Is anyone here purely for nostalgia?

General discussion for topics related to the FreeBASIC project or its community.
caseih
Posts: 2157
Joined: Feb 26, 2007 5:32

Re: Is anyone here purely for nostalgia?

Post by caseih »

Good points.

I have found, though, that a language like Python is both easy for beginners to learn and use, and it also is used by expert programmers who have had many decades of development experience. So it is possible to be both usable by experts and beginners.

I guess it always comes back around to the question of what direction makes sense for FB to go in the future. Everything I can think of to improve FB just seems to make it more of a C/C++ clone with a BASIC-esque syntax, which probably isn't that useful.
Tourist Trap
Posts: 2958
Joined: Jun 02, 2015 16:24

Re: Is anyone here purely for nostalgia?

Post by Tourist Trap »

BasicCoder2 wrote: The same logic applies to writing games. That is why Blitz Basic or Dark Basic was written. Now I see programmers using something called Unity. The point is they don't program from they ground up with C++. They use game writing tools.
Just to share, I'm not sure at all that all this is the way the things go in the industry.

Just an example. Ultima 6 (or 7?), that I enjoyed to play years ago was a so advanced game (years of prosperity and success) that they finally had made their own language for editing the game. In the Ultima 6 version they released the engine with the game. You just had to open a console and type something to enable editing. Then you were able to do every thing you could dream of, displacing buildings of the original game, adding animals, monsters, and I suppose scripting events was also allowed (I had no time to test every thing, it was just huge).

So by no means the original language of development is so important in the game industry. In the game industry you have to create your game engine in order to work in a comfort zone that enables creativity at its full extent (or you will keep figthing against your favorite language because it will probably never do everything as you would like).

It's not sure that starting from a language already dedicated to game creation will help then, because you will get trapped in a world of assumptions about game making that is not necessarily yours. At least it's my feeling.
caseih wrote: I have found, though, that a language like Python is both easy for beginners to learn and use, and it also is used by expert programmers who have had many decades of development experience. So it is possible to be both usable by experts and beginners.
Python is deadly useful ourdays, as a scripting language for softwares like GIMP and so on. But for learning purpose Freebasic is also a good choice, as well as PERL. I tend to think that there should be a learning pack for every beginners. Maybe Python+FB+Perl is one example, maybe C, C++ and say VBA is one other. I've learned a lot of fundamental stuff thanks to freebasic that enables a dive close to the OS without the frightening syntax of C.
caseih
Posts: 2157
Joined: Feb 26, 2007 5:32

Re: Is anyone here purely for nostalgia?

Post by caseih »

Nah everyone should learn Scheme as their first language. ;) Only half serious. Scheme really does broaden the mind and helps one understand the theory and calculus of programming langauges.

As for learning languages, I guess it all depends on for what purpose you are learning. If you are aiming to be a computer programmer, then I would expect if you can program well in FB, Perl, Python, C, or even GW-BASIC, you'll also program well in whatever language of the day your company is working on. So in that sense it doesn't matter so much which language you choose. Though if a language is starting to feel cramped to you, feel free to investigate another one. Sometimes languages are popular for a reason.

I remember reading a book in college about object-oriented programming in assembler. Was very interesting and applicable to my experience in other languages.
BasicCoder2
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Joined: Jan 01, 2009 7:03
Location: Australia

Re: Is anyone here purely for nostalgia?

Post by BasicCoder2 »

@Tourist Trap
It's not sure that starting from a language already dedicated to game creation will help then, because you will get trapped in a world of assumptions about game making that is not necessarily yours.
If you are not an ACE C++ computer science graduate programmer with years of practice and a mathematical brain but want to write a game you have to use their game engines and game tools.
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@caseih
I remember reading a book in college about object-oriented programming in assembler. Was very interesting and applicable to my experience in other languages.
Never made it to college :( However while teaching myself Assembler I do remember TASM offered some ways to make programming in OOP easier. I never managed to get into OOP as I never reached the skill level to write anything worth while. Writing code snippets is just a challenging passtime and more fun than cross words.
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Tourist Trap
Posts: 2958
Joined: Jun 02, 2015 16:24

Re: Is anyone here purely for nostalgia?

