Official Programmers Chat

I first started with lua using the arcemu framework which is a emulator for world of warcraft. I quickly evolved to sql databases and I eventually moved on to another emulator called trinity core which then i started to use c++. However I stopped wow emulation and moved on to website and applications "html/css/lil php/ c#" over time i swapped back and forth and eventually started looking into making games so i found game maker and construct 2 and eventually unity. Which i recommend unity btw its free for the most part and has tons of resources and tuts It also lets u use c# or if u perfer javascript. But anyway this isnt about unity. I now go back and forth between c# .net framework applications and c# game development in unity. However im considering looking into rpg maker "Unity is hard to implement a grid based movement / collision system into 2d Which is why im considering rpg maker itll probably be easier." to make a grid like puzzle game with a Pokémon theme. But im unsure rather or not im going to do that. I know how to read and edit html/css/sql/c++/c#/php/lua. However im only fluent and actively doing c# everything else is just expeirence from the past and im probably rusty with them besides sql bc sql is pretty freaking simple. I also dont claim to know any language fully theres a lot of information and im self taught But i manage.

But thats a lil bit of history of mine into programming. :blaziken:

 

The first coding I looked at would have to be Lua. I played a lot of Garry's Mod back in the day, and it could easily be modded with Lua. I started off simple, modifying other people's weapon scripts to alter certain characteristics of said weapon: Accuracy, Damage, etc. Eventually, I made my very own weapon! T'was a glorious day.

I then tried to learn another language for Garry's Mod: Expression 2. This one's a really random one, since it's a completely unique sort of code (I think) that is only ever used in the Wiremod mod of Garry's Mod (Too many Mods!). It was extremely versatile and allowed you to create complex setups. I've included an example of E2 code below just to give you a rough idea of what it does.

Spoiler

This setup is for a chip that will change the individual color channels of a light depending on the input of various sensors:

@Name ButtonController #This specifies the name of the chip, which is displayed in the game world.
@Inputs Button Ranger Speedometer Master #This specifies the inputs that the script can use.
@Outputs Red Green Blue Active #This specifies the outputs that the script can use.
@Persist #This allows you to store variables internally, without them being outputted to the world. I don't use it in this script.
@Trigger #This allows you to set what triggers the script. By default, any change from any input will re-run the script.

if (Master == 1) {Active = 1} else {Active = 0} #This simply toggles the main control for the light. If it's on, then the light will be on in the world. Otherwise, it will be off.

if (Button == 1) {Red = 255} else {Red = 0} #This changes the Red color channel to be full red if the button is active, otherwise, there will be no red.

if (Speedometer > 10) {Green = 255} else {Green = 0} #This will set the Green color channel to be full if the speedometer is moving at more than 10 mph. Otherwise, the green channel will be disabled.

Blue = ((Ranger * 2.55) * -1) #This will change the blue channel dynamically depending on a ranger input, the closer the obstructing object, the more blue there will be. (Assuming the ranger's maximum distance is 100 units)

Sadly, this language has no place outside of Garry's mod (That I know of), so I learned a scripting language for no reason. Yay!

A while after this, I slowly got into Command Prompt (I'm fairly certain that's a language), which I use to automate things on my computer, as well as messing around to make fun stuff. I even made a small text adventure, and it even had the ability to save your progress and load it again! (Which was a right pain to get working, trust me!) I even made a Pokémon Battle animation! (Which was really just a lot of "ECHO" commands that were placed together with specific timings to look like a battle. But it was great!

The most recent coding language that I'm still learning, is Ruby, which is used in RPG Maker. It's kind of a must, really, since I am making an RPG maker game (And a heavily modified one, at that!) I'm not too great at it, but I can easily read the script and edit it where necessary, and it's got me this far!

 

Well the first time i started doing coding was at school one of my teachers teach us how to use a coding program named KPL which if im not mistaken uses a Java type language but the first time i started to program real stuff was last year lol when i started college and also learned to program in C++ and thats it, C++ is the only language i know how to code bu i understand Java and a little bit of C#, now in network development the only language i kind of understand (or at least i dont get to lost while looking at it) is HTML aside from that i have zero experience with network developing languages and thats it haha i hope to learn much more in the future but for now that would be


By the way did you programmed that gif? if so can i have the code

 

I first began to code when I started running PokemonShowdown! servers on my own. At first, I didn't understand any of it!
However, I kept bugging other admins with questions and ended up learning a lot of JavaScript in the process, as well as HTML and CSS. Once I became more acquainted with JavaScript, I began teaching myself Java and C++. After I came upon PokeBattle, I started to learn CoffeeScript, PHP, and Ruby on Rails. Admittedly, my strength still lies in JavaScript and Java for the most part.
Typically my projects consist of editing code on PokemonShowdown! and similar repositories on GitHub as well as helping Pokémon communities as I'm able and as they need it. Of course, my development projects revolve around Pokémon because I know Pokémon better than the average person since I've been playing for so many years.

 

New topic idea:

What sort of projects are you currently working on? What language(s) are they written in and what do they do?

