[Audyssey] What language for gaming? Was:Re: dark room and programming for Wiimotes
Hi Ken, Not sure what you mean by vb .net express looked a mass of confusion . Are you referring to the IDE? If so, it takes a bit of time to get used to, but once you do, you will really appreciate the power and abilities it offers you. As for programming any halfway serious audio game, I've looked at a bit of java code, and I'd say visual basic is more or less on level ground with it in terms of difficulty to program, which in my opinion isn't that hard. When I started out in 2005 looking to get into it, I looked long and hard at several options. I thought about C#, but I can do the exact same things without having to warp my brain around there weird syntax and use of odd symbols. Before you C coders out there get bent out of shape, I want you to know I don't care what language you use, same as I don't care what kind of computer you use, for me whatever gets the job done with minimal fuss is what I am going to use, and for me that was vb .net express. I'm not putting down C# or any other language, and if I were doing graphics intensive stuff, I probably would have gone with C# or something similar. I've done about all you can imagine an audio game could use, from joystick inputs, to full featured online play with virtually no lag. All this was done with visual basic .net. The single exception to this is force feedback, which I was not able to put into rail racer, which chapped my stick, and perhaps is fixed by now. I am about to release my second and third commercial games in the last two years, all three of which were built on visual basic, and with virtually no programming experience 4 years ago to speak of. I can't give a higher reccomendation than that for anyone looking to program audio games for the blind. It has taken a lot of time and tenacity, but as the old saying goes, nothing worth doing comes easy. I encourage you to take another look at vb .net, lord knows we need all the good accessible developers out there we can get, and in my humble opinion I think java is going to leave you lacking in the end. Later, Che - Original Message - From: Ken kenwdow...@neo.rr.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 1:54 AM Subject: [Audyssey] dark room and programming for Wiimotes I see that Darkroom is programmed in Java and that the code is open source. How hard is programming in Java, and does anyone know about Eclipse, and whether or not the libraries and plug-ins are accessible? If so, it would give me a good foundation for programming a Wii-based game as VB6 isn't going to support bluetooth stacks--to my knowlege anyway. I looked at VB.net express and it was a maze of confusion from the get-go, so I'm looking again at new programming languages to learn, and I thought that this might be a good start as there is code relating to the use of the Wiimotes. Ken Downey DTI --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] What language for gaming? Was:Re: dark room and programming for Wiimotes
Hi, Was the multiplayer programming done in all VB.NET? Did you use Winsocks? And I agree VB is the best way to go. -Ryan On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 6:06 PM, Che c...@blindadrenaline.com wrote: Hi Ken, Not sure what you mean by vb .net express looked a mass of confusion . Are you referring to the IDE? If so, it takes a bit of time to get used to, but once you do, you will really appreciate the power and abilities it offers you. As for programming any halfway serious audio game, I've looked at a bit of java code, and I'd say visual basic is more or less on level ground with it in terms of difficulty to program, which in my opinion isn't that hard. When I started out in 2005 looking to get into it, I looked long and hard at several options. I thought about C#, but I can do the exact same things without having to warp my brain around there weird syntax and use of odd symbols. Before you C coders out there get bent out of shape, I want you to know I don't care what language you use, same as I don't care what kind of computer you use, for me whatever gets the job done with minimal fuss is what I am going to use, and for me that was vb .net express. I'm not putting down C# or any other language, and if I were doing graphics intensive stuff, I probably would have gone with C# or something similar. I've done about all you can imagine an audio game could use, from joystick inputs, to full featured online play with virtually no lag. All this was done with visual basic .net. The single exception to this is force feedback, which I was not able to put into rail racer, which chapped my stick, and perhaps is fixed by now. I am about to release my second and third commercial games in the last two years, all three of which were built on visual basic, and with virtually no programming experience 4 years ago to speak of. I can't give a higher reccomendation than that for anyone looking to program audio games for the blind. It has taken a lot of time and tenacity, but as the old saying goes, nothing worth doing comes easy. I encourage you to take another look at vb .net, lord knows we need all the good accessible developers out there we can get, and in my humble opinion I think java is going to leave you lacking in the end. Later, Che --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] What language for gaming? Was:Re: dark room and programming for Wiimotes
