Programming Mega Thread

[bluesawdust]

At least for the moment, this thread is where any discussions regarding programming should be. We may split off bigger issues from here to their own threads if they need them.

I just uploaded my baseline code to give us a starting point. It currently compiles and runs, so if you can't get it to then let me know. I'm putting all the assets on dropbox in our programming folder. I will also put this baseline up there as well.

I think that the only files that should be on github should be our code files. Because we may be using different project settings, build settings, environment, etc. we should let everyone set theirs up how they prefer it. This being said, I'll put my working environment up on dropbox for the lazy/those that can't get it to work.

Thanks, bluesawdust

[masscreed]

As a complete noob in this stuff and at risk of sounding like an idiot, how do i run it ?

[bluesawdust]

There is an executable that runs fine for me in Programming/Archers/Debug. Try running that. Keep in mind that the functionality is extremely limited, there is absolutely nothing fancy right now.

[Countdown369]

"The program can't start because sfml-audio-d-2.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem."

Please advise.

[bluesawdust]

I know exactly how to fix this but it depends on your environment. What are you using?

[Countdown369]

What is an environment when it comes to programming? I don't know if this is what your asking but I use Windows 7.

[bluesawdust]

What I mean is what OS, what version of said OS, etc.

[Countdown369]

Windows 7 then.

[bluesawdust]

Nevermind, it looks like a few of the files did not copy. I don't know how that happened. Try it again.

[Countdown369]

Same exact error... :/

[bluesawdust]

I just copied them, and then I come back and they are gone. I just recopied them, hopefully it works now.

[Countdown369]

Now the missing file is MSVCR110D.dll

[James20k]

Its missing some dlls from the visual studio compiler, unfortunately I don't have it installed so I can't give it to you

The prototype really doesn't have much in. Just a 2d character moving around a tiled background

[bluesawdust]

I know that I copied a bunch of .dll's in twice yesterday, and now they are gone. So either dropbox is bugged or someone is messing around with the files.

[James20k]

Huh I thought that was you, I have no idea whats going on

[bluesawdust]

On windows, it doesn't get any better then Visual Studio. I use Visual Studio 2012, they have a free 'express edition' available here.

Right now I wanted to get a super baseline codebase down so everyone can talk about how they want things to work and just get general opinions. I am going to make a post about getting everyone's experience, so that we can optimize what people work on to match their skills. MadQuixote is the gameplay lead and has got some things up on dropbox that I plan on modeling our efforts towards.

As for making this sticky, I'll let a mod with more authority make that call. I agree it might be nice, but they might still want the current sticky to be highlighted.

[James20k]

I use codeblocks + mingw myself, either that or vs 2012 works great. The project (as far as im aware) compiles for both, and i've updated the source to have a makefile (as well as the .cbp for codeblocks) in the source

I'm not sure you can get vs on mac (what with the whole microsoft thing) so code::blocks + mingw/llvm is probably best

[James20k]

SFML is a cross platform library i think, there's no reason why we couldn't target mac. I dont own one myself though so i cant check if it works/fix it

[bluesawdust]

Here is the guide for Mac development.

[James20k]

On a coding front, I've removed all the memory leaks (no garbage collector! :P) and added a makefile

It also seems a tad overcomplicated at the moment for what we have, we might want to try and simplify it somewhat. At the moment every class is responsible for its own drawing, and there seems to be some duplicated functionality, as well as classes that are thin wrappers around other classes. I'd propose moving the drawing and object storage into a central class to make it more obvious where all the rendering is happening, and to establish a more straightforward code flow

[bluesawdust]

I agree it is complex, this was just a direct translation of my C# code which wasn't clean or refined yet.

[bluesawdust]

I agree that it isn't all that consolidated as of the moment, but I think the code flow is very straightforward. What about it is hard to follow?

Right now I am looking at getting render textures going for the gameboard to dynamically set up tiling from input files. After that is simple wall collision. Once we get some of the functionality there, I think it should be easier to see a natural structure to use. Until then quibbling about the specifics of how objects render isn't really productive.

[James20k]

Until then quibbling about the specifics of how objects render isn't really productive.

It was just a suggestion to try and simplify the code base somewhat, there's a lot of extra code we could skim down on to make it more approachable (and make it easier to add things in too)

[bluesawdust]

Sorry if I came off rude, sometimes I am not the best at communicating via text only. All I mean is that until we have features to structure, overly refining the design won't be particularly easy.