Programming Q&A

[Derakon]

We have a wide range of developers here, of varying levels of experience and with varying types of expertise. Some of us are just starting out, or have been playing in a very specific domain (say, a certain large C program) and want to branch out. Others have more experience. It occurred to me that it would probably be a good idea to have an area where we could help train each other. So let's open this thread up to questions, and then whoever feels themselves competent can come in and give advice.

Personally my areas of greatest expertise are object-oriented development and Python, though I still remember a decent amount of C. So come on, hit me.

[Antoine]

Does anyone know much about Pygame for Android? (he asked hopefully)

A.

[Derakon]

I have some experience with PyGame in general, none with Android.

My thinking on this thread was that we'd stay somewhat removed from specific technologies and instead discuss strategies and concepts. It's more of a catchup-school for people who never got to take mid- or upper-level programming courses than it is a replacement for, say, StackOverflow.

[Antoine]

Originally Posted by Derakon

I have some experience with PyGame in general, none with Android.

My thinking on this thread was that we'd stay somewhat removed from specific technologies and instead discuss strategies and concepts. It's more of a catchup-school for people who never got to take mid- or upper-level programming courses than it is a replacement for, say, StackOverflow.

I reread that post three times and all i hear is you offering to debug my Pygame code. I'll email you the source.

A

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by Antoine

I reread that post three times and all i hear is you offering to debug my Pygame code. I'll email you the source.

Brilliant. I just laughed my cup of tea all over the place.

So, Derakon, my first question is about stats. In Angband, stats are an array which is part of the state struct: p_ptr->state.stat_ind[] ... and the individual stats are #defines.

I thought it would be helpful to define stats in an external file (excuse me but I am unfamiliar with JSON so will use Angband-style config) which could contain things like:

N:1
Label: STR
Name: Strength
Description: An entity's physical strength - important for carrying stuff, hitting things hard and opening doors.
Min: 3
Max: 40

So my question is, is it possible to read that stuff in from the file and then refer to stat[STR] in the code? Come to think of it, I wouldn't know how to do this in C either, but I'm actually interested in Python because I kind of have a hunch that Python can do this.

(Let's leave aside the question of why one would hard-code references to stats which are defined in an external file - one thing at a time!)

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Originally Posted by Derakon

It's more of a catchup-school for people who never got to take mid- or upper-level programming courses

Mid- or upper level? Hmm.

I'd like to read a book about beginning C programming. It would need to be well and intelligently written, so I could just read it from cover to cover leisurely, maybe taking peeks at the Angband code at the same time.

I've actually managed to code in all the game mechanics I've been able to think of, and I'm getting quite fast at it, but I sometimes have to do things in a very stupid and ugly manner. I care much more about the beauty of the game mechanics than about the beauty of the code, but still... It bothers me a bit.

Programming is only in a minor way related to my work -- text processing and web development are most useful areas.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Mikko Lehtinen

Mid- or upper level? Hmm.

I'd like to read a book about beginning C programming. It would need to be well and intelligently written, so I could just read it from cover to cover leisurely, maybe taking peeks at the Angband code at the same time.

I've actually managed to code in all the game mechanics I've been able to think of, and I'm getting quite fast at it, but I sometimes have to do things in a very stupid and ugly manner. I care much more about the beauty of the game mechanics than about the beauty of the code, but still... It bothers me a bit.

Programming is only in a minor way related to my work -- text processing and web development are most useful areas.

I have had some c courses, but my teacher was a nutjob that didn't have a clue about programming. To get an equivalent of "A" (not our scale) you just needed to indent your nonsense code by three spaces and make it look pretty. It didn't matter did the code actually work or even compile, just remember to indent by three spaces. And remember to never ever ask anything about your code (you ended up with even more crazy coding assignment and never got an answer to your question).

I have learned c much more by examining angband code than I ever did in that course. Not that I have learned much by examining that code. Just more.

To Q&A about angband code is how do you know which file does what and how to follow the flow of the code (flowchart??) to figure out what you need to change in order to actually change the thing you are changing.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

To Q&A about angband code is how do you know which file does what and how to follow the flow of the code (flowchart??) to figure out what you need to change in order to actually change the thing you are changing.

grep is my best friend.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Mikko Lehtinen

grep is my best friend.

In order to use grep you need to know what you are searching. My question goes one step up from that: how do you know what to search?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I can't google up Leon Marrick's article "Caveman Guide to Angband Programming". It was really useful to me. I think it used to be in Thangorodrim, and the site seems to be down. Does anyone have a copy of the article somewhere? Let's put it back on the web!