Hi everyone, Quote I've done about all you can imagine an audio game could use, from joystick inputs, to full featured online play with virtually no lag. All this was done with visual basic .net. End quote I'd like to add to this in my experience that the language itself is usually as less important as knowing how to program in it correctly, being able to get the most out of it, and as long as it fulfills all of your requirements and expectations. As it happens Visual Basic .NET has come a long long ways from Visual Basic 6. There are many new features and abilities in Visual Basic .NET that make it sutable for just about any project if you really want to go that way. It is even possible to make cross platform applications with Visual Basic .NET which was not previously possible under Visual Basic 6 and earlier. Quote I thought about C#, but I can do the exact same things without having to warp my brain around there weird syntax and use of odd symbols. End quote Smile Seeing as the C-Style syntax is universally used by several programming languages to our way of thinking Visual Basic syntax looks weird and bloated. Though, as you pointed out this is a personal preference here because C# and Visual Basic applications are exactly the same after they are compiled into a .NET binary. The only difference between C# .NET and Visual Basic .NET is how the code looks. In C-Style languages you might create an integer variable like int myVariable = 0; or create a Visual Basic variable myVariable As Integer = 0 like this. Either way you like doing it you are going to do the same thing. It just looks different. Quote I encourage you to take another look at vb .net, lord knows we need all the good accessible developers out there we can get, and in my humble opinion I think java is going to leave you lacking in the end. End quote Yes, I definitely agree. Java is a great language, but I found it wasn't so hot for audio games. For small games it did ok. When I ported Mysteries of the Ancients to Java last year the game ran terrible. I ended up having to abandon it and go back to the original C# source code. So i'd be careful with Java. HTH. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] What language for gaming? Was:Re: dark room and programming for Wiimotes
Hi Ryan, Seeing Rail Racer was built using an older .NET framework I'm not too certain what Che used, but I can tell you what you need for .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.5. Under .NET 3.x use System.Network.Sockets instead of Winsocks. HTH. Ryan Smith wrote: Hi, Was the multiplayer programming done in all VB.NET? Did you use Winsocks? And I agree VB is the best way to go. -Ryan --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] What language for gaming? Was:Re: dark room and programming for Wiimotes
Ken, With all due respect to my colleagues, Java rocks! It's an easy language to learn and to code in. I believe that Eclipse is blind-accessible. Certainly IBM (which begat Eclipse and still has a major hand in it) is blind-accessibility supportive. I've had no problems with sound using Java. We play WAV files and MIDI files, as well as using the FreeTTS speech synthisizer. We've had no problems with sound on either Windows systems or the Mac. Don't know about Linux, but don't see why the Java sound APIs would be a problem there. I have the highest respect for the technical assessments of Thomas, Che, Ryan, et al. But Java works fine for me. That being said, you might get more technical support from them and other Audyssey folks if you use their languages. Good luck in any case, John Bannick www.7128.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] What language for gaming? Was:Re: dark room and programming for Wiimotes
on the subject of java, what do I set my java association to to open java files, I have java 6.11 reason is that every time I upgrade my nokia pc suite software it automatically associates java files with the phone installer software. obviously I don't want to do that. At 05:10 p.m. 11/02/2009, you wrote: Ken, With all due respect to my colleagues, Java rocks! It's an easy language to learn and to code in. I believe that Eclipse is blind-accessible. Certainly IBM (which begat Eclipse and still has a major hand in it) is blind-accessibility supportive. I've had no problems with sound using Java. We play WAV files and MIDI files, as well as using the FreeTTS speech synthisizer. We've had no problems with sound on either Windows systems or the Mac. Don't know about Linux, but don't see why the Java sound APIs would be a problem there. I have the highest respect for the technical assessments of Thomas, Che, Ryan, et al. But Java works fine for me. That being said, you might get more technical support from them and other Audyssey folks if you use their languages. Good luck in any case, John Bannick www.7128.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] What language for gaming? Was:Re: dark room and programming for Wiimotes
Hi, Eclipse is very accessible. I use it with Window Eyes 7 any time i have important Java projects to do, and it also works fine with Orca on the Linux side. So it is a decent accessible cross platform Java IDE. To Ken or anyone else considering Java Eclipse also comes with a graphical toolkit called Swift. I highly recommend using Swift instead of swing if you plan to have Window Eyes, Jaws, Hal, and everything else support the application out of the box. The primary advantage of swift besides it is highly accesible it doesn't require a java access bridge to be installed to get access from the application. As for why I personally decided not to use Java I noticed that my Genesis Engine didn't perform as well written in Java as it did in C# .NET. Otherwise I like the language, it worked well for my test applications, but not apparently for what I wanted to do with it. A game that worked perfectly well under Windows crashed when ran on the Java VM for Linux so I felt I had to look at my other options. John Bannick wrote: Ken, With all due respect to my colleagues, Java rocks! It's an easy language to learn and to code in. I believe that Eclipse is blind-accessible. Certainly IBM (which begat Eclipse and still has a major hand in it) is blind-accessibility supportive. I've had no problems with sound using Java. We play WAV files and MIDI files, as well as using the FreeTTS speech synthisizer. We've had no problems with sound on either Windows systems or the Mac. Don't know about Linux, but don't see why the Java sound APIs would be a problem there. I have the highest respect for the technical assessments of Thomas, Che, Ryan, et al. But Java works fine for me. That being said, you might get more technical support from them and other Audyssey folks if you use their languages. Good luck in any case, John Bannick www.7128.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
