Beginners Programming Library

I only took a quick look, but I noticed a couple of crashes and various buttons not working in the demo/sandbox application. I also noticed how the download is a big package, containing a wide variety of stuff, but what pieces are actually useful to build a game with, and what stuff is merely for demonstration purposes? In other words, is there a single 'library' download - and is there an API documentation available?


Oh, I did take a look at some code, and while my FreeBasic-fu is pretty much non-existent (apparently QBasic is not QuickBasic, or it's been so long ago that I've completely forgotten what syntax it had), I did notice a bit of an oddball: the Point2D class relying on a SCREEN_CENTER global variable. But global variables are a bad thing - what if you're working with multiple screens with different sizes or resolutions? Just thought I'd point that out, given your 'won't (...) give you any bad habits that you have to unlearn' statement. ;)

Oh, I did take a look at some code, and while my FreeBasic-fu is pretty much non-existent (apparently QBasic is not QuickBasic, or it's been so long ago that I've completely forgotten what syntax it had), I did notice a bit of an oddball: the Point2D class relying on a SCREEN_CENTER global variable. But global variables are a bad thing - what if you're working with multiple screens with different sizes or resolutions? Just thought I'd point that out, given your 'won't (...) give you any bad habits that you have to unlearn' statement. ;)

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The crashes... I just noticed that too, I'm in the middle of switching my rendering routines over to Cairo so things are a mess, GUI has gone haywire etc... But the games work, I'm trying to document the library via Google Code Wiki. I'm also working on the Map and dynamically adding objects to the map which is causing me to rewire Constructors... This project will stabilize by next release, and you won't have this level of abomination in final product. *shame*

The global is an optimization, you can access the screen coordinates through a property called ScreenCoords. However, in FB function calls are slighty slower so to have that ability comes in handy especially when you're dealing with 100k points that are supposed to twinkle like stars and whatnot... It's an FB thing, and Global variables are maybe anti-academic but are not (pragmatically) bad.

In FB multiple screens (with different resolutions) would only be possible via direct API calls to Windows/Linux, ie: if you could do that, my library isn't going to interest you.

What my libray does well is make vector style and sprite based games, handle collision, user input, drawing etc... and soon those crappy text based buttons will be replaced by Cairo Rendered stuff.

I didn't realize how many crashes there were. They have to do with programs that are chained through the sandbox. They all run fine on there own, but crash because of parameter differences.

The Sandbox will eventually be an interactive tutorial for the concepts that it introduces.

At any rate, I learned to program by farting around in other people's code, and then make my own. So I figure maybe someone else would find it useful too.

At any rate, I remade Asteroids and I'm remaking Demon Attack, and I have an ongoing Top Down Space game I'm making with it... And it also has a Random Sentence Generator. I dunno. I've never put a project like this together, and I'm not a professional programmer.

But you're right, documentation would be good. Thanks for taking a look.



One thing I forgot to mention. There are a lot of GPL Sprites and some sounds for playing around with, which bloats the size.

I'm of the opinion that it's better to have a lot of sprites and not need them, than to need a lot of sprites and not have them.



[Edited by - rolliebollox on September 25, 2010 3:46:31 PM]