nollyj:

@Stconvict, it seems you are good with Graphics - I am looking for a graphics design (UI design) I will work with. Just send me PM if you are interested.

Yeah. I'm a jack-of-all-trades kind of guy when it comes to Computer Graphics and stuffs. These days, however, I've focused my strength towards game and graphics programming.
But I think if you have Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, you can download this YouTube video on material design (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjeWHbsAMlU ) and easily grasp how the Android GUI designs are made albeit you need to understand how layer works in these softwares.

FincoApps:
Something I noticed is you don't need to finish a whole text book. Like how many do you want to understand. What I do is learn the basics and start creating apps. Using what I've learnt

.... Until a bug shows up and folks at stackoverflow start prescribing pills that need advanced knowledge of the language to swallow or they simply boo you back to study. It is better to have a sound grasp of the language and implement as you go. You can't just learn the functional part of C++ and start programming a full software! Maybe you can do that with other languages (Python, Javascript). Trust me, you don't want to try that with C or C++, especially when it comes to pointers.

TOmmyJidex:


Hmmm... But a lot of people still find it difficult to learn programming online now?

It is truly hard to learn online owing to the countless number of contradicting and inconsistent materials scattered around the web. For example, learning C++ was very hard for me. I spent three years without understanding pointers. I kept iterating back and forth because I dropped it several times and had to start from the basics whenever I decided to pick it up again. There was one particular intimidating text I found online. It has 1000+ pages (C++ Primer, 3ed by Barbara Moo et al.). How the heck am I supposed to finish that in the next 5 years?
I had to find something less terse and learncpp was the answer. Finished C++ in 3 months; covered Java afterwards in 2; Javascript in 3 days; Python and C in 2 days.
I learned all of these without a physical tutor but I still attribute it to the knowledge of others contained within those books I read and those tutorials I watched.
Man is not an island to himself. You need knowledge (from others) to gain knowledge.

Datanet:
hello.

i have done further research and found out that the game can be built by one person using a game engine called unity3D. that was what the two original designers of subway surfers used.

Does anyone have experience using this software. you can download free at unity3d.com

While a dedicated brilliant all-rounder developer can create something close to Subway surfer game (temple run was created by a couple), it will be a tremendous task to give one developer the job of team.
BTW, Subway Surfer wasn't created by one developer (regardless of your source), it was co-developed by two studios, Kiloo and SYBO. Combining the two teams, there are around 11 guys who worked on the project. Each with his own area of specialisation.
Yes, they used Unity3D. And No, Subway surfer is not "essentially 2D design to look 3D". There is actually nothing 2D about the game, it only has restricted movements which is part of the game mechanics.
There are quite a number of Nigerian devs adept in Unity3D and the likes. Perhaps they are not noticing this thread.
On a more serious note, you need to do more research on game dev and outline the type of programmers you need for the job. I will refer you to the wikipedia page on the topic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development. For more on Subway Surfers check these sites: www.nardio.net/2012/09/12/kiloo-subway-surfers-interview/ and www.venturebeat.com/2013/03/06/subway-surfers-creator-explains-why-co-development-is-key-in-mobile-games/
I would have loved to work with you (I love seeing my people interested in game dev) but I'm pretty much occupied with another game.

nollyj:

2. Photo Maths Classic
This is a simple but complex android application that lets you use your mobile camera to take a picture of a Math equation and the app will solve the Math equation for you in a simple step by step that makes understanding Maths easy and fun.

I'm particularly interested in how you will accomplish the Photo Maths app.
I bet you'd have a lenghtier deadline for this one (3 to 10 years maybe) cause you will have to find a voluminous textbook in Computer Vision and OCR and assimilate all the maths in it plus finally implementing your concept in code.
There is this weird perception that people have about computers being able to understand images the way we see them. They don't. In fact they don't understand anything. They are only given sophisticated instructions to act like they understand (ongoing research in AI) and CV is one of the aspects that deal with this. Damn, it is f**king hard to get a computer to recognise a human shape not to talk of the incredibly large library of irregular handwritings from different users (kudos Samsung!). The complexity adds up when you have to deal with superscripts, subscripts and other crazy mathematical sets.
I'm not discouraging you here, but I think you need to do more research on this subject before making any promise.
Anyway, 500k downloads is an amazing feat, and I'm hoping to beta test your Biology app.
Happy coding!

