying to un-learn bad habits from it) but it definitely can be done. Between endless searching through the source, editing it and inspecting the results I learned the basics and I just kept moving from there until I learned the basics. Then moved on to proxy stuff to familiarize myself with basic packet structuring/sockets/threading (not that I handled them well but still) then moved back into pservers to teach myself more.

Since then started more formal education on the subject and as such get to un-learn tons of horrible habits. Tons of fun!

[diedwarrior]

Well, here's my story, I've always wanted someone to mentor me, to teach me stuff, etc, because I seriously thought that it would be way easier for someone to me than me just all alone.
But yeah, I've never had any SERIOUS help, that's when I had to take an action, opened up a source, started with NPCs, if statements, switches etc, built my way up to packets, had a little help then since I was lost, but yeah, I'm not that good, but I've managed to do some good stuff, as in answering your question, I've learned from a source(how to code for co sources) because I've always thought that real programming is pretty hard, so instead of learning it, I just learned the part that I was going to mainly use .

[shadowman123]

My story is i joined the most bugged PServer ever 1 year ago then i advised the Gm to repair the Server and do some changes he didnt listen to me So i thought of making Pserver that every player would entertain and enjoy playing in it so i Started working on sources but havent known from where to start then i checked the npc and tried to make some Npcs it worked .spent a month or so making Quests and trying to understand much more So i spent alot of time watching at codes to know how files are being called and alot of stuffs so i started Learning C# basics surely i miss alot but am not bad now then i became interested in Packet structure / Handling them till i worked with packet sniffer then i knew how to Structure packet / handle it and code it systems and made new lottery system / then cloud saint jar surely there arent that big but i learned smthing and i keep learning Right now about Threading system and ill tey to understand how cryptography work too So i hope i can do well

[Lateralus]

I didn't attempt to start programming until a year and a half ago (though I started school 3 years ago) because I was under the impression that the majority of this community was far more advanced than I was and I couldn't reach the level of some without tremendous amounts of work, which was obviously completely untrue, but by the way they talked, you'd think they'd been working at a professional software development company for 10 years.

The problem is that people want the end result and don't care about efficiency or design and don't want to "waste time" learning how to use a language for a single task. Some of these server owners came from WoW, FlyFF, and whatever other games have public sources after milking their servers dry from donations - those people are in it for money, and simply don't care about their servers, the game, or the players at all. The rest never properly learn the language itself, only model their knowledge off of public sources, and brag about their minute accomplishments as if they are gods, even though most could do what they've done with a little knowledge of programming and common sense.

Edit: I actually did try to learn C# 4 years ago, but I was one of those who read the information and examples, but didn't practice, so I couldn't apply the knowledge I learned, much less have any idea on how to use the concepts in creating a server/proxy/etc..