Beginning Programming

[cardinalmont]

Hello Everyone!

I have awoken in the middle of the night with an idea for a website that I would like to create.
I would like to code the website myself, but I have no idea where to begin or even what program I should use.
The coding of the website should be simple, in theory...

I remember many years ago I played a flash game titled Light Bot.
In this game, there is a robot that you program to hop around on a grid pattern and light up squares. In the later levels, one needs to create more complex and repeating functions for the animated robot to perform in order to light up the squares. This concept is very similar to what I would like to do. I would like to create a few simple 8bit animated people. Visitors to my website will input a few numbers, and based on the numbers they input, the 8bit characters will move accordingly.

Can someone please offer some guidance as to what program I should use to begin coding something like this? I would highly prefer to use a free program. I have access to both a PC and a Mac though I would prefer to work on my Mac.

Thank you very much for your guidance!

 

[Malcolm]

Hello, Welcome to Code Forum @cardinalmont!

Going into coding for the first time can be rather difficult however not impossible. My recommendation would be to start learning HTML5, then move to CSS3 from there move to JavaScript. Build websites on your local setup then once you've got more experience move to developing your project (TIP: Never start off with huge projects, work your way to that point). Something you should note, Flash is coming to an end in December so it's mostly best for you to learn HTML5. I have included some links down below to help you get familiar with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

• What is HTML?
• What is CSS?
• What is JavaScript?

As for the program that you could use, there are many different IDE's (Integrated development environment) however the one I would recommend for you would be either VSCode, Sublime and or Atom. Now, to help you get started with learning, I'd recommend using Code Academy, FreeCodeCamp, w3school and or search on YouTube. Code Forum is also a great resource to learn, ask questions, read tutorials etc.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions at all.

 

[simong1993]

Malcolm has pretty much-covered everything, My only 2 pence is HTML 5, most online games are moving to HTML 5 now purely because of the ease, with some simple frameworks you can make something quite nice.

My main question is, is this a game for one person or is this a game where multiple people will be inputting numbers?

 

[Remainings]

Visual Studio Code (VSC), Atom, and Sublime Text are all very reliable open-source source code editors.

But these most likely aren't the things you're looking for. So, sorry, I can only recommend HTML 5.