Learn to program Amiga applications and games in #AmigaE

[SamuraiCrow]

Lets turn your accusing compass around 180 degrees and ask what have you with the office, all Amigas and obviously all the time in the world have produced?

She's working on a TileMap editor in MUI using AmigaE.

[fishy_fiz]

It's a conundrum. Typically people with great skills have acquired them through working with them day in day out. The problem there though is that the last thing someone wants to do after a hard days work is to go home and do the exact same thing.

It's a misnomor that coding is easy, even to those that do it day in day out. There's always something new to learn and research. AmigaOS coding is also more of a chore than for most systems being that development software is quite raw, as are its apis (a big part of why things like sdl are heavily used, even when its far from optimal).

The other side of the coin is that if a person has nothing but free time things can always be done tomorrow and people typically (myself included unfortunately) put things off because of that.

[bloodline]

It's a conundrum. Typically people with great skills have acquired them through working with them day in day out. The problem there though is that the last thing someone wants to do after a hard days work is to go home and do the exact same thing.

It's a misnomor that coding is easy, even to those that do it day in day out. There's always something new to learn and research. AmigaOS coding is also more of a chore than for most systems being that development software is quite raw, as are its apis (a big part of why things like sdl are heavily used, even when its far from optimal).

The other side of the coin is that if a person has nothing but free time things can always be done tomorrow and people typically (myself included unfortunately) put things off because of that.

+1

[jj]

I am no "Master" coder. I work on a IT dev team that mainly codes using a proprietary system. This actually makes my life a lot harder. Having to write XML handling code just using basic string functions. God that sfun.
 
I Spend over 12 hours a day out of the house, plus I am trying to fix up my flat to sell so me and the Wife can move closer to work.
 
Programming on the Amstrad and Amiga as a teenager was fun. After working all day I really can't be bothered.
 
I don't code for greed, I work in IT because I have bills to pay to survive.
 
A similar analogy to all this...Have you even see a mechanic in car that wasn't falling apart.
 
I like your enthusiasm Cammy, but I think like a lot of zealots it sometimes blinds you to real life.

[TheGoose]

@ fishy_fiz

Very true for me. I have bought old Amiga C programming books from e-bay and I have SAS C on my A3000. It is a challenge but fun at the same time, to program on the Amiga. Some of what I know from web development helps but it's still slow, with the time I give it.

My aims were to use Asteroids II by Mike Siefert as a subject to learn C on Amiga and maybe update it if things go well.

Well, so far I have been able to re-compile it and make small changes as experiments. It's slow cause I don't have a lot of left over energy for it. But I think I can learn a lot from that code.

He wrote a lot of impressive path finding code (AI) in there and it is hard to decipher. But it also reminds me of some FLASH game functions I have played with too. Lots of _x and _y math going on.

The ships are pretty cool, they are like objects:

/* player one ship */
shields = 10
speed  = 5
fire     = 2


Stuff like that, just parameters. There is some assembler code in there too, and know it's for speed but not sure what it does. So it's fun to hack and backwards learn with this. Wish I could play all day with that stuff.

[Duce]

No support to people that get pissy and pull out words like "greedy", "bigshot", etc when it comes to posts looking to fuel interest and boost community input.  Just an abhorrent approach.

Here in the real world, there's bills to pay.  Here in the real world, after a 12 hour workday, the last thing people "in the industry" that code want to do is be berated by people telling them "they aren't doing enough" (for an essentially extinct platform, albeit one I love).  We all apologize that we cannot quit our jobs to assist this project.  It's a hobby.  Relax, and quit being a nut.

That attitude sucks, and defeats the purpose of your absolutely well minded project.  Do you realize some "bigshot coders" here work 12 hour days, have hour long commutes each way, and 3 kids waiting at home for them?  Will berating them get them to hop onboard your project?  Quite the opposite.  With the economy over here in North America, some of the most talented coders on A.org might be flipping burgers at McDonalds, ffs.  See my point?

Same tantrum factory the Amiga scene was back in the 90's, sadly.

[TheGoose]

@Duce,

But you are doing everything you just told Cammy not to do. Maybe you should get a new "real life" or take a break from 12 Hr days?

Cammy is just with enthusiasm and impatience, don't think she means to be hurtful, really.

[Duce]

If the poster didn't mean to be hurtful or insulting, they wouldn't have reached out with backhanded spite that people aren't busting their asses to assist this project.  A project I sincerely hope does well, despite the fact it is of little interest to me since I only code in C these days and have little interest in games.  

