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[Bricks]

Now, this is more about me asking random programming related questions and people debating semantics on different languages.

Spoiler: The old topic (click to show/hide)

I'm looking for some sort of creative outlet, and I've been bouncing around a few different ideas in my head that I think I could mash up in some sort of rogue-like.  I haven't programmed anything serious in a number of years, nor do I happen to know any sort of "professional" languages (Java, C++ come to mind).  I'm mostly self-taught, and I've played around with enough languages that I can pick one up pretty quickly, so I'm OK if the consensus is something I have no experience with.  I've programmed a great deal in Basic, a few *shudder* Visual Basic incarnations, some Python (which I liked, but I'm not really sure if it's a good choice), and other misc. languages.  Anyway, if someone could give me some tips on what language to consider I'd be very grateful.  Python is the most readily available language, followed by any of the Visual Studio '08 languages.  I am on a mac.

Here are some of my ideas, if anyone would like to see them or steal them:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

-Working title: Tinker
-Atmosphere: Scifi-ish postapocolyptia (Fallout being the main inspiration)
-Weapon/armor customization/creation through modular pieces
-No stat progression/character sheets
-Character development and customization entirely through weapons/armor
-Persistent, random worlds
-Game scales with character instead of the constant, ball-numbing groin kicks that is most rogue-likes
-Controls similar to most rogue-likes, with attention to comfortable, intuitive ranged combat and stealth
-Inspection of items and enemies will provide both numeric and relative information ("This rifle is about twice as accurate as your pistol," "This six-legged mutant tiger is much faster than you")

Yeah, it's lofty, but my unwillingness to do school work shall overcome.

[eerr]

Find something which draws the screen for you, in decent Ascii graphics.

Go with that.

[Armok]

I say python, with a good margin. The only real downside of python is prestanda, and the occasional annoyance due to dependency in guess, but neither of those sound like a big issue here!

[qwertyuiopas]

If you intend to make a career from it, learing a low-level language like C or C++ will probably help, but as it is, it sounds like almost anything decently flexable would work fine.

[Bricks]

Python it is, then.  Thanks folks.  Armok, I'm glad you indicated that whatever you mentioned didn't matter, because it sounded like gibberish.

Now I just need to figure out why my Mac's python is so fussy.

[ein]

Don't use python.
Use brainfuck.

[eerr]

Ok, ignore eion and go find the "rougelike development thread"

Pick one of those libraries with a method of "einy-meany-miny-moe"

And you're all set for whatever language that library was made for.

[Shades]

If you didn't already mention you knew Python I'd recommend C++, as it is though your probably better off with Python and it's (many many) game dev libraries than learning C++.

Basically it depends how good your Python is

[Bricks]

It's not so much that I'm more familiar with Python - I've only played around with it because my physics course did some simulations with VPython.  I just do better with more straightforward languages, and I'm not looking to create some super-efficient, professional game.  Also, I've found a roguelike library for Python which I'm either going to use or deconstruct.

[alfie275]

I use c++ with pdcurses.

[TheDarkJay]

Ultimately, and despite what they try and tell you, there is no 'best language' for any particular task, it all depends on what you're comfortable with.

That being said: With Python, the need for python to be installed in the users computer will drive away some users. Java or the .NET languages don't suffer from this because programs written in them are common enough for users to have them pre-installed or for them to find their way onto PCs pretty quickly. On the other hand, users have to go out of the way for their first ever Python program and probably won't ever have more than one or two on the computer ever. It's a bit of a viscous cycle really...still, if you don't mind that more power to you ^^ Word of advice: "import skynet" is a bad idea

Ironically, outside of things coded in programming circles for programmings sake, I think I've only seen one or two Python programs.

BASIC...a part of me revolts against rather quickly, I think Dijkstra summed it up quite well: The teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence, it mutilates the mind beyond recovery.

Still, if it works for you

Personally I use C++ a lot of the time, some C# or Java occasionally though I'm not too fond of them. Java to me feels like it's completely forgotten what it was about and become lost in trying to do everything generically. Also some things it just seems to go out of it's way to make difficult for you, like lists.

C# is pretty decent, though for larger projects I prefer C++, and C# has the inherent "teh M$ is teh devil" issues if you care for such things -_- The main problem with C# for me is to do large graphics it typically means falling back to the deprecated managed DirectX, or the more modern and...interesting XNA, both of which have like 0% portability, or to use a 3rd party library...also OpenGL in C# just feels weird to me :S Not bad, just weird...

When I use C++ I do so with the experimental C++0x features GCC 4.x.y provide. The variadic templates it provides are a force of pure joy for me as they made simulating a delegate system similar to C#'s both easy and efficient ^^ I also have a few wrappers around multi-threading, garbage collection, the console window and so-forth which I tend to use as part of a custom personal library =P

In this day and age, efficiency is a silly argument. Whilst a very well written C++ program will only be marginally faster than a very well written C# program, a poorly written C++ program will be immensely slower than a decently written C# program. Assuming you're using a decent language (and not something silly like QuickBASIC), it's quite rare for the language itself, not just how you've written the program, to be the limiting factor on your programs speed.

[Nadaka]

Its been a long time since I did any c++, but it is a very powerful and efficient language.

I mostly use java and c# for professional and personal projects. They are a bit safer and easier than c++ and the compromise in performance isn't that bad.

[Armok]

Ultimately, and despite what they try and tell you, there is no 'best language' for any particular task, it all depends on what you're comfortable with.

That being said: With Python, the need for python to be installed in the users computer will drive away some users. Java or the .NET languages don't suffer from this because programs written in them are common enough for users to have them pre-installed or for them to find their way onto PCs pretty quickly. On the other hand, users have to go out of the way for their first ever Python program and probably won't ever have more than one or two on the computer ever. It's a bit of a viscous cycle really...still, if you don't mind that more power to you ^^ Word of advice: "import skynet" is a bad idea

"Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#0>", line 1, in <module>
    import skynet
ImportError: No module named skynet"

Also, that anoyance issue was what i meant by dependency. I could have worded it more clearly i guess.

[Dasleah]

That being said: With Python, the need for python to be installed in the users computer will drive away some users.

Installing Python on the target computer is only necessary if the developer is lazy. If you're using CPython, then you can use py2exe or py2app. If you're using IronPython, then you can compile that straight to an .exe. And with Jython, that compiles back to a .jar or .class or whatever it is that Java uses. Hell, these days I've seen Python compile to Javascript. And most of these methods will take care of including and packaging the various libraries you call into the directories they need to be in anyway, so that's another issue gone.

[qwertyuiopas]

Honestly, whatever language you use, if you are using it for anything more complicated than multiplying constants with no output, you will probably need to write a few functions first to make complex tasks easy.

Great examples:
Loading images
Getting input
Drawing output
Common logic


Then, once you have those done, the code will be much more similar across any possible language.

It doesn't matter what language you use, once you have enough "low level" functions, all that is left is the raw equasions, and math is usually independant of languages. Pick the language you want, and is probably works, so write the basic underlying essentials, and if you do it right, everything will be very easy.