Hi Thomas Where can one find the agdev-newbies list to subscribe to it? Also, what do you think of AutoIT as a programming language? The little that I saw of it, looked quite good. Best regards Quinten Pendle PENDLE PRO Klerksdorp, South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 83 395 4593 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype: ahakimbo Website: www.pendlepro.com
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 10:51 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Learning VisualBasic Hi Robin, In the future posts like this should probably go over to the agdev-newbies list where we discuss such issues like this more in depth. However, since I am writing this email anyway. I will answer as many questions as I can, and I have a few questions of my own. /Snip > I'd like to learn how to write programs and games in VB. End Snip Is there any special reason you decided to go for Visual Basic rather than say C#, called C-Sharp. I highly recommend going with C-Sharp over VB for the primary reason many things are better documented and supported. One of these important areas in particular to you will be DirectX. While you can use MS DirectX in VB games Microsoft does not officially support it, and do not provide code samples, instructions, etc on writing games in VB .NET 2005. Snip > 1. Is it possible to write good games in VB? End Snip Yes, but you will find that good and reliable documentation for newbies is extremely lacking. Visual Basic became famous among amature and rapid application developers during the 90's but it's popularity is on the decline. Most of the VB croud have switched to C-Sharp. Just some historical background when DirectX 7 and 8 came out Microsoft unvailed it with VB 6.0 examples etc and offered newbies a simple basic language with a good set of multimedia libraries for developing games and other amature home wrote applications. In 2001 Microsoft converted all there Visual Studio languages to the .NET Framework furthering increasing the power of the languages as well as a universal development platform, and unvailed a new rapid development language C#, called C-Sharp, which had many improvements over VB, used C++ style coding conventions, reused allot of concepts from Java, and became a very new and innovative language. Now, it is rising in popularity, and in some areas has passed up VB in popularity among amature programmers. In 2003 when Microsoft DirectX 9.0 was unvailed to the world the documentation was for C++ and C-Sharp users, and VB devs were left in the cold documentation and support wise. Since I know both C-Sharp and VB as well as DirectX I know I could get DirectX up and running in no time in VB, but for a newby I don't see that happening without good samples and training. Snip > 2. Where can I find the toolbox? End Snip Press control+w then press the letter x. Your screen reader should land you on the toolbox area of the screen. Keep in mind there is two columns in the toolbox window. There is one side which sets the type of tools you wish to view, and the other side is the actual tools themselves. For your first experience with this I would say arrow up to have it show all tools, and then you can tab in to the tools and view the entire list. Obviously, later on you may want to customise your view as there are only certain types of tools you need for certain projects. Snip > 3. Is it a good idea to create a webbrowser at first? End Snip No. Any seasoned developer will tell you that you need to start out extremely basic. For example my very very first program I wrote as a student was a text program which did nothing more than display my name on the screen. Some use hello world, your name, or whatever but the idea is to get you use to structures of programming, understanding functions, variables, data types, etc. Unless you know the basic termonology and use for things in a program you can not begin to write one. So first advice keep it simple stupid. Your first batch of programs are going to be lame, boring, throw away, projects, but worth the practice. Snip > 3. Where can I find a good VB tutorial that explains all or at least > most of all the features and how to use them? End Snip Well, I am very fond of recommending http://safari.oreilly.com which has books on just about any programming topic you can research for $20.00 US monthly. if you are going to do VB I suggest reading something like VB .NET In a Nutshell by O'reilly and Associates. Snip > 4. Is there someone here who can program in VB and who could give me > some lessons? Thanks for End Snip I know enough of VB .NET to get you started in designing games, but unfortunately I have a rather tight schedule aready and can't take on a student at this point in my life other than ocational pointers such as this email from time to time. Smile. _______________________________________________ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web. _______________________________________________ Gamers mailing list .. Gamers@audyssey.org To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