Post by Tourist Trap »

BasicCoder2 wrote: If you are not an ACE C++ computer science graduate programmer with years of practice and a mathematical brain but want to write a game you have to use their game engines and game tools.
I think that the kind of games you have in mind are simulations. Either massive agent simulations like sim city, or realistic physics simulations with 3d and AI etc...

Besides that there are ton of games that doesn't require a lot of knowledge. I still play text games on my c64 emulator. Bubbble Bobble has been a tremendous success, as well as the rather simple Tetris. Writting simulations is challenging by nature. Even the best simulation you can make this day will look weak compared to one other in the future days.

So,
in attempt to clarify this debate, I think that you maybe are talking about making simulations, either agent based (with a lot of agents) or highly realistic 3D worlds. Wouldn't you agree?

Anyway, then undoubtedly FB doesn't provide much support for writing those things. But it's absolutely ok for a large class of standard games. Now restricting our view on how to make realistic simulators, I can only agree that it will be complicated with FB. And I don't really know if it's normal or not. FB seems to me just a general purpose tool that tries to provide a comfortable syntax for a maximum of rough computing power.
caseih
Posts: 2157
Joined: Feb 26, 2007 5:32

Re: Is anyone here purely for nostalgia?

Post by caseih »

BasicCoder2 wrote:I never managed to get into OOP as I never reached the skill level to write anything worth while. Writing code snippets is just a challenging passtime and more fun than cross words.
Oh for sure. And that's definitely an area where FB works well, especially given your BASIC background. Python would be another language that fulfills the hobby coding for fun itch as well.

Have you ever written a bunch of functions or subs that shared state with each other? If so, that's a good candidate for converting to OOP. Especially if you find yourself wishing you could deal with more than one set of shared state at a time. Or if you've ever tried to capture an "... is a ..." relationship, OOP is appropriate. A square is a shape. A circle is a shape. What do my shapes have in common as far as variables? IE position, color, or whatever. OOP can be nice even when just dabbling in code snippets.

EDIT: Anyone else finding that the forum returns an empty page when you post a new reply, but the reply actually gets posted?
BasicCoder2
Posts: 3906
Joined: Jan 01, 2009 7:03
Location: Australia

Re: Is anyone here purely for nostalgia?

Post by BasicCoder2 »

caseih wrote:Anyone else finding that the forum returns an empty page when you post a new reply, but the reply actually gets posted?
Yes. After submitting a post this page comes up.
www.freebasic.net page isn't working
freebasic.net unable to handle this request
HTTP ERROR 500

However the post is sent and accepted.
marcov
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Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Is anyone here purely for nostalgia?

Post by marcov »

caseih wrote: Oh for sure. And that's definitely an area where FB works well, especially given your BASIC background. Python would be another language that fulfills the hobby coding for fun itch as well.
Malebolge also has a certain challenge/puzzle aspect.
BasicCoder2
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Joined: Jan 01, 2009 7:03
Location: Australia

Re: Is anyone here purely for nostalgia?

Post by BasicCoder2 »

Tourist Trap wrote:
BasicCoder2 wrote: If you are not an ACE C++ computer science graduate programmer with years of practice and a mathematical brain but want to write a game you have to use their game engines and game tools.
I think that the kind of games you have in mind are simulations. Either massive agent simulations like sim city, or realistic physics simulations with 3d and AI etc...
Yes I guess so.
Besides that there are ton of games that don't require a lot of knowledge. I still play text games on my c64 emulator.
Yes hundreds of old games are available to be played on the PC with different emulators.

The only really hard part about writing a computer game is thinking one up that anyone would want to play just as the hard part about writing a novel is thinking up a story anyone would want to read.
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