FFA-Games presents a series of tutorials aimed at the beginning programmer. The aim is to present the information in a simple and clear format. To that end the concepts are covered in exhaustive depth. Other than a general knowledge of C++ including loops, arrays, and pointers, these tutorials attempt not to assume anything about the programmer's experience. This should provide a solid foundation for understanding the material presented.
There are three long term goals with this site. First and foremost is for the author of these pages to learn to better program. It has been a long time since I've spent serious time coding, and this gives me a series of goals to work on, and while I'm working on, share what I'm learning. The next is to eventually take the user from start to finish through programming a full 2D side scrolling game. Finally, years from now, now being a sunny Sunday the 16th of August 2009 sitting in a Reno coffee shop the Java Jungle, I'd like to take these tutorials, formalize them, and publish them in a book. I'd want to work with a publisher that would allow me to make the code GPL'd and the text of the book a Creative Commons license. Between now and then if I run into any that are sufficiently pithy, I may attempt to publish them in a magazine.
I'd also like to take this time to point out that should anybody wish to give me pointers, I'll be happy to accept them, and they may be used in said book or articles. In the meantime, feel free to peruse these tutorials. Hopefully they'll be helpful. Feel free to send me a note praising them, decrying their verbosity or simplistic nature, or just to say hi!