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"What's the best programing language for making games?"

What's the best programing language for making games?

C + SDL

Easy, powerful, fast, cross-platform, etc.. it's what lokigames.com used for porting all their stuff to linux, including Quake 3, Unreal Tourney, Tribes 2, etc.

Actually I just got into it myself last night, it's really nice, good GL support as well.

http://libsdl.org/

The original Quake was written in C, which is why it spwaned so many mods and stuff on the internet as loads of bedroom programmers had the ability to write their own stuff using the game engine.

I doubt that Quake was written in Visual Basic, Visual C++ would seem more likely to me, although I could be wrong.

If it was written in VC++, as it stands, it wouldn only run on a Windows OS. It would have to be converted to run on Linux or Unix or Solaris or whatever platform you wanted it to run on.

Someone said earlier that Quake 3 was written in VB, and that VB would only run in Windows. That can't be right because there's a Linux version as well.

Almost forgot. I emailed the nice people at Rare and they replied promptly telling me that they used C and increasingly C++ plus a lot of Assembler languages.

I learned Visual Basic a couple of years ago and it was clearly pointed out in the book it's almost no good for games. Although I wouldn't totally agree with that statement VB can run incredibily slowly.
So I read a book on C++ got through most of it but as you can guess didn't learn that much in comparison to what I know with Visual Basic.
Tried Dark Basic and it's okay. Based around Direct X so you can make 3D graphics easily but it feels like a menu-driven games maker just changed into code. It makes you feel clostraphobic because although you can do a lot it seems too easy and the same commands. I'm not sure of the actual speed of it though.

Armatige Shanks wrote:
If hes starting out then C++ is going to be very daunting...

Equally... if he tries VB/Pascal/etc... then he'll be bored of creating text games fast...

Ive never used Dark Basic... but I would suspect it is a 'BASIC' programming language, which will teach him the basic operators IF, FOR, etc... varible creation, program structure...

Also I understand it provides a very simple interface to Active X controls... which for a gamer can never be a bad thing...
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I have a confession to make, I haven't used DarkBasic either. :-) From what I've seen/read, it seems to be good for basic, low level programming. It seems to be very "click where you want the bad guy to be", as oppsed to "ok, enter the AI routine for the bad guy", so I kind of think that you'll get reasonalbe results quickly, but if he's after in-depth games programming, he may find the limitations of the program quite quickly...

Also, will it teach him the basic IF, FOR operators? It seems to me to not involve any coding on the users part, merely using pre-set routines include in the package, which then creates the code for you.

Basically Magma Dragoon, niether me or Shanks have used it, so we don't know what we're talknig about :-P

I'd recommend downloading a demo of it, there's bound to be one on the 'net somewhere, and give it a go yourself, to see if it's what you're after. Failing that, phone the university and ask them what they would recommend you do.
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Its not going to show him the depth required for pro-level programming... but if hes never programmed before, it should be a nice introduction... he can become more ambitious as his experience grows?
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Yup, very true.
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Ive just picked up VC++ myself yesterday! :) ... Ive yet to install, but Ive been lead to believe its a surprsingly funky development environment? (Ive been doing a lot of Java recently... and havnt touched C++ for a couple of years now, so I may call on you for advice on it, in the future if thats okay?)
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No worries mate! I'm going home for Christmas next weekend and won't have much net access for the fortnight after that, but I should still be able to get my email, so just drop me a line. You do have my email, don't you?
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Persoinally I would reccommend going via Java, since it is essentially a cut down version of C++ (though I must admit to being... but I remeber having trouble getting my head around OO because I kept trying to sequentialise things? ...
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I haven't done Java, but it does take a little getting used to OO programming after sequentialised programming with C. However, I think it is a good move to do some programming before moving onto C++, whether it's C or Java matters little, IMHO.
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Your Honour wrote:

Very true. BUT, you won't learn how to program. So
> dependng what you want this may or may not be the best option...

If hes starting out then C++ is going to be very daunting...

Equally... if he tries VB/Pascal/etc... then he'll be bored of creating text games fast...

Ive never used Dark Basic... but I would suspect it is a 'BASIC' programming language, which will teach him the basic operators IF, FOR, etc... varible creation, program structure...

Also I understand it provides a very simple interface to Active X controls... which for a gamer can never be a bad thing...

Eqaully, I read in a lower post that Unis are giving to to first year students, so it cant be too damaging to future programming?

