Quote:Original post by Codemonger
So assuming people may thing VB worst language to write games in, I would make the argument that really it all depends on the power of the programmer. Use a language you feel comfortable enough to program in, and that you can get the job done in time, which is IMHO a lot more satisfying.

I'm assuming thats (at least in part) in response to my statement that BASIC variants are to be avoided. Just to qualify that a bit, I actually did a lot of my own learning in VB6, and yes, you can make some very good games, and even do a lot of things that people generally consider impossible (Yes, VB6 can use pointers [wink]).

If you're comfortable using such a language and it suits your needs, then for sure, go right ahead and use it. I'd never recommend such a language to a beginner however, as it was simply never intended to be used for games, and it's far to easy to get into bad habits with them.

So for sure - use any language you're comfortable with, but generally it's not the best idea to learn programming using a BASIC variant if you want to make games.

BlitzMax of course. :)

Check the link below and you will know why.
BlitzMax

Quote:Original post by Ranma13
By the way, I see a lot of mention of bad programming habits, but would someone be willing to name what some of them are?

- Goto.
- Poor OOP support (this has got a lot better in newer variants).
- Rarely encourage good program structure.
- Poor (relatively) runtime performance often leads to an obsession with inappropriate optimisation, resulting in fast but completely unreadable code.

Quote:Original post by Simian Man

Quote:Original post by Ranma13
By the way, I see a lot of mention of bad programming habits, but would someone be willing to name what some of them are?

Mostly the goto/label structure. Also basic programs rarely use proper indentation.

BASIC does not use goto and label structures anymore than C does, this is one of the most distorted things I have ever heard in a long time about BASIC. Indentation has nothing to do with the language but the PROGRAMMER, and your forgetting that readability is one of the KEY features of a BASIC language. The position that BASIC teaches bad habits or BASIC is too simplistic to program in, is just an elitist view IMHO and nothing more. Most BASIC's have their shortcomings, but this is no different than any other language.

Quote:Original post by Kazgoroth

Quote:Original post by Ranma13
By the way, I see a lot of mention of bad programming habits, but would someone be willing to name what some of them are?

- Goto.
- Poor OOP support (this has got a lot better in newer variants).
- Rarely encourage good program structure.
- Poor (relatively) runtime performance often leads to an obsession with inappropriate optimisation, resulting in fast but completely unreadable code.

- Goto : what I said above ^

- Poor OOP support - well BASIC was never really intended to be an OOP programming language( exception of .net of course), so much for that argument (this could be applied to any language that doesn't support OOP, and there are a lot of them). VB for instance has excellent support for creating active X controls and the classes support properties (getters and setters).

- Rarely encourage good program structure ?? not sure I understand this, probably a bad argument if you are thingking OOP, otherwise the paradigm is not that much different than say C.

- Poor (relatively) runtime performance: this depends on the basic language, most people assume basic has been an interpreted language. Try using something like purebasic, it compiles to FASM, and is very fast, in fact inline assembly is supported and most of the users use assembly within their programs. If you are talking about VB, well their are optimizations like compiling to native code and removing bound checking on arrays, but yes it is slower than c/c++ in general.