Gaming To all the programmers

[CannonFoddr]

OK - although this is in the PC section it really refers to all the programmers/developers of GBAtemp
[Those who do applications on PC or Homebrew on Wii/DS etc]

There's soooo many useful apps/programs/homebrew on GBATemp - it got me wondering ...

• What do they (the programmers & developers) actually USE ??

- & thought the info might be useful for those who wish to start out programming get an insight to what to choose

Here's the questions....

• What do YOU use to program/develop YOUR application/Homebrew ? (.NET/Basic/Pascal/C++ .... etc)
• What Application/Homebrew have you / are you developing ??
• Were you 'professionally trained' (ie. @ School/College/Work) or Self Taught ??
• If Self Taught - What books/tutorials did you find useful ???
• In you honest opinion - how easy do YOU think it was to learn ??

FYI - I don't class myself as a programmer but have dabbled with Delphi (v1 - that came free with a magazine many years ago) and VBA (Visual basic for Applications), Self-taught, used 'Learn to program Delphi in 24days' book + various tutorials/examples from the web

I have been thinking about creating a couple of apps myself - so this info could be useful to decide which to choose IF I decide to proceed

 

[Joe88]

* What do YOU use to program/develop YOUR application/Homebrew ? (.NET/Basic/Pascal/C++ .... etc)
visual studio 6.0 and visual studio 2008 / 2010
c, c++, c#

masm 6.15
assembly

misc: (internet coding and such)
dreamweaver
html, javascript

pspdev

* What Application/Homebrew have you / are you developing ??
building a c# gui based application for a hotel management bill system (not for an actual hotel, just a school project)

* Were you 'professionally trained' (ie. @ School/College/Work) or Self Taught ??

college (currently in progress)

QUOTE

* In you honest opinion - how easy do YOU think it was to learn ??

really depends if the person is willing to work at it

 

[arctic_flame]

http://abstrusegoose.com/249 sums up my opinion of the "teach yourself blah in x days" books.

 

[Wabsta]

Here's the questions....

* What do YOU use to program/develop YOUR application/Homebrew ? (.NET/Basic/Pascal/C++ .... etc)
* What Application/Homebrew have you / are you developing ??
* Were you 'professionally trained' (ie. @ School/College/Work) or Self Taught ??
* If Self Taught - What books/tutorials did you find useful ???
* In you honest opinion - how easy do YOU think it was to learn ??

Here's the answers...

* Atm, I use PHP/MySQLi/JavaScript/Actionscript, but I am experienced in C# too.
* I have made a pokédex for the NDS, I've made several websites, including a webshop, fully working, and atm, I'm working on a CMS as a school project.
* Eeehh, both.
* http://www.google.com
* Ehm, pretty easy actually, did have some thoughness with OO programming.

 

[FAST6191]

Here's the questions....

* What do YOU use to program/develop YOUR application/Homebrew ? (.NET/Basic/Pascal/C++ .... etc)
* What Application/Homebrew have you / are you developing ??
* Were you 'professionally trained' (ie. @ School/College/Work) or Self Taught ??
* If Self Taught - What books/tutorials did you find useful ???
* In you honest opinion - how easy do YOU think it was to learn ??

1) Anything and everything from electronics up to flash- languages all have their strengths and weaknesses and while you can limit yourself you should already have given applications in mind if you do-> nobody writes kernels in COBOL and equally nobody uses ASM for building a basic website. Perhaps in a less philosophical manner you also have to consider that there are a multitude of programming languages, styles and development environments and libraries for a reason and being able to interface things is where it gets both complex and useful. The only thing that stays constant is that it is nice to have a good text entry* system- using notepad is possible but something like notepad++ is that much nicer.

*he who mentions pictorial programming languages gets their cookies taken away.

2) Many things- I am usually called in to interface things together and reverse engineer them otherwise.

3) Technically both but mainly self taught- wander over to your chosen IT jobs website and see how many request experience or how many will not ask to see some example code/see you solve some problems/your portfolio. That is not to say education is bad- some of the worst code I have seen comes from those who "know what they were doing" and indeed they did and the code "worked" but have pity on whoever inherits the code (it is not all about having something "work"), this sort of thing most education will try to stop in the first few months.

4) No one book on any one subject- usually I read many books on the same subject as they all explain things slightly differently (assuming they are not based on/copy one another). Low level stuff in ASM and electronics is/was pretty good for seeing what happens when you are playing at a higher level though.

5) I find computers boring and predictable but I did want to learn about them; how hard I find something usual scales with little I want to do it.

 

[tk_saturn]

If you're going to create anything you should use C++/ Visual C. The Delphi compiler is likely to been written in C++, same goes VBA.This is common practice, so you may as well go straight to the horses mouth.

Personally I prefer ADA, which came across on a Computer Science course.

