Puppy programming

Puppy related raves and general interest that doesn't fit anywhere else
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Mathiasdm
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Puppy programming

#1 Post by Mathiasdm »

I'm learning Java right now (university course), and I prefer to do interesting things, rather than boring programming 'missions'.

So, I've already written a text-based Minesweeper.
However, I'm not that inspirational. Any other ideas for games one could program?

Keep in mind, I've only been programming for 1,5 months ;-)

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Flash
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#2 Post by Flash »

There must be at least a million other people who find programming games to be more interesting than boring old infrastructure development. :(

Instead, my suggestion is why not help rarsa develop Puppy's wireless capabilities here?

If not that, then Barry put a list somewhere in the forum, of things in Puppy that he'd like help with. Pick one of those, grab a root and growl. :)

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MU
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#3 Post by MU »

I would suggest a JAVA to PuppyBasic-Converter ;) :lol:

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BarryK
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#4 Post by BarryK »

Or, helping rarsa in wireless networking, convert the Perl ndiswrapper
script to something else, such as puppyBasic or Bash or Tcl/Tk
-- maybe the latter, to match Perl's capability for associative arrays?

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MU
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#5 Post by MU »

http://noforum.de/wxBasicscript-documen ... /Table.htm

Quick link: http://wxbasic.de

Tables might be used like hashes I think.
Mark

Mathiasdm
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#6 Post by Mathiasdm »

I'd love to help with that stuff, but it's probably way too advanced for me ;-)
I'll take a look :-P

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rarsa
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#7 Post by rarsa »

Mathias,

I'ts been long ago when I discovered that all programming is the same. The problem domain is the only thing that changes.

What I mean is:
Once you learn to branch, loop and call functions you can jump to any problem domain you are interested on. (and pretty much any language).

My questions in this case is:

Do you want to have a project that involves Java? Or any language would work for you? My recommendation is that if you are just learning to program, stick to one language until you feel comfortable.

In Puppy there java is not used for the core functionallity because it requires a huge (for Puppy's size) infrastructure.

If you want to wet your feet at Linux development in C, I found that playing around with the gplaycd could be a good start. http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.p ... highlight=

It's a very simple program that uses some very basic Linux libraries. The advantage for a new programmer are: Its simple to understand, It presents many opportunities for extensibility. (e.g. I am using it to create a 'task bar CD player' for JWM).

If you want to do Java instead, and even Java games, I would advise to start writing Java applet games. They are fun to do and there are many examples around to learn from:
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/L ... a/Applets/
It is usually better to learn by looking at other people's code than to start from scratch (specially if it's good standardized code). You can then start extending it a little by little getting instant gratification.

I will actually suggest something contrary to my fine co-puppies. The fastest way to learn is to program something that really engages you. For some people it's databases. For some people it's infrastructure, For some people it's games.

Of course if you want to learn shell programming and linux networking, by all means, Join the networking project.

Mathiasdm
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#8 Post by Mathiasdm »

Thank you very much, rarsa!

It's very much possible that I'll try to help with the networking eventually, but it's as you've guessed: I'm still new to programming. I'll stick with Java and start by taking a look at those applets.

I hope to eventually be able to do something useful for Puppy Linux ;-)

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