I'm actually using IDLE right now <_<

Why not, Max? I thought most commercial games were programmed in C++?

Well last night I got on a roll and now I'm set up with using MinGW as my compiler, Code::Blocks as my IDE, and Allegro for my GUI. It's very straightforward. Thanks for your words of wisdom, though.

That's true, but GUI != games. Games draw everything by hand using DirectX/OpenGL, including what interface there is, while ordinary GUI programs use OS-defined controls. For the latter, it's really a waste of effort to code your own GUI each time. Higher level languages allow you to stop worrying about memory management and low level optimization since you don't need efficiency in GUI programs anyways.

I am sort of in two minds about this. I see where you are coming from, but with that argument you could also argue that there is no point learning C as there are other languages that do everything better. (For example, fortran has the possablilty for being slightly faster in some cases due to stricter pointer rules, plus it has loads more maths libraries iirc)

I would say that it was probably worth learning either wxWidgets or QT (as the two major FOSS cross platform libraries). The majority of C++ gui libraries are very transferable. You can find wxWidgets for every language under the sun (Haskell to Python) and they don't vary much as they are just a wrapper around an shared library. I am sure this is the same for QT.

QT and wxWidgets both have design tools to allow you put together GUIs fast. QT has an entire IDE that looks quite nice.


However game editors are sometimes written in C++ and use the OS GUI functions (or a wrapper around them in the case of QT and other cross-platform libraries), usually because it is easier than putting together a C#/Whatever wrapper.

Well, Fortran is hardly usable for any kind of real applications outside math nowadays, while C has aged quite gracefully. It's still the fastest among modern languages.


I haven't used either of those in C++, but the main strength of C++ is performance, and in GUI programs you almost never need it. Why burden yourself with the problems of C++ (manual memory management) when you are not using the main strength of that language?


Yeah, the Qt IDE is quite nice, but when you go down to the actual code, you'll still be talking C++ with it.


Yeah, but that was not really the question. In any case, .NET is gaining a lot of ground in that area. I was browsing through Blizzard's job openings recently, and all their tools programmer positions ask for .NET experience first and foremost.

Nowadays a lot of companies in the games industry are using C# to write their tools, as it is easy to use for GUIs, is more simple and faster to write a program with than C++, and is very easy to interface with C++.

Your main code base is in C++? You can't use another language? You want a binary that will run without any external dependencies?

I am sort of hoping that D takes off, C++ but better. Optional GC, array bounds checking and a syntax that is actually possible to parse.

True. But at least it isn't PHP



:nod: I do like C# far more than most other languages I have used (Haskell and Python are up there as well) and I doubt low level compiled languages are the way forward, the JVM does a far better job at allocating memory than I ever could in C++. The only places where languages like C# or Java really falls down is where you don't have much memory or want to allocate everything in advance.

C# is also leaps and bounds ahead of Java, which still hasn't got closures <_<. I just wish there was an up to date cross platform .net implementation with a standard gui library.


Thats why I put sometimes in

I wasn't arguing against your point, I was actually kind of reinforcing it.

These aren't that hard to address. Interfacing with C++ from most languages is simple, so the codebase point is rarely a problem. Not being able to use another language is probably a problem with your platform in the first place. As for dependencies, if you're writing a GUI, chances are you'll have to include dynamically loaded libraries anyway.


I've read through the D docs a long time ago and it did look like a polished version of C++. Still, I don't see it gaining much popularity. It's been out for quite a while, and I'm yet to meet anyone who uses it for real programs.


I quite like PHP. It was my favourite language while I was working on web projects (and had not learned Python yet). It may be hacky and not object oriented, but I've never seen a better documented language/standard library.


I prefer C# to Java by far as well, but I still cringe whenever I have to write something like "Point pt = new Point()" or even worse "Dictionary dict = new Dictionary()" when in Python that would be "dict = {}".

I took a Java class in school, but due to circumstances I was not in class 75% of the time, so I didn't learn much.

I also dabbled in visual basic with my cousin, and we made a simple slot machine game.

