Programming

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Guido
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Post by Guido »

Just got this working.. Pretty cool.
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Pantheon
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Post by Pantheon »

Awesome work guido!
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Guido
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Post by Guido »

Thanks :).

So my emulator is running the BIOS, the VGA BIOS and the BASIC interpreter, millions of instructions get executed, without any sign that there is an error somewhere. Yet, I cannot run DOS yet, so the error that is preventing me from doing this must be really minor.. I noticed that most of the times I try to run a DOS image the last instruction is a CALL, and it then jumps into "void space" (memory filled with zero's), so I am suspecting there might be an error in my disk reading routines and the area it wants to jumps to doesn't get loaded from disk correctly. But I'm getting there :).
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Guido
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Post by Guido »

Turned out there was a bug in the execution of the 0xFE/0xFF opcodes. Now I can do this:

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Guido
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Post by Guido »

I'm sorry to have hijacked the thread with my emulator updates.. Won't post again about it here so if you're interested in the projects I'm working on please subscribe to my Youtube or Twitter accounts..

So an on-topic question: does anyone have experience with Haskell? A while ago I read some tutorials on Haskell and experimented a little with the interpreter and it's quite interesting to work with.
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Post by aged sea »

I'm trying to learn programming but I am a fuzzy. It is difficult at times.
bhn
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Guido
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Post by Guido »

Feel free to ask..
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Post by Guido »

https://projecteuler.net/

This is quite a cool site. So far I've solved 1-11 + 14.
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Noumenon
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Post by Noumenon »

I've been experimenting lately with modern programmable-pipeline graphics methods. Below are some screenshots of the canonical Mandelbrot fractal rendered from software I've written. For those that don't know, the Mandelbrot fractal is a two-dimensional set in the complex plane represented by this extremely simply equation:

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z_next = z^2 + c
A complex number c falls inside the set if the equation above approaches a finite number after a large number of iterations, otherwise c falls outside the set. If you map these values on a two-dimensional plane, you get the Mandelbrot fractal: a two-dimensional shape with finite area, infinite perimeter, and infinite complexity.

I perform all of the math in a fragment shader which runs on the GPU, so it runs roughly 10x faster than a CPU implementation. This allows me to pan and zoom around the fractal in real-time which is pretty cool.

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In other news I've been trying to pick up Haskell, but holy shit does it get weird sometimes. It's surprisingly elegant though.
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Post by Negamuse »

Nice stuff!
Noumenon wrote: In other news I've been trying to pick up Haskell, but holy shit does it get weird sometimes. It's surprisingly elegant though.
Haskell is... yeah. I think I'm of the age where the combination of a life spent coding in a totally different paradigm and the declining plasticity of my brain means I'm never going to be able to understand it. But I hear once you get a handle on it you can do some fantastic stuff very elegantly.
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Post by Cupz »

Ok, I'm a bit sick of Actionscript and I want to move on. I'm thinking focussing on either java or c++, but I don't know. Where the *bleep* do I start? I WANT TO MAKE INTERACTIVE THINGS.
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Post by Techboy »

to be honest you're gonna want to be using html5 + javascript to make interactive things now! cross platform, people dont install stuff anymore...
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Cupz
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Post by Cupz »

I don't know, techboy. with this technology increasing by the day (its not there yet at all), I don't see the need. Besides, Id rather release things on steam, rather then the android market. Isn't c++ like the industry standard?
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Post by Techboy »

Oh if you mean games then yeah c++ is the way to go. I recommend an online guide called learn c++ the hard way. All the fundamental stuff may seem pointless at first but in games it will make a big difference.
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Post by Cupz »

sounds interesting, I'd love a link. Learning the hard way is what I want. I started reading a bit of Programming Principles and Practice by Stroustrup today, doing a few exercises. Its quite in-depth without getting to confusing, though the first few chapters where really really basic. I hope it picks up soon, I still have 1100 pages to churn through if I want to beat this thing. :)
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Post by Betterthanyourkids »

I have a basic understanding of VB, Python and C++, as well as HTML stuff. Never had to really use it though. My dad's a programmer, double majored in math and computer science in college, so I guess it's his thing, he wanted me to have at least some understanding of it I suppose. My dad's really cool.
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Post by Noumenon »