My interests in the Amiga scene currently are solely in porting old 68k BBS software to OS4/MOS - you'd laugh me out of the building if I got indignant and asked for help while berating people in the process, wouldn't you?  Sort of a cutting off your nose to spite your face deal, no?

I do get your point, Goose - and apologize for not practicing what I would like to preach, but belittling the "talent" with terms like "bigshot", "boasting", and otherwise generally telling people they are not "DOING THEIR PART!!!11" is simply nonsense and will only hurt their project in the end.  A cruddy and patronizing attitude isn't going to teach people E, now is it?  I may have said what I said in an unpolished manner, but I stand by what I said and others will agree the guilt trip factor sucks.  You ain't gonna catch flies with vinegar - and it irks me when the coders here are having to defend themselves with things like "well after a long workday, I'll see what I can do!".  Real life is real life, it is what it is and hobbies come secondary.  Sorry to burst that bubble.

Some people cannot afford to "take breaks" from long workdays, I'm afraid.  People don't work, they can't feed their children, and all the romantic notions of revitalizing the classic Amiga gaming scene while berating people to work on community projects doesn't change that.  I had a problem with the attitude behind the slam against the community that seemingly was calling people useless, not the project itself in the least.

[fishy_fiz]

@TheGoose

You beat me to it (pointing out that he's done the exact same thing he's scorning others for having done).

Everyone's entitled to a bit of a public frustration every now and again. I've seen (and done) much worse

[Fats]

It is true that many junior developers write OO code, especially in Java, that has overly long inheritance chains, but junior developers make all kinds of mistakes. This is simply one of them.

Unfortunately I am not talking about the juniors but about the professional OO die hards that are coming with huge class hierarchies with lots of methods to solve simple problems; and then redo everything once in a while to get things 'right'.
Of course I am exaggerating but the OO way of starting to implement something by drafting a class hierarchy with the methods using something like UML is IMHO asking for a project to become unnecessary bloated. I don't have anything against using OO as one of the tools to use during coding; I do have a problem with organizing whole development projects around the OO paradigm.

How does all this pertain to OO? OO is good when used right.

Some tools are easier abused then others; I would claim pure OO is more to the wrong side.

The amount of time saved by using many C++ STL classes for things like vectors, maps and strings over reimplementing the same thing (over and over again) in C is amazing.

IMO the power of C++ STL is the usage of generic programming and not the fact it is OO; e.g. the clever usage of the C++ templating system. I would claim a lot of code bloat could be avoided and more code could be reused if people would use more generic programming (=templating) and less OO programming (=class hierarchies+methods).

greets,
Staf.

[Cammy]

I'm sorry if I offended anyone, I was only being a bit cheeky with my challenge to a few people already posting here, it wasn't meant to be directed at randoms who haven't had enough sleep.

[TCMSLP]

Slightly off topic (but perhaps no more off topic than some of the above)...

How useful is Python under AmigaOS?  Does it 'just work'?  

Python seems to be available for both OS3.x and 4.x and is truly cross platform.   This would probably motivate me more as I could use this under (and develop under) Linux in addition to OS3/4/AROS..

I don't wish to distract from the 'E' discussions, but any development is good development ... right?  

[Duce]

I've only played with Python a bit on OS4, but it seems very complete and I've had a lot of fun so far.

I've been trying to code a WWW interface that hooks in with my BBS to allow users to check their mail, msg bases, file areas without having to telnet in, similar to Synchronet BBS's full meal deal.

[commodorejohn]

How does Python perform on the Amiga? Even on a multi-GHz PC, it's not exactly blazing fast...

[ChaosLord]

I'm sorry if I offended anyone, I was only being a bit cheeky with my challenge to a few people already posting here, it wasn't meant to be directed at randoms who haven't had enough sleep.

@Everyone

My apolgies.  This is all my fault.

I was using Cammy's character to test out my new controller that I got from AmigaKit.  I accidentally pressed A A UP B DOWN (or something like that) and Cammy just suddenly launched into this wild Cheeky Flying Kick of DEATH.  It has a really nice flame fx and inflicts a lot of damage but it seems to anger the opponents.  Oops my bad

To those of you who ended up with a Cammy Bootprint on your face, I am sorry.  Please just be thankful that I was controlling Cammy and not Franko the Warrior Scotsman.

[TheGoose]

@ChaosLord   :lol:

@Duce

I hear you too. You know I made an observation about work and life, and it seemed to me that those who could do, were forever ask to do more.

While those who could not do, were ask to just try an do what you're doing. And try not to break anything.

Sounds like you're in the 1st group, unfortunately.

@Cammy, sucha little trouble maker...