[omnigoat]

My first, my very first C++ project, started in Year 9 - coming from VB6 - was a 3D graphics engine. Yeah, that failed. It failed 5 times (fun fact - the fourth rewrite occurred moments after exclaiming "oh those are references!"). But the 6th one was pretty neat! I'd written a file-loader for 3D Studio Max, an event system, input, etc. The seventh rewrite would have gotten rid of the hardware T&L and used shaders instead. I was in Year 12 by then. Then I went to uni, studying CS, and afterwards got a job at a video games company, implementing a 3D graphics engine.

Honestly, sometimes you just have to do it, even without any training. Maybe do it six times.