Getting to Know Your Environment

Pop culture has taught us that computer programmers are often outsiders, lone wolves, or geeky hackers who possess extraordinary mental gifts for algorithmic thought, little social IQ, and the odd anarchic bent. While this is not the case, there is something to the idea that learning to code fundamentally changes the way you look at the world. The good news is that your naturally curious mind will quickly adapt to this new way of thinking and may even come to enjoy it.

You already use analytical skills in your everyday life that translate to programming – you're just missing the right language and syntax to map those life skills into code. You know your age, right? That's a variable. When you cross the street, I presume you look down the road in both directions before stepping off the curb like the rest of us. That's evaluating different conditions, or what we call control flow in programming parlance. When you look at a can of pop, you instinctively identify that it has certain properties such as shape, weight, and contents. That's a class object! You get the idea.

With all that real-world experience at your fingertips, you're more than ready to cross over into the realm of programming. You'll need to know how to set up your development environment, work with the applications involved, and know exactly where to go when you need help. To that end, we're going to begin our adventure delving into C# by covering the following topics:

• Getting started with Unity
• Working with Visual Studio
• Using C# with Unity
• Exploring the documentation

Let's get started!