Programming the Classics - Looking at Hobby Programming

[Shane R. Monroe]

Welcome to the topic everyone thought should be on its own!

This is a 'cross talk' thread from:

http://www.monroeworld.com/forum/vie...?t=341&start=0

[Shane R. Monroe]

From my point of view, hobby programming languages fall really into four main groups:

TOTAL CODE:
This means that you get NOTHING without coding by hand. No shell, no point and click setups, nothing is PREDONE for you...
-Blitz Basic 2D/3D/Plus
-Dark Basic
-DIV
-Jamagic
-other old school variants - GFA, GW, AMOS, etc.

HYBRID (Slanted toward coding):
These are programming languages that offer some very BASIC point and click creation, but the only way to make anything 'finished' is to code by hand. I'm no expert but it sounds like ...
- MultiMedia Fusion
- Maybe Gamemaker?
- Shockwave
- 3D Rad

HYBRID (Slanded toward point N click programming)
These are programming languages that were really designed as 'point and click programming'. No programming required but you can in effect make changes. Final projects can really be made with this without ever touching code.
- Klick & Play
- TONS of others

ALL CLICK
These are ones that you can't code if you want to. If its not built in functionality, you ain't gettin' it.
- Too many to mention ...

Comments?

[Shane R. Monroe]

There are certain rules that follow hobby programming languages ...

1) The easier a language is to use, the more people that will flock to it.

2) The more people that use a language the MORE product is released created with it.

3) The more product that is released, allows for MORE 'not very representative of the language' projects that tend to make the language look unfavorable.

4) The more people that use a language, the harder it is to control the community as a whole in public.

5) Every language produces crappy games and at least SOME gems. Some may be harder to find that others.

6) Most languages are NOT general purpose. They have FOCUSED purposes, and trying to ice skate uphill isn't going to help you produce a quality title.

7) Most of these languages are DESIGNED to make it possible for a one to three man team to create a decent project. Of course, when 3D comes into play, consider it doubling the effort.

8) TYPICALLY - the more built in features (maps, pathing, behaviors, etc) a language has, the LESS control you end up having over the final product. If you knew how to code, would you be using Klick & Play?

9) The harder a language is to learn does NOT make it more powerful. See C, ASM, Lingo for more information. Like I said, I've had heavy C programmers turn to Blitz because they can code faster and still produce a quality product.

10) There is more to the language than the core. WAY too many languages (blitz included) have amazingly kludgy and worthless interfaces (btw, don't make me program on a custom screen, DIV, 3D Rad, etc - I friggin' HATE that ...). If your IDE is going to suck, DETATCH it from the compiler.

Its all about trade off ... somewhere between power, performance, ease of use, stigma, system requirements, and popularity.

I truly believe EXCELLENT titles can be written in any language for any platform. Its all a matter of how bad you want it - and how long you're willing to spend doing it. These are often deciding factors in choosing a language.

Me personally - importance is broken down like this:

40% - Core performance (speed, performance, sheer power)
20% - IDE - how you get the code in there. People swear by Visual Studio, I've never found it anyting but counter intuitive to me (I haven't seen .NET, kthx)
40% - Community and support. If you can't get updates, help, ask questions, get sample code, find routines - a language is useless unless you already know it. I think the community is just as important as the core.

Thoughts?

[xyzzy]

Thanks for taking the time to lay down your thoughts on this Shane. Every couple fo years or so, I get 'that feeling' and attempt to learn a language and code a game. I have miserably failed...up until now. Your treatise on the subject, and the previous discussions has helped point me toward a language choice. But I have a couple of other questions:

1: Books? Go to Amazon.com, type in 'game programming' in the search window. Over 700 hits are returned. This is a sea that is hard to swim. What I would like is a good book that is not language specific that discusses theory. Do you know of any books that give great hints on AI, or other such subjects. Blindly spending $50-60 for a book that may turn out to suck has me worried. Are there any classic must have texts?

2: How many hobby programmers do we have here? How many pros with personal projects? Do we have the makings of a small hobby coding community here? Is there enough here to add another forum to the index? This appeals to me, because everyone here is polite, nice, and plays well with others. Many so called coding communites have immature members made worse by intolerant gurus. The result is a very strange environment where nothing much other than flaming and self aggrandizement get done. I think the members of this forum would behave nicely, and perhaps a few collaborative projects would emerge.

Thoughts?

[Bill_Loguidice]

I think you make many valid points, though your classifications of certain programs (by your own admission) may be a bit off.

I agree with your assessment of 3D development. Besides not having any ideas related to the actual need for a 3D engine at this point, I think of all the additional people I would need help from on the project. I KNOW I will need help on my 2D gaming project(s), but I figure I can do hopefully the majority of it myself. My writing experience/skills are fine and my artistic skills are sufficient where I should be able to get by. My weaknesses (beyond needing to learn the actual coding environment) will be music and sound, but I have an idea of how to get around that (without using someone else's work). In essence, I think I'm covered for 2D. With 3D, I just don't see it and with that in mind, as I said, I want something specifically for 2D. This is where Blitz Basic 2D comes in (and again, I prefer what I've seen created with that versus pretty much anything else (though I did not investigate Dark Basic, but it seems to go against my first rule - 2D for 2D)...