Its not going to show him the depth required for pro-level programming... but if hes never programmed before, it should be a nice introduction... he can become more ambitious as his experience grows?


Again
> true. MS Visual C++ does have a load of wizards included to help with the
> ActiveX stuff, but then it would do, it's by Microsoft helping you to develop
> for an MS product so they make it as easy as possible.

I'm using MS VC++ 6.0
> at work to create a GUI led program, and it's actually a hell of a lot easier
> than I thought it would be. AND I've done some C before...

Ive just picked up VC++ myself yesterday! :) ... Ive yet to install, but Ive been lead to believe its a surprsingly funky development environment? (Ive been doing a lot of Java recently... and havnt touched C++ for a couple of years now, so I may call on you for advice on it, in the future if thats okay?)


Possibly, I'd personally recommend doing at least a
> little bit of C first. I worked through a whole "Teach yourself C"
> book before moving onto VC++, and I think it helped.

Persoinally I would reccommend going via Java, since it is essentially a cut down version of C++ (though I must admit to being... but I remeber having trouble getting my head around OO because I kept trying to sequentialise things? ...

I think it depends how
> much time you can put in. If you do have time I'd recommend doing C first.
> However, if you like/are good at jumping in at the deep end, go straight for
> VC++.

It was only because I remeber a chat I had with a lecturerer back in uni, were he said that it takes as long to teach a person OO language as it does a sequential one... (also that they seem to have the same amount of problems then learning to think sequentially as sequential coders do thinking object-orientedly?) :)

Armatige Shanks wrote:
If your anting to start writing your own games, you'd be better off starting with something like DarkBasic...

It will give you a good undertsanding of what is required for developing a game, and definitly isnt as daunting as C/C++... It will allow you to spend more time developing the game rather than fighting to get the language to do what you want...
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Very true. BUT, you won't learn how to program. So dependng what you want this may or may not be the best option...

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If your wondering what pro-developers use... then the VAST majority of games are written in C++... and of theose I understand a many pro-games use Microsoft Visual C++... since, though its not as fast as say Borland C++ compiler,
Visual C+++ is much easier to implement Windows specific API (especially Active X)
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Again true. MS Visual C++ does have a load of wizards included to help with the ActiveX stuff, but then it would do, it's by Microsoft helping you to develop for an MS product so they make it as easy as possible.

I'm using MS VC++ 6.0 at work to create a GUI led program, and it's actually a hell of a lot easier than I thought it would be. AND I've done some C before...


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C is the pre-curser to C++, the code itself is structually the same (A C++ compiler will also compile C code), however C is a sequential language, whilst C++ is Object Orientated... so if/when you do decide to tackle C/C++ you may be better off jumping straight in C++ and missing C altogether?
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Possibly, I'd personally recommend doing at least a little bit of C first. I worked through a whole "Teach yourself C" book before moving onto VC++, and I think it helped.

I think it depends how much time you can put in. If you do have time I'd recommend doing C first. However, if you like/are good at jumping in at the deep end, go straight for VC++.

Magma Dragoon wrote:
> What's the best programing language for making games?

If your anting to start writing your own games, you'd be better off starting with something like DarkBasic...

It will give you a good undertsanding of what is required for developing a game, and definitly isnt as daunting as C/C++... It will allow you to spend more time developing the game rather than fighting to get the language to do what you want...

If your wondering what pro-developers use... then the VAST majority of games are written in C++... and of theose I understand a many pro-games use Microsoft Visual C++... since, though its not as fast as say Borland C++ compiler,
Visual C+++ is much easier to implement Windows specific API (especially Active X)

Assembler isnt really used anymore... (Chris Sawyer wrote Roller Coaster Tycoon for the PC in Assembler a couple of years back, and people are still talking about it now :) )

C is the pre-curser to C++, the code itself is structually the same (A C++ compiler will also compile C code), however C is a sequential language, whilst C++ is Object Orientated... so if/when you do decide to tackle C/C++ you may be better off jumping straight in C++ and missing C altogether?

I'm telling ya don't start with C++. Start with DarkBasic or Blitz3d (the former is cheaper and can be purchased from SR and the likes of PCWorld), then, when you've got a firm grip of that and literally mastered it, move onto C++.
Grab yourself a book like Andre LaMothe's 'Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Gurus' from somewhere like Waterstones. It's quite pricey, but DEFINATELY worth it (I should know!) :)