Pandora Development

[torpor]

Well, I won't get into the C vs. C++ debate, so if you want to learn some C++ techniques, the best way is to inspect some good code, and I can highly recommend the WakeBreaker sources if you want to get an idea of how to organize a project, well enough:

http://w1xer.at/pandora/

You can build this app *on* your Pandora itself, and use the Pandora to browse the sources - scite is a good editor for this, if you need it, or vim even, too (thats what I use). Anyway, this is a pretty well written set of code, for what it does its very clean and easy to comprehend, and we could really use a few more games derived from this code, if you know what I mean ..

 

[Dimacus]

I'm really, really sorry to follow up PokeParadox's awesome post above with this, but I feel it must be done.

:S Uncomfortable thinking about electricity in terms of cats.

Well, according to this, Benjamin Franklin invented electricity by rubbing cats backwards.

Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared "a horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

Oh god, I haven't laughed that hard for a long time, absolutely comedic genius!
Thank you for that link.

 

[Ratfink]

I always use C++ because it seems to be entirely backwards-compatible with C, and has objects. And the // comments. Last I heard, C doesn't have those, which is silly.

C++ is not entirely backward-compatible with C. C++ doesn't have variable-length arrays, but C99 does. As mentioned earlier, C99 has // comments in addition to /* comments */. I greatly prefer the /* */ ones myself, though.

 

[Gerix]

And how many kitties have to die of environmental pollution because you are wasting ressources by using C++ where its complexity and hardware abstraction is not required at all?

Less than the kitties that would die powering my laptop while I took the time to learn GTK+ and C.
Much less than the kitties that go into listening to music and watching porn GMod videos on my laptop.
:S Uncomfortable thinking about electricity in terms of cats.

Where I come from, we use coal...

I think a big problem about starting to program is getting intimidated by the scope. But I think this community has some great programmers who would be willing to answer questions and guide novices. I can help with basic C++ problems and maybe C (idk, the CS classes were C++, but the programming for math majors was C). I can also help with Visual Basic, but I'm not going to be happy about it.

 

[Prometheus]

I think a big problem about starting to program is getting intimidated by the scope.

I agree with this.

I have to say, though I'm some decades late in doing so, I actually picked up two old books (both of which are as old as I am :blink: ) on BASIC, with the intent of learning on my Pandora using the emulated form of my very first computer (the Commodore 64). Sure, it's not going to make anything amazing right now, but I'm having fun with it. (And yes, I replaced my first "HELLO WORLD" with something Mega Man-related instead.)

 

[Gerix]

It's funny you should mention that. My dad gave me his books regarding BASIC on the C64 a year or two ago. I haven't really looked at them, though.

 

[Prometheus]

I've got to admit, I do sort of regret not having the patience for it when I was a young'un (that said, I guess patience is something you learn along the way... I was six years old when I got my C64.). I'm looking forward to getting to the second book I bought, which covers writing text-adventures.

 

[torpor]

I'm absolutely enjoying the Oric-1 emulator on Pandora for exactly the reason that I can finally get some of those old, mysterious questions about how it worked answered!

So much fun having a debugger and writing assembly code again!

 

[marktuson]

thanks for the reply sebt3 you didnt mention the language however is it C++ I should focus on do you think?

I'd recommend you start with C before C++, the language is simpler (in my experience), and your code would be far more portable.

The majority of text editors do support syntax highlighting, even VIM does now (well, it seems to in Ubuntu, but not in Debian or Slackware). If you can get gedit (the GNOME text editor) on the Pandora, that'd probably be pretty good.

 

[Gerix]

I like geany. http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/55432-geany/ A gedit is fine too.

And I had better luck with C++ than C, but it could have been the book for C being really bad.

 

[WizardStan]

I'd recommend you start with C before C++, the language is simpler (in my experience), and your code would be far more portable.

C and C++ have different sets of features and different ways of thinking about programming. If you learn C thinking it is a simple step to moving to C++ you WILL develop various habits that work well for C but aren't always best practice for C++. They're two different paradigms, and while much of what you would learn in one will translate over, you'll actually have to un-learn some of the stuff you learned in C in order to be an effective C++ programmer.
Yes, C is probably easier to learn, but it's not a direct transition from C to C++ and you will end up doing more work than if you'd just gone straight into C++, and may even do some harm by picking up some bad habits.

 

[sebt3]

even VIM does now (well, it seems to in Ubuntu, but not in Debian or Slackware).

Using syntax highlighting on vim isn't the default behaviour (mimic original vi), but you can enable it using ":syn[tax] on".
On pandora on the other hand don't have the config files for syntax highlight so it won't work

 

[may88]

:S Uncomfortable thinking about electricity in terms of cats.

One search via google is said to use as much power as could run an energy saving light bulb for an hour.

This is why I only use Google during the daytime.

I found Python and Pygame quick to pick up. Not sure how this will perform on the Pandora. I use gedit and find it rather good for Python.
Kind of wish I'd bitten the bullet and learnt C++. Penijn may be the route to go to avoid re-inventing the wheel.

 

[PokeParadox]

I'd recommend you start with C before C++, the language is simpler (in my experience), and your code would be far more portable.

C and C++ have different sets of features and different ways of thinking about programming. If you learn C thinking it is a simple step to moving to C++ you WILL develop various habits that work well for C but aren't always best practice for C++. They're two different paradigms, and while much of what you would learn in one will translate over, you'll actually have to un-learn some of the stuff you learned in C in order to be an effective C++ programmer.
Yes, C is probably easier to learn, but it's not a direct transition from C to C++ and you will end up doing more work than if you'd just gone straight into C++, and may even do some harm by picking up some bad habits.

This... basically the c++/c argument is really a matter of which makes more sense for your brain. Both are powerful/flexible enough for most tasks but just approach the problems of programming differently.