 

[Forstride]

1) What do YOU use to program/develop YOUR application/Homebrew ? (.NET/Basic/Pascal/C++ .... etc)
I've done a lot of Visual Basic 2005 work in school, and it's become very easy to me, mainly because coding is simple and straight-forward...Not so much the object-oriented advantage for me. I've used C++ a tiny bit, but I'm going to be doing more work with it after I get certified in Excel 2007 (Two more chapters in my book until I can take the certification test. I've also done HTML in Notepad for about 2 weeks in a Web Design class before we used Frontpage for the remainder of the class...HTML was easy, but we only did basic stuff, since the rest of the class didn't understand it, which is why we did Frontpage after that.

2) What Application/Homebrew have you / are you developing ??
I've done Windows applications, web forms, and Pocket PC applications in Visual Basic 2005. I haven't done much with homebrew stuff before, but I did try to make a simple Arkanoid game in C++ with PAlib for the DS. I got the paddle to move to where the stylus was touching on the x-axis of the screen and subtracting half of the paddle's width from that number so the middle of the paddle is where the stylus is touching. I coded the ball, and I got it to bounce off the sides of the walls correctly, but I never got to code the blocks, which would've been easy.

3) Were you 'professionally trained' (ie. @ School/College/Work) or Self Taught ??
Mainly tech school (VB 2005 and C++) and my normal school (VB6 and HTML), but I taught myself a little bit of C++ using PAlib when I made that little Arkanoid application.

4) If Self Taught - What books/tutorials did you find useful ???
I Googled stuff I needed to know, and went from there.

5) In you honest opinion - how easy do YOU think it was to learn ??
It's not rocket science, but it's not the easiest thing in the world. It really depends on what you're coding, and what language you are coding it with.


I want to learn as much about programming as I can, because I definitely don't know that much (I'm only in high school, but there are programmers younger than me that have created awesome things I couldn't create with my current knowledge). Sure, I've created games in Game Maker 7 using it's built in programming language, but it's an amateur program, and professionals wouldn't use that to create a professional game. Hopefully when I go to DeVry University this summer for an open-house type thing for their Game and Simulation Design class (I'm a junior, but I get to do hands-on things and actually interact with instructors there), I can find out what directions I need to go in to become a better programming.

 

[playallday]

Here's the questions....

• What do YOU use to program/develop YOUR application/Homebrew ? (.NET/Basic/Pascal/C++ .... etc) - Mostly Java with Netbeans
• What Application/Homebrew have you / are you developing ?? - Haven't done anything big, but I have a big project planned for this summer. Lots of server stuff, so I doubt it'll get done soon.
  
• Were you 'professionally trained' (ie. @ School/College/Work) or Self Taught ?? - Self taught. Hopefully going to university in a few weeks.
• If Self Taught - What books/tutorials did you find useful ??? - I normally start off with a basic book, then go online.
• In you honest opinion - how easy do YOU think it was to learn ?? - Not that hard if you know what you want to do.

 

[UltraMagnus]

What do YOU use to program/develop YOUR application/Homebrew ? (.NET/Basic/Pascal/C++ .... etc)
Netbeans - Java
mplab - C18 and assembly
xilinx ISE - VHDL

What Application/Homebrew have you / are you developing ??
Nothing I care to tell anyone about, at least yet.

Were you 'professionally trained' (ie. @ School/College/Work) or Self Taught ??
I am currently at University studying computer engineering, but I taught myself a lot of stuff as well.
QUOTE(CannonFoddr @ Apr 14 2010, 11:20 AM) If Self Taught - What books/tutorials did you find useful ???

google
QUOTE(CannonFoddr @ Apr 14 2010, 11:20 AM)

In you honest opinion - how easy do YOU think it was to learn ??

easy to learn the syntax, you can do it in weeks in almost any language, I don't think you can ever know everything about the methodology.

If you want to learn, the language isn't that important, most languages work in a very similar way to each other.

 

[Dragonlord]

> What do YOU use to program/develop YOUR application/Homebrew ? (.NET/Basic/Pascal/C++ .... etc)
C++, DragonScript, Python, Smalltalk

> What Application/Homebrew have you / are you developing ??
Game Engine, Game (multi-platform), various tools, scripts(Blender3D), office tools (sort off... in retrospect I'm not proud of it

), websites and other things I can't remember anymore

> Were you 'professionally trained' (ie. @ School/College/Work) or Self Taught ??
Self taught, University

> If Self Taught - What books/tutorials did you find useful ???
Internet and T&E

> In you honest opinion - how easy do YOU think it was to learn ??
If you like hacking, then it's easy... if you do it for fame, go home and forget about it. Hacking is something you have to live. If code is just strings of bytes to you that serves just a purpose to make money or be "cool", go home and forget about it. Too many wannabe hackers out there.

