Learn to program.
Microsoft is offering free, for the next year, copies of Visual Studio Express. It's not the full studio, but the only things not avaliable are the upper level Computer Science features, nothing you'd really make use of for game programming and the like.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/
To download, just choose your package. There's no limitations on what you can download, so you can get all of them if you'd like. The offer says "Free for a Year", but it means that the offer is up for a year, once you download the package it's yours to keep as long as you wish.
Also, with each copy of Studio are free video tutorials from learnvisualstudio.net(charges $30 a month normally). These just arn't a couple of lessons, these are upwards of 8 hours worth of footage. They say it's for "beginners", but some of the stuff that's covered goes far beyond beginner level. They even deal with XML. Just click on the "Easy to Learn" tab and go to the Video tutorials, there's 8 for each studio. All accomplish the same thing, just in their respective language. Everything you need to start mod programming and far more is in those videos.
Microsoft is being incredibly generous with the launch of the new Visual Studio. Don't pass this up.
Microsoft is offering free, for the next year, copies of Visual Studio Express. It's not the full studio, but the only things not avaliable are the upper level Computer Science features, nothing you'd really make use of for game programming and the like.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/
To download, just choose your package. There's no limitations on what you can download, so you can get all of them if you'd like. The offer says "Free for a Year", but it means that the offer is up for a year, once you download the package it's yours to keep as long as you wish.
Also, with each copy of Studio are free video tutorials from learnvisualstudio.net(charges $30 a month normally). These just arn't a couple of lessons, these are upwards of 8 hours worth of footage. They say it's for "beginners", but some of the stuff that's covered goes far beyond beginner level. They even deal with XML. Just click on the "Easy to Learn" tab and go to the Video tutorials, there's 8 for each studio. All accomplish the same thing, just in their respective language. Everything you need to start mod programming and far more is in those videos.
Microsoft is being incredibly generous with the launch of the new Visual Studio. Don't pass this up.