 

@[member="Reckless"] I definitely wouldn't say Java for life! It's just a stepping stone to C++ and understanding computer systems better. I'm planning on majoring in computer science, with focuses on network administration and software development, as I love both and they're equally challenging. GitHub has been a great tool in helping me learn how others write code as well as help me discover new ways to use it myself. I'd recommend it to anyone learning to program

 

@[member="Reckless"] Yeh, unity is a nice 3d/2d game engine however the are still working on 2d tools but its a very viable option for 2d games even in its current state. Im currently using unity im trying to learn how to use tiled and a program called tiled to unity to bring in maps that ive made using tiled which is a tile map editor. My plan is to work on making a adventures of lolo clone in unity but its a lil early to be sure i still have to figure out how to do grid movement the way i want and yeh c# is the main language ppl use in unity but some do use java they use to have a version of python called boo as well but im not sure if theres still in or not i heard they were planning to remove it but idk. But yeh its a good step up from things like gamemaker or rpg maker if you want to have a lot more control of your game. There is tons of resources out there and they even have their own asset store.

Also Lua is a programming language you can learn more here http://www.lua.org/ Im not sure how many ppl use it but Ive only seen it used in game engines as a scripting language like garrys mod or world of warcraft. Now rust is made by garrys mod and is also made using unity and they implemented lua somehow as well from what i heard for their game.

Ill share some of my stuff when i make something worth sharing lol i havent had many good ideas in a while and my past creations are rlly useless here they were made for use with developing on wow servers mainly. As far as games ive never finished a completely polished game but thats a whole nother story lol.

Oh and yeh if you want to try unity feel free to add my skype ill help when i can.

 

@[member="Reckless"] Well my experience with KPL as a kid did help me to get into coding but now that I'm learning C++ i must admit that it wasn't really worth it but it was a good experience tho

and about the topic well Im right now coding a chess game in C++ only the code though

 

@[member="Reckless"] Lua (/ˈluːə/ LOO-ə, from Portuguese: lua [ˈlu.(w)ɐ] meaning moon; explicitly not "LUA"[1]) is a lightweight multi-paradigm programming language designed as a scripting language with extensible semantics as a pri- Nah, I wouldn't copypaste an explanation! (Or would I?)

Lua's a programming language that's mostly used for extensions to preexisting programs. It's really easy to use (It's a single file with nothing but text. Simple! [I'm looking at you, C++!!!]). It has minimal symbols - No silly ";" 's on the end of lines or anything! (I'M STILL LOOKING AT YOU, C++.) It's not too much good on its own, but it's great for providing extensions such as mods onto programs since it's a very simple language - Almost anyone can use it!

I've actually got a Batch file I've made that's always open really - It controls my computer's Wi-Fi hotspot. Since I can't get Wi-Fi from the house here, only ethernet, I have my Computer broadcast a wireless signal for my room, so I can use my phone or 3DS happily. I'm really damn proud of it, and I certainly use it often! It's always open all the time! CMD is good for automation or easy access to system commands or functions. Plus, doesn't CMD just look awesome!?

INCONSPICUOUS COUGHING. COUGH COUGH.

 

@[member="Reckless"] Yeh ive done some c++ but only using the trinitycore framework for world of warcraft emulation and i tried to use the qt framework for apps using c++ but i didnt care for it too much for the apps i usually make c++ and qt is a bit overkill comapred to using c# and the .net framework. And yeh if you can implement lua as a extension it can be useful for quick editig/script creation.

Spoiler

Lua VS C#

Variables:

- Lua
name = 1

- C#
int name = 1;


Functions:

- Lua
function name
dostuffhere()
end

- C#
void name ()
{
dostuffhere();
};

Just figured id share a little bit from my memory of using it.

/offtopic Sigh ive been so busy cleaning and getting ready for my brother to come stay with us. I havent had time to do anything but hes family so it will be nice to have him around hehe XD

 

@[member="Reckless"] Yeah, maybe I'll get the time to write everyone a tutorial sometime soon! I don't mind writing them in my free time.
Also, thanks for the book suggestion! I'll make sure to look it up; I'm in desperate need of a good reference.

@[member="TheLazyTaco"] that's pretty cool stuff right there. It reminds me a bit of Python, actually. A lot less work involved

 

@[member="Reckless"] Wait, a free copy of Windows 10? Oh my gosh! I never knew that! I'd switch quite happily - As much as I love Windows 8, I'm really excited to see what they pull out for Windows 10. Plus that new DirectX 12 looks awesome, and apparently improves performance tenfold. I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on that! ^^

In other news, I managed to get a Beep speaker linked to an Arduino chip to play a simple version of my 8-Bit song. It was super cool! (And took a lot of code. But when I did it I was praised by the guy running the course for my quick learning! )

 

@[member="Reckless"] Argh... I wish I could help you with that, but, well, you know how bad I am with C++ (And, by extension, C#)! I'll ask one of my techy friends for ya, but no promises - He's been known to be "Somewhat not-so-good" sometimes.