 

[Matt140]

• What do YOU use to program/develop YOUR application/Homebrew ? (.NET/Basic/Pascal/C++ .... etc) I use Visual C++ Express 2010 with a makefile set up to compile with devkitPro for homebrew and C# for windows apps.
• What Application/Homebrew have you / are you developing ?? A small RPG at the moment, although I've not gotten very far XD.
• Were you 'professionally trained' (ie. @ School/College/Work) or Self Taught ?? I am self-taught in VB, C#, C/C++, Delphi, Python and a few others, although I have classes in school for VB (the worst thing is, it's VB6!!!)
• If Self Taught - What books/tutorials did you find useful ??? I mainly used online tutorials (like learncpp.com - great site!)
• In you honest opinion - how easy do YOU think it was to learn ?? It is very easy once you have a basic understanding of programming concepts, you can then easily port accross code from one language to another.

 

[CannonFoddr]

Bloody hell... Only half a dozen replies and I haven't even HEARD of half these 'languages'

When I got my first computer there was only 2... 'BASIC' and 'Assembly'/'Machine code'

Of course over the years I've heard of others like C(+,++,#), JAVA/JavaScript and python/php - but the others !!!!!?!? (Smalltalk/mplab/masm/ADA ???) - WOW !!!

I guess I should've been more specific in my post and said something like -
What do you use to produce PC Applications and/or DS Homebrew (i.e. NOT Web pages/Server apps or 'macros-type application accessories')

 

[zeromac]

Urgh... I've always wanted to learn C/C++ or Actionscript 2.0 but i can't find any good guides or anything..
Gotta stay commited lol

 

[BoxShot]

Urgh... I've always wanted to learn C/C++ or Actionscript 2.0 but i can't find any good guides or anything..
Gotta stay commited lol

Staying committed is hard.

Lets see if I can be committed with HTML.

(No I have no reason to learn it but for the sake of learning it)

 

[zeromac]

Urgh... I've always wanted to learn C/C++ or Actionscript 2.0 but i can't find any good guides or anything..
Gotta stay commited lol

Staying committed is hard.

Lets see if I can be committed with HTML.

(No I have no reason to learn it but for the sake of learning it)

Lol it's always been my desire to make flash games and be a game designer

Gotta go find some guides

 

[eltrut]

Java and ActionScript 3.0

I'm half self-taught, half schooling as to learn any of it well you have to do more than is needed to pass a course. Currently doing a bachelors of Game Design at Uni but thats a bit easy so far.

To do PC and/or DS homebrew, i recommend learning C++ (which i'm getting into next semester after I finish learning ActionScript)

 

[Wasmachinemann]

Im a GTAIII/VC/SA coder, I know a lot of modding the 3 GTA games, It uses .SCM coding, That file can be opened by SannyBuilder, a Mission Builder for Renderware GTA games.

 

[Dragonlord]

Bloody hell... Only half a dozen replies and I haven't even HEARD of half these 'languages'

When I got my first computer there was only 2... 'BASIC' and 'Assembly'/'Machine code'

Of course over the years I've heard of others like C(+,++,#), JAVA/JavaScript and python/php - but the others !!!!!?!? (Smalltalk/mplab/masm/ADA ???) - WOW !!!

I guess I should've been more specific in my post and said something like -
What do you use to produce PC Applications and/or DS Homebrew (i.e. NOT Web pages/Server apps or 'macros-type application accessories')

Smalltalk is the mother of all object oriented languages. You are not a real hacker if you never programmed with it. Look at http://squeak.org/ if you want to get introduced to Smalltalk (make sure to get your hand on Tutorials first before messing in the VM

). Also check out any LISP/Scheme language to understand better programming languages.

MASM is just an Microsoft Assembler language

ADA is a rather scientific language. You won't find it that often in the wild especially since it has quite a broken design.

EDIT: Ah yeah... and don't forget to check out Lambda Calculus. Not really a language you want to use to write programs but if you want to really understand programming on a more theoretical base get this to know.

 

[UltraMagnus]

Bloody hell... Only half a dozen replies and I haven't even HEARD of half these 'languages'

When I got my first computer there was only 2... 'BASIC' and 'Assembly'/'Machine code'

Of course over the years I've heard of others like C(+,++,#), JAVA/JavaScript and python/php - but the others !!!!!?!? (Smalltalk/mplab/masm/ADA ???) - WOW !!!

I guess I should've been more specific in my post and said something like -
What do you use to produce PC Applications and/or DS Homebrew (i.e. NOT Web pages/Server apps or 'macros-type application accessories')

mplab is a tool (integrated development environment) for programming PIC microcontrollers in C or ASM.

for PC applications, I would highly recommend java, netbeans (another IDE) even has an integrated GUI builder.

 

[Joe88]

also forgot to post matlab...