Notify when you need beta testing?

The subject of being self-taught is an interesting topic for psychologists and philosophers. In the actual literal sense nobody is self taught, the reigning concept of tabula rasa means no one is born with knowledge nor gains knowledge without a surrounding reference.
Nowadays, the meaning is rather abstract and it often signifies not learning from a human instructor. If that is the case, then it is possible to be self-taught (to an extent). Mathematics is an aspect where people can be self-taught. For particularly brilliant kids, they figure out abstract concepts about the world, formulating their own ideas of how they see space and time. Of course, realisations build up to form other realisations causing the person's knowledge library to grow. However, when it comes to programming, once you have read or watched a tutorial about your fave language then you are not really self-taught.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Signal processing, computer vision, AI. Three crazy fields I attempted but ran away eventually. They definitely are not for the faint-hearted. Though I bet one would find a CV API that can help with this.
Maybe I can do this.
Hmmm...........

Sorry, I've got too much flying around my head already. I'll just stick to my graphics programming.
And 50,000 naira. Not very compelling. Increase that by a factor of 10 and I might consider this as a contest.

Airports don't just run on analog devices they also use softwares that may need maintenance, debugging, recfactoring and adding new features.
The programmer might be an employee of one of these software companies there at the airport to inspect the software in operation.
But really, being a programmer myself, I'm wondering what type of job a programmer could possibly have at an airport?

Most people actually forget that their smartphones are miniaturised computers. Android OS is built on top of Linux and given the right apps, you can do almost anything you can on a desktop.
Apart from web development, there are a host of programming mobile apps and compilers out there. AIDE (Java/Android), Qpython (Python), Terminal IDE (Command Line), C4droid (C/C++) to mention a few.
However due to the small screen estate (processing power and memory is less of a problem these days) of mobile devices, you can only use these apps for training and writing small projects.
There is no excuse for you not to be a programmer now.

basille:
I qualify for all, Yipee!!! i'm meant to be a programmer.

Do you qualify for the last one too?

I think others are missing the point here. The op already made it clear that he doesn't have a pc even though he knows it's important. So what solution is there?
Actually I had this same problem when my laptop was stolen a while back but I had to think of a way to continue learning. Just then it occurred to me that my mobile phone (Sony Xperia Neo V) is a infact computer (a mobile OS built on a desktop OS [Linux]). So there is the answer. I just had to comb through play store to find the right apps for the task. Now, let's get down to business.
First, you absolutely need a smartphone (preferrably android). It can be a starting ground for learning languages, especially Java. There is a sizeable amount of programming apps on app store and play store. AIDE, DroidEdit, Qpython, C4droid among others. I highly recommend AIDE if you are going to learn java because it is a powerhouse of an IDE that can compile both java and android projects. However, you'd need to pay for the full version if you want to save your work. If you have MasterCard, that shouldn't be hard. But if you don't have the money or a means of payment. There's a work-around I used. Download DroidEdit from playstore, it is free. Type your code with DroidEdit and compile with AIDE. It's not the best workflow but given your condition, it can pass.
Also note that typing with DroidEdit won't give you the powerful features that come with AIDE such as intuitive syntax highlighting, autocomplete features and other cool features that would make typing on your phone easier.
TD;LR. Get an Android phone if you don't already have one. Download AIDE from playstore. It has an easy Java introduction. Pay for the full content if you want to save your work OR download DroidEdit for typing and saving while compiling only on AIDE.
For tutorials, I prefer www.learnjavaonline.org It is easy and interactive.
One more thing. To be a programmer, you have to be persistent regardless of antagonising odds, else you won't last as a programmer. You may need to read this article by another nairalander. It is completely true of a real programmer https://www.nairaland.com/2458705/signs-not-meant-programmer#35975003

Em, that's funny, I thought the lameduck man was dead, my conclusions are very simple and rigid. But how are we even sure with all lies and false stories that shoot at us from incapable sources. Why are you guys frightened? The man is a lameduck president now, he's more useless than useful. And if the man decides to show up, it would be more in a zombie-form, or a string-controlled muppet, coz the man is so ill, and so dead.