Difficult programming question

  • Guest, it's time once again for the hotly contested and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and fill out your bracket!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Once again, only you can decide!

xrg

Golden Squire
180
59
They have a free edition for Unity. It has a few features cut from the pro version, but it's still highly functional. It just won't have dynamic shadows and other things (there is a comparison list on the site somewhere).
 

splok_sl

shitlord
57
0
But lets also be real and you can get a "game" up and running in C++ just as quickly. You may need to know the IDE a bit more but it isn't exactly hard to get 3d objects complete with physics working in C++ with the breadth of libraries freely available.
But as a complete noob, how does one know what libraries are available, how to use them, or even what libraries are? I'm sure it's possible to do, but I think that the learning curve from complete noob to "look at my first game" is going to be significantly higher in C++. Also, there's still the point that if one is making indie games, c++ probably isn't the language of choice these days, so why start with it?
 

Moreclothes

Golden Knight of the Realm
10
0
But as a complete noob, how does one know what libraries are available, how to use them, or even what libraries are? I'm sure it's possible to do, but I think that the learning curve from complete noob to "look at my first game" is going to be significantly higher in C++. Also, there's still the point that if one is making indie games, c++ probably isn't the language of choice these days, so why start with it?
Any engine he uses to build his game is going to have a learning curve. C++ has been around for a very long time and the number resources available are incredible.
 

Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
<Gold Donor>
45,320
73,376
I'll go against most of the advice here and say that you shouldn't start with c++. If you were going to train yourself to be a proper programmer, you'd have already done so. You don't want to program. You want to make games (and programming them is the means to your desired end).
To piggy back onto that, you can make some very enjoyable game content without much technical knowledge by making a mod for Skyrim or Fallout New Vegas. All the tools and documentation and community is there and you're more likely to get someone to play the damn thing if you spend 1000 hours making a cool dungeon in Skyrim/FNV than if you spend 1000 making a piece of shit game.

If you're not sure if you even would enjoy making games I'd start out with that. Even though I love programming I'd hate to actually make a real game (As in, doing art, sound, maps, writing, quests etc).
 

Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness
<Gold Donor>
14,140
11,463
Hijacking this thread because I can't find a "General Purpose Programming" question thread. So am going to try to crowd source this.

Doing a side project at work that involves inventory of devices for about 1,200 different locations spread across 6 different OpCos. Each opco has their own Excel inventory workbook.

These inventory books are organized, basically, by each tab representing a different device type. So there are tabs for "Routers," "Switches," "Servers," and so forth that are common across all workbooks. Each device tab has a number of columns like "install date," "warranty date," "model" and many more. Not all tabs contain the same columns or in the same order.

Devices are organized on each tab by a unique key representing a physical location. So a tab for "Switches" would read something like:

Code:
                       Install Date      Model     Manufacturer   Warranty
Location 1
Location 2
Location 3
______________________________________________________________  
        \Switches/

Location is unique across all tabs. So I want to run a script or something to organize all this info by Location instead of Device.

It just isn't useful to me to organize this by device type. I'd much rather have each tab represent a site or some export that just represents the devices at Location X in a table with a few of the important columns I need.... like Model and Manufacturer.

Tried Pivot tables but can't really get there, so started digging in to more on the lookup and offset side of the house, then some VB stuff... Anyways, not really important but thought I'd throw it out there. Maybe I can pay someone $20 on one of those websites to write me something.
 

The_Black_Log Foler

Stock Pals Senior Vice President
<Gold Donor>
42,761
39,966
Hijacking this thread because I can't find a "General Purpose Programming" question thread. So am going to try to crowd source this.

Doing a side project at work that involves inventory of devices for about 1,200 different locations spread across 6 different OpCos. Each opco has their own Excel inventory workbook.

These inventory books are organized, basically, by each tab representing a different device type. So there are tabs for "Routers," "Switches," "Servers," and so forth that are common across all workbooks. Each device tab has a number of columns like "install date," "warranty date," "model" and many more. Not all tabs contain the same columns or in the same order.

Devices are organized on each tab by a unique key representing a physical location. So a tab for "Switches" would read something like:

Code:
                       Install Date      Model     Manufacturer   Warranty
Location 1
Location 2
Location 3
______________________________________________________________ 
        \Switches/

Location is unique across all tabs. So I want to run a script or something to organize all this info by Location instead of Device.

It just isn't useful to me to organize this by device type. I'd much rather have each tab represent a site or some export that just represents the devices at Location X in a table with a few of the important columns I need.... like Model and Manufacturer.

Tried Pivot tables but can't really get there, so started digging in to more on the lookup and offset side of the house, then some VB stuff... Anyways, not really important but thought I'd throw it out there. Maybe I can pay someone $20 on one of those websites to write me something.
Do it in java
 

Mudcrush Durtfeet

Hungry Ogre
2,428
-758
I started with Applesoft Basic and 6502 Machine Language (hand assembling opcodes and such). Pre internet, info was hard to find as an 8th grader.

Probably go with C++ and also learn assembly for whatever machine you are using. If you can do that, you'll learn a lot of things that will help you later. Perhaps try Java at that point once you have a handle on how computers work at a low level.
 
  • 1Garbage
Reactions: 1 user

Asshat wormie

2023 Asshat Award Winner
<Gold Donor>
16,820
30,963
Are you joggers insane. Pull up the trillion python excel libraries and just make like two for loops.
 
  • 2Like
  • 1Garbage
Reactions: 2 users

Arden

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,632
1,925
Hijacking this thread because I can't find a "General Purpose Programming" question thread. So am going to try to crowd source this.

Was wondering why I suddenly got a notification someone worfed a post of mine from almost 9 years ago...
 
  • 2Worf
Reactions: 1 users

Arden

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,632
1,925
Is your game done yet?

Actually, yes. Shifted from online mmo to tabletop rpg though. A bit more realistic for a small team with day jobs :). After several years of tossing around basic concepts and assembling a team, we started on the project in earnest in the summer of 2018. I'm in the final testing phase now. Testing will be done before the end of the year and then I'll produce a demo copy for marketing.

Even though it's technically a pnp game, I built it with the intent to have a pretty robust digital companion in the form of a character builder/tracker and battle map. The roleplaying elements will feel pretty much like any tabletop RPG, but the character building and battle components will feel more like a turn-based game like Divinity or XCOM.
 
  • 3Like
Reactions: 2 users

ShakyJake

<Donor>
7,598
19,181
Yeah, this would be super easy in .NET since, you know, it's s Microsoft product and all.

C++? Good God no.
 
  • 1Garbage
Reactions: 1 user

Kithani

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,032
1,266
Did OP ever make the game? Was this thread the true origin of Pantheon?!

edit -bleh, I see the update now about tabletop
 
  • 1Worf
Reactions: 1 user

ToeMissile

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
<Gold Donor>
2,646
1,598
If the formating of each workbook is the same, or close to it, power query will be super easy. There's going to be a better tutorial than this, but you'll get the idea

.