I'm a little distressed by BlitzPlus, as it seems like the Blitz Basic official site has pulled all support from Blitz 2D in favor of that new package. As you well know, I just purchased Blitz 2D, and there does not seem to be an upgrade path to BlitzPlus. It's a little silly though, because I'll not know what I'm missing, but it just adds a bit to the "intimidation" and frustration factors when your intention is to go all out and learn one version of a language, then it pretty much gets pushed aside before its even in your hands.

[Bill_Loguidice]

...
1: Books? Go to Amazon.com, type in 'game programming' in the search window. Over 700 hits are returned. This is a sea that is hard to swim. What I would like is a good book that is not language specific that discusses theory. Do you know of any books that give great hints on AI, or other such subjects. Blindly spending $50-60 for a book that may turn out to suck has me worried. Are there any classic must have texts?

2: How many hobby programmers do we have here? How many pros with personal projects? Do we have the makings of a small hobby coding community here? Is there enough here to add another forum to the index? This appeals to me, because everyone here is polite, nice, and plays well with others. Many so called coding communites have immature members made worse by intolerant gurus. The result is a very strange environment where nothing much other than flaming and self aggrandizement get done. I think the members of this forum would behave nicely, and perhaps a few collaborative projects would emerge.

Thoughts?

I feel your pain with the game programming books. It's VERY difficult to get something at the level that you want. It seems everything I pick up claims to be for beginners, but then you start to look at it and it assumes a LOT and starts to stream lines of code at you. I'm always like, "huh?"

Anyway, I totally agree with (or should I say "second") your idea of a hobbyist coding community here. I'm VERY comfortable with everyone here and it seems to be pretty much devoid of idiots and a**holes. Kind of like an oasis in a desert of jerkiness (or something like that). Unfortunately, I don't know if this is appropriate in the context of these particular forums or something that Shane wants to do, but it would be great...

[Shane R. Monroe]

Have no fear!

Blitz 2D has been around long enough that all the kinks are out. Its stable, feature-rich, and will satisfy your needs.

Since you're new to the Blitz community, I can CERTAINLY understand your concern.

Here is information you probably aren't aware of.

- When Blitz3D came out, we were ALL sure Blitz2D would get kicked to the curb ... and it remarkably wasn't. Updates were almost point for point with B3D (unless the update was strictly 3D oriented) and have been.

- Mark has a terrible soft spot for 2D. There will probably ALWAYS be an incarnation of Blitz2D.

- After Blitz 3D hit, yet ANOTHER Blitz was planned - BLITZ MAX - and pretty much everyone hated the concepts behind it. We all bitched and bitched and finally, talk about Blitz Max kinda vanished. Now, from out of the blue comes BLITZ PLUS - which has all the "GOOD" things that Blitz Max was to offer (event driven GUI a la VB mode) without the crap we all didn't want (OpenGL native and cross platformability - one man can't be asked to maintain 3 copies of blitz PLUS two other platforms too). You'll also notice the price took a heavy increase - you got off light, Bill

- I can tell you that through the grapevine, Blitz Plus is NOT complete as the product Mark wanted to initially release. I can also tell you its one step above beta. I've managed to crash it with three different pieces of code that should have no business crashing it. I can also tell you that once he's done with it, there will be nothing to challenge it as the 2D/App programming champion.

- Blitz 2D code is 99% compatible with Blitz Plus. VERY LITTLE change is needed to port your code. Start on B2D, you're still ready for B+ later (hopefully when its half the price too).

If NOTHING else, Mark hasn't been corrupted by fame or money - he still cares. That alone speaks a lot of the product.

[Shane R. Monroe]

I hate to say it ... but the best resources are on line. If you are one of those ones that 'can't read off the screen' or "have to have a book", you could be S.O.L.

There are a handful of decent physics books (check O'Reilly) but they are ALL brutally slanted toward C and other languages that are really painful to translate sometimes.

My recommendation? Pray your language has a very good community. Blitz Basic's forums are STUFFED FULL of great physics, AI, pathfinding, and other code. And the people that made it are around to answer questions. I'm sure other languages are equally equipped.

[xyzzy]

Bill wrote:

Anyway, I totally agree with (or should I say "second") your idea of a hobbyist coding community here. I'm VERY comfortable with everyone here and it seems to be pretty much devoid of idiots and a**holes. Kind of like an oasis in a desert of jerkiness (or something like that). Unfortunately, I don't know if this is appropriate in the context of these particular forums or something that Shane wants to do, but it would be great...

Shane would be the last say, of course. There are many reasons not to do it. Like he is busy and has a life, maybe not wanting to run yet another community.

However, the reasons why I think it would be good here are as follows:

We all like 2D gaming, and love the old school stuff. Why not put our money where our mouth is and MAKE the old school stuff?

You are right about this being an oasis devoid of schmucks. I like the fact that it is small. And I know it may sound weird but I would want ZERO promotion. (The only way to keep it devoid of schmucks, and easy for Shane.) People would find it because they were old school gamers who liked the show and got into the message board. Not because they were some really impatient college student who was doing this just for an assignment, and found it through Google.

And lastly, because the people here may be capable of collaboration. I'm sure there are friendly coding communities out there. But requests for collaboration are not something I would do there. It would seem out of bounds, and I wouldn't know who I was dealing with. Not that I know you all really well, but I get the feeling of who you guys are a lost more strongly than any other message forum.

[Shane R. Monroe]

If you guys want a forum, I can give you a forum. I don't have much time to do anything Blitztacular again....