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Newcomers DBPro Corner / How did you learn to program?

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CattleRustler
Retired Moderator
21
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Joined: 8th Aug 2003
Location: case modding at overclock.net
Posted: 8th Aug 2003 23:03
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I started coding when I was 9 on an atari 400 in BASIC. As I got older I began to dabble in QBasic & Visual Basic. I never ended up going to school for programming (which I regret now) but I did end up becomming a professional programmer in VB6 & most recently VB .NET. Regardless of the language (C++,C,all the basics) all of the concepts are the same. If you gain a general understanding of Variables, Scope, Subroutines, Functions, Objects, Properties you will see DBP is quite easy to program in with the only complexity being in the games you try to make. I wish I knew of "a book" that you could use but I don't. Maybe try learning a flavor of VB to get you grounded in basic programming principles then switch to DBP where the only difference will be the Syntax (for the most part)

Just a thought
Rustler

How do ya do there son
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CarlTaylor
21
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Joined: 13th Jan 2003
Location: United States
Posted: 9th Aug 2003 04:25 Edited at: 9th Aug 2003 04:29
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A word to the wise: don't post your homepage and urge people to go there if all links are either broken or nonexistant... it makes you look kinda bad... in fact, make sure ALL links are working and ALL pages are running, first impressions ARE close to everything after all.

-carl


p.s.: (this is to one of the people who posted on this thread, it wasnt just a random comment lol)

p.p.s.: (why is it a word TO the wise and not a word FROM the wise? i mean, if the person you are telling it to was wise, you wouldnt need to tell them anything right? *scratches head*)

P4 2gig, 256mb RAM, 64mb DDR NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 w/ TV Out
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Redhen
21
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Joined: 5th Aug 2003
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Posted: 9th Aug 2003 12:11
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Linux is your Friend ! It's free too, just download it.
Well, at least that's what I did 12 years ago.

Shell scripts are easy, and you get the GNU c compiler for free too.

First program I ever wrote was in Fortan, hehe. Long time ago (when dinosaurs roamed the planet) we went on a class trip to a university where they gave us a crash course on Fortan, and we tied up all the punch card readers for the whole day. Good God, I feel old.

Get Partition magic, or another hard drive and slap Linux on it.
Great for hacking around. Learning Python right now on the job, that's the best way to learn I find.

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KamaKase
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Joined: 29th Oct 2002
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Posted: 9th Aug 2003 18:30
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I did the same, but I've used a lot of languages (really stupid ones). Div's tutorial is very good. That was very helpful. Plus I knew DBC. DBPro, is just a little tricky and fairly quirky. Once you get used to it though it's fine.
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MicroMan
21
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Joined: 19th Aug 2003
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Posted: 20th Aug 2003 05:55
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My first post... And I've already got a complaint.

I agree with SpiderMan in that the documentation for DBP is abysmal. It's not that I wouldn't be able to figure out this thing. The commands aren't hard, after all, and most are quite straight forward.

With me I just program VB, and then backtrack to see what went wrong. But that isn't a good method for programming since the debugging takes forever, and there's no chance to catch all the bugs without a firmer grasp of the niceties of [B]this[/B] language. Which you can't get without decent documentation.

3d programming is very complex, after all. How do you flip normals? How do you select vertices, and change faces? How do you dynamically shadow an object for a Final Fantasy type game-view? How do you check out line-of-sight for an opponent, and determine whether the opponent can see you behind that rock? The list goes on...

What I'm saying is that though the things I've mentioner probably never will be particularly easy or straight forward, there are no hooks into [b]this[/B] language that make the transition as comfortable as possible.

Cheers,
MicroMan

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The Terminator
21
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Joined: 19th Aug 2003
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 12:56
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Hey guys! I was 12 years old when I started to get curious about how programs worked, ironicly I tried C/C++ frist and then a just about gave up when I was expermenting with the line assembly and the frist programming language I learn't was 8086 ASM to me it is the easyest computer language to date but that's because I think in small ideas
then I was about 15 or so I desided to try an interpeter based langauge (QB 4.5) witch at the time I thought to be primitive because I was used to the power and speed of assembly but now that darkbasic is out I can make my libs and use them in DBpro without anyloss of speed like QB or VB.

Windows! The game that never ends.
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Redostrike
21
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Joined: 9th Feb 2003
Location: Belgium
Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 13:51
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Well i was 12 yr old when i got a "Vetech" (do you know them, Man i still have it now only it's broken.) There where some buttons on it to open up a program. "Basic" Whats basic i saw in the manual and it was programming. There was even a special book inside it. There i started whit programming. Then i getted my first computer (486) And i there was qbasic i tryed some commands from basic and yep they worked. But that wasent all qbasic could do. 5 yr later whit a new computer and internet. I found some things on the internet about qbasic and one day i bounced here. Little history >LOL<.

Well i hope you have fun whit Darkbasic. And never give up programming.

Only heroes live forever.
Beatboxing Rulllllllllllzzzzzzzzzzzzz
www.redostrike-yugioh.tk
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BatVink
Moderator
21
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Joined: 4th Apr 2003
Location: Gods own County, UK
Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 15:40
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Quote: "I started in the original Basic when I was 8 or 9 (yes, the original Basic. "


Not if you're 21 you didn't!!

I wrote my own version of Tron Light Cycles in 1983 on a Dragon 32...using Microsoft Basic 1.0!!

Still not the original basic, but it was Mr Gates' first version. The Dragon 32 ran on a Motorola MC6809EP chip, so it was not even close to 8080/8086 technology.

So that's my tip...get yourself a Dragon 32, basic is built in to the operating system. For nostalgic purposes, I suggest buying an '80s style 12 inch portable TV.

StevieVee
http://facepaint.me.uk/catalog/default.php
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Mentor
22
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Joined: 27th Aug 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 22nd Aug 2003 17:37
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LOL @ Stevie Vee
eat my shorts kiddy , I made my own ZX80 from a kit I bought from Sinclair electronics, a whole 1/2k of memory (and that included what the display used), and it got that hot you could keep your toast warm on the transformer housing at the back, ,and I do mean ZX80, not ZX81, I did upgrade to the ZX81 when it came out though, and bought a 3 1/2k memory expansion so that I could write "big" programs, nowdays the program icon uses more memory than the whole program did back then , learnt my BASIC out of the Sinclair manual, this was back when they made real ringbound manuals, every instruction explained with examples just for that command and the whole manual was a tutorial and tech reference all in one, they even told you what the memory locations did and suggested numbers to poke into them

Mentor.
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