Java

BladeSabre · June 16, 2005, 01:02:33 PM

Well matlu, you offered to help me with my Java programming (dangerous

), so would you be happy to talk about it on the board where we have "code" tags, or would you prefer email? I'm not going to ask much about how to make things work, because that's all research and trial-and-error and practice. But the only tutorial I could find for what I wanted to do is ancient, and a lot of it doesn't seem quite right any more. So I'd like to try and kick as many as possible of the "bad and wrong" things before they become habits.

matlu · June 16, 2005, 02:23:19 PM

Oh, more competition

You can start with discussing it here, and if it becomes too technical (or too uninteresting for other people) we can switch to email.

Btw if you want to see some existing and (hopefully) working source code (of anything, in any programming language, including multiplayer games in java), then try www.sourceforge.net
Till one year ago they had very nice "advanced search" feature, but they made it paid service, and now it's not so easy to find what are you looking for (with only "basic search") but it's still very useful

exiledragon · June 16, 2005, 02:45:40 PM

I would be very interested in listening in if you posted instead of email

BladeSabre · June 16, 2005, 03:48:15 PM

I don't suppose it would get very technical for a while. I've had a look for other people's open source Java games, and those have all been a bit technical for me so far. That other forum you linked has a newbie section, which might be more useful - I wonder why I didn't find that in my searches?

Before I post anything I'll need to wait for my brother to come home so I can borrow his USB key and fetch some bits of code off my laptop. A rather unsatisfactory arrangement - I should buy one of my own. In some ways I would rather have a floppy drive though, because it's good for backups...

(Edited to add) Hmm, looks like the info is mostly out there already now it's been pointed out to me, maybe I be back later, after doing quite a lot more reading.

BladeSabre · June 17, 2005, 11:21:29 AM

Hey, I got the beginnings of my breakout game working. At least, it's working for me, although the sound is a little temperamental. So the next question is, does it work for anyone else?

http://www.geocities.com/bladethecoder/batball.htm

If any of you here want to try it, please let me know how well it's working for you.

matlu · June 17, 2005, 11:31:59 AM

Works great

Odin will beÂ happy

(he seems to be fanatic arcanoid player :p )

<edit> fixed typo

BladeSabre · June 17, 2005, 12:54:11 PM

Next I need to implement levels, scoring and power-ups

.

Odin · June 18, 2005, 03:51:40 AM

I got the wondrous "load: class BatBall not found" error when I tried. Thanks for the link Blitz!

matlu · June 18, 2005, 12:37:27 PM

Quote from: Odin on June 18, 2005, 03:51:40 AM
I got the wondrous "load: class BatBall not found" error when I tried. Thanks for the link Blitz!

=> BladeSabre - WELCOME to Java worldÂ ;)Â Many people still run Windows 98 with 1.1 Java from Microsoft (or maybe newer Windows but with very old Java), and your game just isn't Java 1.1Â friendly.
So if you want to stick to java-applet-game programming you can either:
- use very SLOW and OBSOLETE techniques (that's what I'm doing)
OR
- use nice, modern and fast features, but at least 50% of people won't be able to run your game

good luck with your choice :p

BladeSabre · June 18, 2005, 12:50:43 PM

Yeah, I'd read something about that. At university though they taught us on Java 1.5, because they wanted us to be ahead of the times, and they said that we would need to make stuff Java 1.4 compatible for most people to be able to use it.

For every other plugin on the planet, users are expected to upgrade their plugin when a new version comes out. But with Java, the programmer is expected to carry on using the old version?

BladeSabre · June 18, 2005, 12:58:45 PM

Hey everyone, go to http://java.com/ and install Java 1.5.0 to help make the world a better place!

Odin · June 18, 2005, 10:30:48 PM

As much as I dislike Microsoft, I hate Sun's version of Java more (even my brothers notice it is much slower - at least when they try rs hehe. Another good reason to have left a looong time ago). Aside from that, I don't use Java enough to make it worthwhile. Same with flash where I refuse to upgrade to 8 or whatever they are pimping out. Still using the version that came with xp unless someone else upgrades it.

P.S. I would only end up installing Sun Java and then uninstalling it after using it for like 5 minutes or however long. Some people don't notice the differences in performance, but I do and am overly critical of it. Maybe on the "professional" version it is better though.

matlu · June 18, 2005, 11:36:54 PM

It's a bit complicated thing but you are right - sad but true - microsoft's java is faster when you play runescape, or other games which are designed for "old" java.

BladeSabre · June 18, 2005, 11:46:09 PM

For a good while this computer had Firefox with Sun Java 1.4 and Internet Explorer with MS Java 1.1: I could even have both open at the same time. So it's quite feasible to get the best of both worlds, if you wanted to. I get that you don't use Java enough to make it worth the effort though.

So, I have a decision to make. Is there anywhere I could still get a version of the Sun compiler that goes back to 1.1? I've got the 1.5 version, and it will only compile back as far as 1.2.

matlu · June 19, 2005, 12:38:33 AM

What compiler/ide are you using? I would suggest to use Eclipse (www.eclipse.org)