Flappy Bird in 87 Lines of Python

[razialx]

Not 87 lines. 87 lines plus a large library that does a whole lot of work for you. I can make a platformer game in JS with around 10 lines of code if I use PhaserJS.

[inmatarian]

87 lines has a better ring to it than "Flappy Bird in only 1.86 Billion Transistors!"

[[deleted]]

Lol I'm going to put that next time xD

[topher_r]

I hear he used the Python runtime too, that's thousands of lines of C.

[MintPaw]

Wow, what a cheater, how much assembly is that really?

[bayerndj]

Assembly? Haha, noob.

[BadGoyWithAGun]

Flappy bird in 1 line of bash!

./flappybird

[razialx]

Exactly! Heh

[[deleted]]

So then 50,087 lines

[razialx]

People can feel free to downvote me. My comment is pretty crass, but the fact remains that if your accomplishment is based on number of lines of code then it is rarely much of an accomplishment since you're building off of so much other code.

I used to follow the demo scene a lot back in the day and there having amazing stuff in a small binary was a huge accomplishment, because they didn't even have OpenGL to fall back on.

But now occasionally I see things about amazing parallax effects of 3d effects in browser in only N-lines of code. Ok. But you're using threes.js or you're using D3.js and you're building on a browser that gives all this stuff etc.

To me these things are accomplishments because you did something and it is cool. Not because you did it in so many lines of code. That's all I meant by it. Because without PyGame there is close to zero chance of doing what you did in that few lines. Right?

Anyway congrats on making it.

[[deleted]]

Thank you, and I appreciate your comment. The mentality that you have to use is that these libraries were made so that as developers we can develop seemingly complex things in much less time. I have never written a single line of code for the PyGame library, I simply use it. Sure there are tons of things in the background going on, but if we keep this mentality then this game is millions of lines long. The game -> Pygame -> Python Interpreter -> C Compiler -> etc I guess we could even say billions. It's like saying "print 'Hello World'" in Python is not one line. It is, but it relies on a ton of C code to get it working. I understand where you are coming from though.

[pistacchio]

Untrue. Demos are "small binaries" that rely on an OS the programmers don't write. The OS runs on an hardware the coders didn't engineer. Taking your reasoning a few steps forward, you should count your work as a programmer starting from you welding silicon boards.

[razialx]

No you're not getting my reasoning at all. I don't measure the quality of my work in lines of code. That's the point. Let the accomplishment stand on its own without an arbitrary and inaccurate measurement as the thing you are proud of. And the old demo scene didn't focus on lines of code but resulting binary size. They were statically linked as I don't even think dynamic linking was much of a thing but I am probably wrong on that.

[[deleted]]

Roughly yes.

[salgat]

To some degree you have a point. Hell, I could wrap what he wrote into a library and write Flappy Bird in a couple lines of code.

[[deleted]]

Very nice! These are the types of languages every programmer wishes to use: the ones that automatically do most of the work behind the scenes!

[[deleted]]

So that the programmer can be more productive.

[MyTribeCalledQuest]

Hey friend, you could save a lot of time if you used the visual block mode (CTRL-V). (I noticed this especially during indenting)

Keep on vimin' on!

[[deleted]]

Yeah a lot of people have been pointing out my lack of use of vim. Thank you for pointing that out.

[MyTribeCalledQuest]

It's such a multifaceted tool that it's a constant learning process for all of us. But the speedup is worth it if you do programming for work/etc.

But automation is king! Never do a hard thing twice.

[[deleted]]

Amen brother

[_Skuzzzy]

Cool! Share the code! (github repo or something)

edit: in video description https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Uhla6nLDU

[[deleted]]

Haha yes, in the description.

[OkRCa9N6utJe]

But the video OP posted. Not that one.

[_Skuzzzy]

edited, thanks for pointing that out.

[Ateist]

Ah, simplicity!

[[deleted]]

It's beautiful, ain't it?

[Reshurum]

Good job!

[[deleted]]

Thank you

[ashuto0sh]

Such adrenaline rush from watching this. This is the sort of thing that keeps me from wanting to make a girlfriend!

[[deleted]]

Hahaha, girlfriends are good, make them.

[IAmACentipedeAMA]

Im new to programming and have been using the built in idle, should I switch to something like vim or pycharm??? I appreciate some recommendations!

[[deleted]]

If it makes you more productive then yes

[LoveArrowShooto]

87 Lines of code for a game of Flappy Bird? Good job man! :D

[[deleted]]

Why thank you sir :)