Even statically linking the gui library into the binary leads to a smaller overall download size, and is far less annoying, than having to ask the user to install .net/java/cpython.


It lacks a big backer (As in IBM/Google/Microsoft), which is a problem. It also lacks development tools, and the compilers is apparently a bastard to setup on windows.


PHP5 is OO now. What annoyed me was the argument order, the function naming, the fact that everything is in the global namespace, the fact that you can crash the vm (A stack overflow crashes it for instance :blink:).

Having said that, it is probably the language I know best.


Agreed. D had an interesting solution which was the auto keyword.

auto foo = new Bar<Bar>();

Python still looks neater though

In that case baking a Python script into a standalone EXE grows it by ~2MB, which is not that large nowadays. .NET and Java are pretty much standard too, and at least for .NET, making an installer for your program that includes .NET is very simple. Gone are the days of having to ask the user to manually download and install libraries.


It's a pity. C++ would certainly benefit from some polish.


Oh, it allows classes, but it's not really OO. The library is still all the same.


Totally agree with you on these (though I didn't know you could crash the VM). The lack of namespaces in the library in particular is a very stupid choice on their part.

I have been fighting with my Beginning Visual C# 2005 book for awhile. But I started to branch off and learn bits and pieces that I wanted to at one point. I really should go back to it though and try to pickup where I left off, or just restart even if I know the basic concepts. I was also thinking this morning of going through my SAMS Teach Yourself C++ in 24 hours book but the syntax is way to awkward for me. Same with the VB.NET book I have. I have taken a liking to C#, though since my book is .NET 2.0 based some easier ways to do stuff (like XML processing) exist in .NET 3.0/3.5 yet it isn't explained.

I do want to keep learning it even if I won't really use it for much.

Also, Visual Studio 2008 Pro (with SP1) for some reason won't remember my choices for new projects. I keeps having VB expanded when all I ever use is C#. It won't remember when I collapse it. Anyone know how to solve this issue? I bet it will do the same thing if I start a C++ project. I have already reset all the settings and it did it on a fresh install.

I was the same. I got halfway through both of my C++ books, and restarted both of them also. I still haven't gotten back around to doing any programming in months, but I blame the duel credit college courses at school. I think this next semester I will have a lot more free time to work on my skills.

And I think that restarting the book is just fine. Understanding key concepts allows you to grasp what it is talking about more and more. When I was just beginning, I would stare at the same line of code in the book for an eternity before I could even partly realize the order in it and what the writer was up to. When I came back, I understood enough so that I could name out every function within the code and what was pointing to what and work out in my head, before I even compiled and used the program, what would be displayed.

AH! This is so simple to use. I'm using Allegro for my graphics and its a breeze, and there's plenty of documentation. Here's a little program I was testing in. It's a simple paint program.. it even lets you save the picture!

http://i49.tinypic.com/29c03v5.jpg

And that's all in about 100 lines of code. It's pretty cool, really.

That's pretty nice, man.

I really want to do programs like this, but I'm not far enough along to understand how to output stuff like that, or accept input based on the mouse movements. So far, only text.

It's not too complicated at all. I really haven't used any of my C++ knowledge in that program. It's mostly all allegro-related function calls.. and the documentation for it is pretty good.

Sorry for my ignorance but why do so many forums use PHP? I've always wondered....

I assume because of the large amount of hosts that support it. Almost every webhost that supports a server side language will support PHP.

PHP is a popular server-side scripting language. It's fast, readable, and writable. There are also hundreds of free PHP forums (Or you could build your own in a weekend. Perhaps not with the featureset of PHPBB or SMF, but it'd be a forum). Not so for Python, or any of the other popular serverside languages.

Anyone have any suggestions for good C# books? The one I have is a bit older and since I have been using that language most I wanted to stick with it, even though its not cross platform.

Nice thread, thank you very much. I'm only rudimentary at best, Visual Basic, C++, but would love to try python.

http://img691.imageshack.us/i/lmaod.jpg/
:facepalm:

That just brightened up my day

Go for it, Python is awesome :hehe:


I don't even