RE: Programming

["Ben" <bcronin@Princeton.EDU>]

I can't answer all of your questions, but here's some reactions to your last
e-mail.

First, remember that you want to impress your teacher, but be care not to
appear like a show-off.  You might have good intentions, but if you start
straying too far from what you're supposed to be doing, the teacher might
interpret it wrong.

Secondly, from your e-mails to this list, why are you so eager to use
assembly language?  Assembly language certainly is good to know and
practice - but with modern compilers, its a waste of programming time to
write anything in assembly other than the 1% of the code that is used most
often.  I general using assembly when not absolutely needed (or even
directly using registers) is considered bad programming so that's probably
why your teacher said no asm.

About 3d games, the source code to Wolfenstein, Doom II, and the "game play"
code (not the 3d code) is available for Quake 2.  You might also want to try
CrystalSpace, a freeware 3d engine.  Or you could order the DirectX CD (like
$10 or something?) from Microsoft - as you said you use Linux you might not
want this, but most employers like to see DirectX on resumes.  I would
definitely suggest you use SOME library like Allegro or SDL rather than
writing all the video/sound code yourself.  No point in reinventing the
wheel since writing a game is a lot of work even with the best of libraries.

Well I hope at least some of that was helpful.

Ben


-----Original Message-----
From: gameprogrammer-owner@gameprogrammer.com
[mailto:gameprogrammer-owner@gameprogrammer.com]On Behalf Of Lionel
Pinkhard
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 5:04 PM
To: gameprogrammer@gameprogrammer.com
Subject: Programming trouble at school


Hi,

I'm having a little trouble at school. I have programmed in many language,
including Assembler, Basic, Fortran 77, Forth, C, C++, Euphoria and a few
others. But now, my school wants us to program in a language which I only
have enough experience to load it onto the computer! Pascal! I have spent
some time listening to the teacher with what he's saying, but I want to do
more than the simple stuff he's saying, I already managed to get the basic
structure from him, so I can already program (a bit) in it by now. I
figured out that regs.xx is used to set a register, but what would I use to
call an interrupt? We must write a program using as few semicolons as
possible, but we're not allowed to use in-line assembler (otherwise it
would be easy, wouldn't it?). And of course, we must try to write the best
program in class. But I can't even get it into Mode X (without using Asm,
or even Mode 13h, now that I think of it!), can somebody tell me how to do
this in Pascal?

Also, is there somewhere I can get a tutorial on Pascal? I tried searching
on Google, but this stupid 80486 computer keeps crashing when I use Google
(under Windoze! with IE3!), I'm still repairing my Linux-based system, so
sorry.

Also, can somebody tell me of a 3D adventure game that is available with
source code? I'm trying to write one, but to no success! I can't even think
where to start! (Except to init the mouse - I finally figured out how to do
this!, and set the graphics mode, and play some sound on the PC Speaker or
Soundblaster) So any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Lionel Pinkhard

P.s. Does anybody know WHY Google keeps crashing my computer???

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programming games. This list is especially tolerant of beginners.
We were all beginners once

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