Game Programming Primer - Page 3

On November 18 2012 15:24 RayzorFlash wrote:
Bookmarked and saved! The Quick Refresher stuff is SO IMPORTANT and so amazingly well put together. A lot of the fundamentals in there is what people in the industry REALLY look for when hiring and during interviews. This is an amazing review sheet to use before an interview. Thanks a lot!!! :D

On November 18 2012 21:00 uZr wrote:
That's some insane amount of work you put in there, congrats !

However some things are just bugging me.


What do you mean by "name of an array will be converted to a pointer" ? Strictly speaking those two things are just the same: pointers. the name[idx] syntax is just some syntaxical sugar over doing *(name+idx). Furthermore the "size of the array" is never stored anywhere in C. You can write it explicitly when allocating on the stack, but it will eventually get lost when compiled, and the compiler won't give you any warning if you access out of bounds entries.

#include <stdio.h>

void arrDecay(char array[]);

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
        char *a = "A test string to compare arrays and pointers";
        char b[]= "A test string to compare arrays and pointers";
        printf("Size of a:%d\n",sizeof(a));
        printf("Size of b:%d\n",sizeof(b));
        arrDecay(b);
        return 0;
}

void arrDecay(char array[])
{
        printf("Size of b after decay:%d\n",sizeof(array));
};

On November 18 2012 21:00 uZr wrote:
What do you mean by "name of an array will be converted to a pointer" ? Strictly speaking those two things are just the same: pointers. [...] Furthermore the "size of the array" is never stored anywhere in C. You can write it explicitly when allocating on the stack, but it will eventually get lost when compiled, and the compiler won't give you any warning if you access out of bounds entries.
Here's an example:

#include <stdio.h>
 
 int main()
 {
     int array[] = {1,2,3,4,5};
 
     printf("array[3] = %d | *(array+3) = %d\n",
             array[3], *(array+3));
 
     return 0;
 }

On November 19 2012 00:18 moxley wrote:
While C++ is absolutely favored for high performance platform-specific programs like games, you shouldn't dismiss java as a language for aspiring software engineers. Many people start out wanting to be a "game programmer" but when you look outside that narrow field you'll realize that java is huge in enterprise web applications which make up a large majority of the market for software engineering.

On November 19 2012 01:21 iamke55 wrote:

What he means is something that will rarely ever come into effect, but nonetheless is true. To see the difference between an array name and a pointer to the first element, run this test program.

#include <stdio.h>

void arrDecay(char array[]);

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
        char *a = "A test string to compare arrays and pointers";
        char b[]= "A test string to compare arrays and pointers";
        printf("Size of a:%d\n",sizeof(a));
        printf("Size of b:%d\n",sizeof(b));
        arrDecay(b);
        return 0;
}

void arrDecay(char array[])
{
        printf("Size of b after decay:%d\n",sizeof(array));
};

b should have a size of the number of characters plus the null at the end, while a's size is the number of bytes a pointer uses. If you pass the array name as a function argument, it is cast to a pointer.

On November 19 2012 00:52 kYem wrote:
I'm learning Java right, however i would love to learn c++ as well, just wondering how similar these to language are or how hard it's compared to Java.

As moxley said, i do feel Java has a lot bigger market share, so it's very good investment as you can find a well paid job, while it would be very difficult to get one for c++ in a software company.

Maybe someone did a switch from Java to c++ and can share their experiences.

On November 19 2012 01:21 iamke55 wrote:
What he means is something that will rarely ever come into effect, but nonetheless is true. To see the difference between an array name and a pointer to the first element, run this test program.

b should have a size of the number of characters plus the null at the end, while a's size is the number of bytes a pointer uses. If you pass the array name as a function argument, it is cast to a pointer.

On November 19 2012 03:21 CecilSunkure wrote:
This really is just shooting in the dark, but it feels like learning with Java in a lax curriculum compared to learning in C/C++ in a rigorous curriculum is like playing SC2 without learning how to make efficient use of your mouse and keyboard. Sure there's tons and tons of people in bronze up through low master who can "get by" and do fairly well without using more than one hotkey while flailing their mouse around widely. But the people who are really sought after are the ones who have mastered the fundamentals of their keyboard, mouse, and playing mechanics because these are the people that can really spend their time focusing on implementing strategies to defeat their opponents.

On November 19 2012 07:05 spinesheath wrote:

It's the other way round. Starting with C++ is like starting with learning elaborate build orders, while starting with higher level languages is like learning how to control your units (how to use the existing units/classes, instead of how to produce these classes/units in detail).

In programming, the people who are sought after are those who can finish a given task quickly using robust code, using whatever means is appropriate. Nobody cares if you know every single detail of all the machines your code might ever run on as long as your code solves the given task (that includes a certain level of performance), is produced quickly (= reduced cost) and robust (= reduced cost in the long run).

Highly optimized C++ code is often fragile and costly to produce (especially if you aren't really(!) good with templates). That's why you use high level constructs in C++ pretty much everywhere except for the critical code parts. But since you do that anyways, you might as well start with something like C# instead, because it's very much like using high level constructs in C++, except easier and more robust.


Oh and of course there is a concept of memory management in these languages. The general workings of these garbage collectors are no secrets. You should be roughly aware of how your garbage collector works. C++ doesn't force you to learn about the details of new/delete either (and the new algorithm can hardly be called simple, plus it's OS dependant).

On November 20 2012 01:38 Kerm wrote:


Cecil is right. As far as game programming is concerned, at least for Console/PC high-end titles, C++ is the way to go. If you want to break into that part of the industry, you are wasting your time if you're not gearing toward being excellent at C++.

What you are explaining probably makes sense for general sofware engineering, but game programming is different.

On November 20 2012 05:43 spinesheath wrote:

I'm saying C# will teach you how to program properly in C++, except that you can focus on one aspect (algorithms, software engineering/architecture) without having to fight with all the problems C++ throws at beginners. The step from C# to C++ is rather easy assuming you learnt C# properly. You pick a book like The C++ Programming Language which covers all the technical language details and you're set.

It's divide and conquer applied to learning C++.

On November 20 2012 05:49 CecilSunkure wrote:

Although it sounds like it would work theoretically, I don't really have any experience with anyone learning C++ by learning another language and I can't really judge it for myself. I do know that the people I'm around graduate and are very successful, and they learned C, then C++.