Ask Agame Programmer

How do you get started -- and what background does it take (do you have to know a program language?)?

There's a saying, the best way to learn programming is to begin writing programs. On the other hand, maybe that's an oversimplification. But it makes sense, inasmuch as you have to start 'simple'. Or, at least, good results can probably be achieved that way.

JavaScript may be a worthwhile first language. It is extremely easy to experiment with, and you can even write games in it! See http://javascript.internet.com/games/ and http://javascript.internet.com/games/falcon-fighter.html for JavaScript game examples with free source code.

Additionally, check out the current leapfrogsw home page, which has graphical animation and collision detection I believe by AdamHarris. I think you could indeed make games in this language - even though it's "just" JavaScript, meaning there's no access to raw pixels! --BillKelly

Hey Carson, I viewed the source code for your home page, and there wasn't any JScript there. What did you do to it? - Checkmate

A while back I changed the page so that the JScript only shows up if you are lucky enough to get the bubble or the umphee. You may have noticed that it is a .php3 page now so instead of always sending the JScript I was able to send it conditionally - AdamHarris

Oh great! Now I really have to clean that code up! :-) To be honest, a lot of the code was borrowed from one of the sites Bill mentioned above, and then I mucked with it a bit. Oh the shame! --AdamHarris

Ah, so here's where you guys are hanging out! I've been searching all over WIKI for you guys! He..he.. -cw

What is a program laguage and how do you learn it? -nop

Kind of ironic that your initials are "nop". That means something in some programming languages. A programming language is simply a program (much like a word processor) that you use on your computer to write programs. C++ is a very popular programming language and most people on the Mac use a program called "CodeWarrior?" (by a company called MetroWerks?) to write C++ code. C++ is a language (much like French and Italian are languages) that bridges the gap between English (which you know but which is very difficult for the computer to comprehend) and machine language (which the computer knows quite well but is extremely difficult for a human to work with).

Other popular programming languages are Basic, Perl, Java, Assembly Language, Pascal and I'm sure BillKelly can name a few more :-) (I'll give it a go: prolog, lisp, c, c++, objective c, forth, fortran, cobol, html, xml, sql, smalltalk, ada, eiffel, python, rexx, sed, awk, delphi, asp, php, tcl - AdamHarris) (Hmm, well you leave me no alternative but to invoke some more obscure ones: SNOBOL, SPITBOL, APL, BCPL, Haskell, erlang, ALGOL, SML, Scheme, Pizza, Modula, ML, Miranda... not that I've programmed in many of these - maybe experimented with a few. --BillKelly) (And, you forgot some really REALLY obscure ones! Kmensa, Offbeat, Harvest C, VisualBasic, etc etc etc =P Checkout the ones listed here: http://www.latech.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml)

Looks like you forgot "QBasic" -Checkmate

So what does "nop" mean? It's a no-operation instruction. It does nothing, kind of like the placebo capsule in MacBrickout! Hey, maybe CodeWarrior? even inserted a few nop's in the part of the code that handles the placebo capsule! -CarsonWhitsett

I use the initials nop because I share the same initials as my dad and brother, so when we had to write our name in the high score we would all get confused. So I just picked nop because they are right next to each other in the alphabet. SO now we dont high scores to confused. Its kind of stupid but it works. SO now everyone knows me as nop not jln. -nop

Also thanks for that information. -nop

 int main ()
 {
     printf("Hello World\n");
     return 1;
 }

Perl

  perl -e 'print "Hello World\n"'

Forth

  : hi ." Hello World" CR ;
  [see also: http://members.cts.com/crash/b/billk/pforth/ for Forth written in Perl]

Smalltalk

  Transcript show: 'Hello World'; cr.

Visual Basic

  Private Sub Form_Load()
     Label1.Text = "Hello World"
  End Sub




  [I think this is right - correct me if it's wrong]
  [Looks good - billk]
  [Actually, I think "Label1.Text" needs to be "Label1.Caption" - Checkmate]




  Label1.Caption = "Hello World"
  I don't relly know VB, but I like to mess around with it. -HB

Java

 Class Helloworld
 {
     public static void main (string [] args)
     {
          system.out.println ("hello world")
     }
 }

TashaParsons Oh, the horrors of first year comp sci, THE HORRORS!!!

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