And, since you asked so nicely, here's my 8-Bit masterpiece. For the version I synthesized, I simply cut out the Triangle channel (Used for the backing tone), and the Noise channel (Used for the drum beats), and simply left the pulse channel. After that, I looked over each note and manually made a script to run to the chip and out of the beep speaker:

Spoiler

#include "pitches.h"

int speakerOut = 8;
int noteLength[]={400, 400, 400, 1200, 400, 400, 400, 400, 400, 1200, 400, 400, 400, 1200, 400, 400, 400, 400, 2400};
int notes[]={NOTE_C4, 0, NOTE_C4, 0, NOTE_A3, 0, NOTE_A3, 0, NOTE_A3, 0, NOTE_F3, 0, NOTE_F3, 0, NOTE_G3, 0, NOTE_F3, 0};
int octave = 1;
void setup()
{
pinMode(speakerOut, OUTPUT);
}

void loop()
{
for (int i=0;i<19;i++)
{
tone(speakerOut,notes/octave);
delay(noteLength/3.5);
noTone(speakerOut);
}
//octave++; - Commented this because it doesn't work yet.
}

And, for those interested, this is the included "pitches.h", all it does it specify which frequency matches which note. Very simple, but very useful!

/*************************************************
* Public Constants
*************************************************/

#define NOTE_B0 31
#define NOTE_C1 33
#define NOTE_CS1 35
#define NOTE_D1 37
#define NOTE_DS1 39
#define NOTE_E1 41
#define NOTE_F1 44
#define NOTE_FS1 46
#define NOTE_G1 49
#define NOTE_GS1 52
#define NOTE_A1 55
#define NOTE_AS1 58
#define NOTE_B1 62
#define NOTE_C2 65
#define NOTE_CS2 69
#define NOTE_D2 73
#define NOTE_DS2 78
#define NOTE_E2 82
#define NOTE_F2 87
#define NOTE_FS2 93
#define NOTE_G2 98
#define NOTE_GS2 104
#define NOTE_A2 110
#define NOTE_AS2 117
#define NOTE_B2 123
#define NOTE_C3 131
#define NOTE_CS3 139
#define NOTE_D3 147
#define NOTE_DS3 156
#define NOTE_E3 165
#define NOTE_F3 175
#define NOTE_FS3 185
#define NOTE_G3 196
#define NOTE_GS3 208
#define NOTE_A3 220
#define NOTE_AS3 233
#define NOTE_B3 247
#define NOTE_C4 262
#define NOTE_CS4 277
#define NOTE_D4 294
#define NOTE_DS4 311
#define NOTE_E4 330
#define NOTE_F4 349
#define NOTE_FS4 370
#define NOTE_G4 392
#define NOTE_GS4 415
#define NOTE_A4 440
#define NOTE_AS4 466
#define NOTE_B4 494
#define NOTE_C5 523
#define NOTE_CS5 554
#define NOTE_D5 587
#define NOTE_DS5 622
#define NOTE_E5 659
#define NOTE_F5 698
#define NOTE_FS5 740
#define NOTE_G5 784
#define NOTE_GS5 831
#define NOTE_A5 880
#define NOTE_AS5 932
#define NOTE_B5 988
#define NOTE_C6 1047
#define NOTE_CS6 1109
#define NOTE_D6 1175
#define NOTE_DS6 1245
#define NOTE_E6 1319
#define NOTE_F6 1397
#define NOTE_FS6 1480
#define NOTE_G6 1568
#define NOTE_GS6 1661
#define NOTE_A6 1760
#define NOTE_AS6 1865
#define NOTE_B6 1976
#define NOTE_C7 2093
#define NOTE_CS7 2217
#define NOTE_D7 2349
#define NOTE_DS7 2489
#define NOTE_E7 2637
#define NOTE_F7 2794
#define NOTE_FS7 2960
#define NOTE_G7 3136
#define NOTE_GS7 3322
#define NOTE_A7 3520
#define NOTE_AS7 3729
#define NOTE_B7 3951
#define NOTE_C8 4186
#define NOTE_CS8 4435
#define NOTE_D8 4699
#define NOTE_DS8 4978

Worked like a charm! All I need to do now is make it go down an octave after one run through, and up an octave after that. Nothing too difficult!

As far as Linux is concerned, I gave it a try, but I soon gave up and went back to good ol' Windows. My friend uses Linux for server hosting though. Speaking of, I found a Linux joke while browsing the internet the other day:

Spoiler

I'm sorry, but I found that way too funny! XD

 

So where do you guys write your code? Do you use Notepad (or some similar text-based program) to type your code, or do you directly use compilers?

Personally I use compilers for Java and Javascript for the most part, though I don't mind using text-based programs to write code. I find them easier to use, and honestly, better looking. For other languages, I tend to use just plain old text-based programs since I already have compilers for Java and Javascript... My computer is getting older and can't handle as much as it used to

 

@[member="Reckless"] for Java, I actually use BlueJ. It's really handy since it tells you where and what your errors are. It also neatly organizes classes, interfaces, subclasses, and applets REALLY nicely.