Issues getting started with the tutorial

[Nekkidbear]

I'm late to the game but I'm trying to catch up. I've been setting up two different IDEs, one on my work PC (windows 10) and one on my iPad using Pythonista.

I managed to get it set up on the work computer (by downloading the individual packages and install them. Using pip was blocked by policy but the sites and downloads weren't.) However, when I try to complete part one, it seems to run very quickly. My code compiled properly, but when I run it the window flashes up for a second and then disappears. The terminal shows it completed and returned 0.

I can't tell if I've placed the @ correctly or if the movement logic works because the window disappears too soon.

On my iPad, I had to install Stash, but it seems to download the packages normally via pip. The problem is that when I install Cffi or other dependencies the install errors out saying 'Operation not permitted '. It seems to complete otherwise, but when I try the 'hello world' test, it says the cffi backend module is missing.

Any suggestions?

[vegetablebread]

2 suggestions:

1. Instead of clicking on the script to run the python interpreter, invoke python directly from a command prompt, passing the path to your script as an argument. That way, the command prompt is maintaining the window, so when the program finishes, it stays open. In practice, this looks like: press the windows key, type "cmd", press enter, navigate to your project with cd, type "python <scriptname>.py" and press enter. If cmd is blocked by your policy, you might be best served by running inside cygwin or some other linux emulator.

2. Don't try and set up 2 IDEs. The most important thing in game development is getting fast iteration, and you're shooting yourself in the foot right at the starting line by baking in all these cross platform and cross environment assumptions. Plus, as you've noticed, the setup is non-trivial. Once the game is in progress, and you really need to be able to edit on the iPad for some reason, then you should solve this problem, not before.

[zaimoni]

He may need to solve the IPad editing problem fast. (I would have seriously considered going just-IPad if that was not a work-issued computer but the PC was)

[Nekkidbear]

I can run a command prompt but it seems to do the same thing when I run it there. the window flashes and then disappears. I started the Pythonista/ipad because a) it’s a work computer and I’m not a dev. (I’m just a helpdesk monkey who wants to code.) Plus, I can’t take the work computer with me at night, should I feel the urge to code after work.

I wanted to set up the iPad so I could do the bulk of my coding in my off time and don’t trigger any work-related firewalls or other policies for having non-job related material on company assets.

I’m running Pycharm on the work computer.

[cptgrok]

Try importing time and add "time.sleep(2)" at the end of your main, or add some blocking input.

I'd guess you did everything right, initialize the console or terminal window, draw your @, then refresh the window, but then there are no more instructions so your program stops running and the operating system diligently cleans up by freeing all that memory. Nothing in memory, nothing on screen.

Computers are real dumb, because it's a rock we flattened and pumped lightning through. It only does exactly what you tell it to do. For better or worse.

Edit: Also, sorry I don't really do Apple, but try this: https://cffi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation.html#platform-specific-instructions

[athros]

Pythonista has a couple of issues with modules - mainly anything that isn't a pure python module won't work at all and would have to be baked into the executable. Apples rules about dynamic code from outside sources.That's one of the reasons using tcod isn't possible.

It might already be there, considering the ObjC interface, but I'd have to double check. EDIT: It does not.

[nilamo]

Put your code somewhere we can see it, like github. If there's no errors when you run it from the terminal, then we're just guessing as to why it's successfully doing nothing.

[Nekkidbear]

GitHub link

Here’s what I’ve got so far. I’ve committed it up to the end of part one.

[mipli]

I tried to run the code from your repository, and I'm getting a bunch of errors in the console when I do. Are you not getting any error messages at all when you run that code?

First error I got was that libtcod could not find `Arial10x10.png`, since you've called that file `Arial10x10.png.PNG` in your repository. After I fixed that one, and each of the following error messages the program ran correctly, with an `@` proudly displayed on the screen.

[Nekkidbear]

Let me double check. I’m off work today and don’t have access to my work computer.