RPGDX > Forums > General Discussion > Anyone up for a 48 hour compo this weekend?

SJ_Zero

I'm planning on having a 48 hour FreeBASIC game development compo this weekend. Would anyone here be interested in trying to make a game?

tcaudilllg · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 12:56 am Post subject:

FreeBASIC? I dunno. 48 hours sounds kinda... well, mmm.. short.

Isn't FreeBASIC still in beta?

SJ_Zero · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 1:26 am Post subject:

1. Nobody has more than a couple days to dedicate to something like this.

2. Freebasic is in beta, but it's quite stable and far more usable than QB ever was or ever will be. Then again, I'm biased by liking it. :P

Hajo · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 8:59 am Post subject:

Not interested.

Edit: sorry, that's been rude. I wanted to say: I didn't code Basic since ages, so I most likely can't do it anymore. Also, this weekend I'll be busy with some other things so I don't have time to join the competetion.

I didn't mean that the idea of such a competiton is bad by itself.

Verious · Mage Joined: 06 Jan 2004 Posts: 409 Location: Online

Unfortunately, this weekend won't work for me. I have to finish portfolios for my last two classes and there are a couple of parties going on.

EDIT:

On a side note: Why limit it to freeBASIC? Many people may not want to devote time (during a 48 hour competition) to learning the nuances of a new programming language and would preferred instead to program in a language they are already acclimated with.

SJ_Zero · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:13 pm Post subject:

Because it's being held by QBXL, and one of the goals of the contest is to expand the understanding, and available programs in FreeBASIC. If someone here would like to enter in something that isn't a BASIC, I won't stop you(FreeBASIC is a big boy now. :P), but I'd rather not have the already small pool of BASIC programmers divided between the ridiculously weak QB and the ridiculously powerful FB, which is why it's a FreeBASIC compo first and foremost.

Hajo · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:18 pm Post subject:

Hmm. I think I stopped using Basic 1990 and switched to C.

I'm wondering why Basic still exists and even is popular for among RPG developers?

Verious · Mage Joined: 06 Jan 2004 Posts: 409 Location: Online

Hajo · Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:59 pm Post subject:

Except for the "easy to learn" I think C (and nowadays C++) have all the other features as well.

Admitted, today I'd recommend Java instad of C or C++, because it's less prone to coding mistakes.

Please don't get me wrong. I don't want to advertise my favorite languges. I just want to understand why this community favours Basic so much.

"Optimization", "good coding practises", "advanced techniques" - I assume those will help you in any language, they are no tied to Basic.

C has a big collection of libraries readily available, compilers exists for almost everything that can compute, and there are probaly more people knowing C and people knowing Basic, so you have a much larger community to ask for help.

I can't say much about the wealth of examples. I never had problems finding examples for C, given my own needs. But when I started to move away from Basic and learn C (1988-1990), I didnt even know about the internet, so I learned from books.

Honestly the code and tutorials that I find on site like this and similars most often doesn't look very sophisticated, and I wonder why the authors advertise it so proudly ... I know that sounds pretty arrogant, but it's really my impression.

OTOH I admit that some of the games created by the community look pretty nice and play well - better than mine, really.

janus · Mage Joined: 29 Jun 2002 Posts: 464 Location: Issaquah, WA

48 hours to develop games in a beta development tool that nobody uses doesn't sound like a very good idea to me. Most of the entrants will probably need two or three days just to be able to figure out how to develop basic systems in freeBASIC... I guess if you're allowed to use pre-existing code, it wouldn't be so bad.

PhyrFox · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:12 am Post subject:

Does FB run in Linux? If so, count me in. I have a weekend to spare.

~= phyrfox =~

SJ_Zero · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 4:25 am Post subject:

You guys are just being wussies. :P For the 24 hour qbxl compo back in January I had barely touched FreeBASIC (It had only been out since November!!) and I managed to churn out Star Phalanx, even though there was nothing anywhere and I had to learn how to use SDL for the first time. :P

Anyway, compos over, here's my entry: http://www.qbxl.net/downloads/KillQuest.zip

If anyone is interested I'll post about the voting thread when it's all done and over with.

Hajo:

I'm wondering why Basic still exists and even is popular for among RPG developers?

For all it's strengths, C is a beast. For all the sample code on the internet, you'll find that most of it won't compile. For all the people who know it, you'll find that getting basic information on how to get started with basic tools is like getting blood from a stone. To make matters worse, most questions regarding such tools are met with "You're using the wrong tools!". Yes, I want to use OpenGL to blit bitmaps to the screen, even though I'm having problems in SDL or Allegro(hypothetically, of course).

Conversely, I could post the source code for Star Phalanx, Rambo vs. Kitty Cat and Quest for a King in a post here, you could copy and paste it into a file, and FreeBASIC will compile it. In fact, you could do the same under Linux, and the two newer ones would definitely compile without major incident. There are a number of forums where basic, fundamental questions are answered on a daily basis, and requests for help don't turn into flamewars over what libs you're using.

Furthermore, there are significant flaws in the design of C which, while logical once you know them, raise the bar for entry and make things like pointer bugs far too easy for someone who isn't using pointers. The best example is how you don't need to throw @ in front of any variables to use a command in the standard fb lib. If this was C, you'd have the scanf situation, where a newbie will write scanf("%d",x);, crash his program, and never really know what happened.

Personally, I also find the fundamental design of modern BASICs to be much more intuitive than C. I don't think in symbols. If a=0 then do stuff make sense to me. If a = 0 then...end if does as well. If (a == 0) { ... }, while not incorrect by any means, is an unnessessary obscuring of the code. In this respect, the way that freeBASIC hides pointers until they're needed is a work of art, allowing the use of advanced libs like SDL which live on pointers, without requiring them for basic tasks.

On the other hand, I'm a person who just seems to be stuck to basic. I've coded Java in a professional capacity, and I've done my share of C/C++ code, but for what I use a programming language for, basic is more intuitive, faster and easier, and more cohesive as a whole.

Hajo · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 8:39 am Post subject:

LeoDraco · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 8:41 am Post subject:

Joakim · Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 9:34 am Post subject:

What is redundant is a matter of taste. For ugly, redundant syntax, I think a?b:c is a good example. And the { might be fewer characters, but require you to press two keys that are placed uncomfortably (on my keyboard at least, it's alt gr and 7), which makes "then" less than significally harder to type, yet it's much more intuitive. In my opinion.

But to get back on topic, I'm parcipiating in this contest with a RTS game based on the Turret Wars / Defence maps in Warcraft 3. It is at the time far from playable, but I'm hoping to get it to a playable state before the 12 hour extention is out.