Hi Jim, I don't think being self taught is really the problem. I just don't think the concept was explained to you in down to earth language. There is nothing difficult about object oriented design, but is a bit mor abstract than structural design. In OOP, object oriented programming, you program around the idea of people, places and things. A game character is an object. A gun he/she is carrying is a object. The game world he/she might be in is an object. Now, that you know what objects are you need to collect your functions and variables in a way that describe that person, place, or thing. The way we do this is through what is known as a class. A class contains all the variables, functions, and data which describes and stores info about your object whatever it might be. Instead of having a million global variables like in structured programming, you may have a few variables in various classes that hold data for all of your objects. One of the great uses of object oriented design is that several objects of the same kind can share variables which in structured design is impossible without overwriting the data. For example, Character.X and Character.Y stores the values for the player's location, and all characters can use those X and Y variables by proceeding the variable by the character's object name such as Sally.X and Joe.X. Unfortunately, for structured programmers all modern languages like Java, Visual Basic .Net, C# .Net, C++ .Net, etc are all 100% object oriented The days of the structured programmer is coming to a close., and has been fading out for years. In fact, Visual Basic 6 wasn't totally structured programming as it does have some simple classes, and oop design elements in it. It was just that most Visual Basic programmers didn't get too heavy into oop back then, and it's oop design didn't have some of the more advanced features like Java had. If I seam against VB 6 it is for a rational reason. A programmer can't survive in any other language outside of Visual Basic 6 without an understanding of object oriented programming. My feeling is since a new developer will eventually need to know oop they might as well get right into a oop language like C# .Net, Visual Basic .Net, and learn it right off the bat. It makes learning everything else after that much easier. In my own case I came to know how to do good oop design back when I was taking Java. I was freeked out at how different the style of programming was, but once I learned the concepts behind it I never had problems learning any other language. C# .Net, Visual Basic .Net, object oriented Python, all were easy to learn and pick up because I had learned the main core concepts of how languages work and programs are to be coded using object oriented programming and design. I have discovered that it is concepts and terminology that counts more than the language itself when it comes to learning to program.
Jim Kitchen wrote: > Hi Tristan, > > I very much like programming my games in vb6. I program in vb6 just as I did > in Quick Basic and very close to how I did in GW Basic, BasicA and the other > Microsoft Basic languages before that. You know like on my Atari 800 XL and > the Texas Instruments 99 4A before that. > > I just have not been able to rap my head around what people call object > oriented programming. Maybe it has something to do with just being self > taught and never ever taking any computer courses at all. > > BFN > > Jim > > "If it works, don't mess with it" school graduate > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.kitchensinc.net > (440) 286-6920 > Chardon Ohio USA > --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