Cupz wrote:sounds interesting, I'd love a link. Learning the hard way is what I want. I started reading a bit of Programming Principles and Practice by Stroustrup today, doing a few exercises. Its quite in-depth without getting to confusing, though the first few chapters where really really basic. I hope it picks up soon, I still have 1100 pages to churn through if I want to beat this thing. :)
Feel free to message me if you get stuck on anything, I'm a professional C++ developer. 8)
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Post by Techboy »

Cupz wrote:sounds interesting, I'd love a link. Learning the hard way is what I want. I started reading a bit of Programming Principles and Practice by Stroustrup today, doing a few exercises. Its quite in-depth without getting to confusing, though the first few chapters where really really basic. I hope it picks up soon, I still have 1100 pages to churn through if I want to beat this thing. :)
Here's a reading list man
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3882 ... e-and-list
I was thinking of learn C the hard way. You prolly want to work hard on the "easy stuff" cause frankly its what makes the difference between a good programmer and a great programmer, someone who "gets it" in a fundamental way.
Betterthanyourkids wrote:I have a basic understanding of VB, Python and C++, as well as HTML stuff. Never had to really use it though. My dad's a programmer, double majored in math and computer science in college, so I guess it's his thing, he wanted me to have at least some understanding of it I suppose. My dad's really cool.
Ah, here's the thing, basically nobody who isn't a professional programmer *has* to program, but it is a great skill to have. You can come up with an idea and execute it yourself, release it and publish it yourself, and it gives you a great sense of achievement to do that kind of thing. When I was 15 or 16 or so myself and a friend released some live chat plugin for phpbb that ended up being quite successful - I look back now and it was pretty horrible, and frankly it's a trivial thing, but at the end of the day we made it ourselves, and it solved a problem for some people, and I was/still am proud of that.
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Re: Programming

Post by kelp »

Flyingpurplepeopleeater wrote:I am starting to get work as a sound engineer and it is dawning on me that I am not going to make a lot of money doing this for a living. :shock:

So I want to get into programming, software, web design that sort of thing because I understand there is big bucks to be made here. I aim to continue working in studios but want something lucrative to fall back on. I think quite a few of you guys are well up on all that and might be able to point me in the right direction?
I am starting at the very basic HTML stage teaching myself. I'm thinking of going on to Java and I've been given a couple of tomes on visual basic and active servers.
I know this will take a lot of time, but should I do a course or could I get enough free stuff online to be qualified?
Any advice on which way to head or how to proceed much appreciated!

Cheers
One does not simply program.

I haven't yet read the rest of this thread but it's years of work to learn proper coding. Unless you want to write bloated inefficient code and steal bits off the internet to use (which isn't always bad, no point re-inventing the wheel). Start with something like BASIC, i mean i started with that when i was 7 but then that was the early 80s, so nowadays it's Visual Basic I guess, like you said. Teach yourself some basic scripting in a scripting language like Kixtart perhaps. Quite easy to get into before getting into a full blown language. Definitely start in higher-level languages than lower-level to begin with anyway. I taught myself at an early age, and did a degree later in life (but actually not programming now for my career, got bored of that at the degree level). Good luck though!
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Aerial Boundaries
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Re: Programming

Post by Aerial Boundaries »

Let's bring this one back from the dead.

I have tried on and off over the years to learn a programming language. I started out with HTML and CSS and those are of course incredibly easy to get to grips with. I also dabbled in php and had some fun with that.

When it comes to learning something like C I loose interest quickly. There are a tonne of concepts to learn before you can even write anything approaching useful or interesting, and my attention span is historically bad.

Recently I've been using Linux again and brushing up on my bash skills, and I've had a lot of fun with that. I've managed to write scripts that I actually use everyday which is nice.

I am learning as a hobby so it is hard for me to find areas where I can use these languages. The projects I want to take on either require a different language or are too difficult.

Anyone got any pointers? Should I go the easy route and learn Python? I'm afraid it might hinder me in the long term as it is slow and high level, and doesn't seem to teach the good habits and concepts needed by any seasoned programmer.

I've even heard people suggest learning Haskel or Scheme as a beginner, in order to get the essential concepts hammered into you first. Then move your way down to the more widely used languages. But that seems a little counter-intuitive considering their reputation for difficulty.
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