Hi there TMC7056...
Dont know if its the easiest or not, or the one best suited for PC
games, but you may want to check out the Perl programming language.
You can download a free copy of the Perl programming envirment from:
http://www.activestate.com {they call their Perl flavor - ActivePerl}
You just download the ActivePerl environment to your Windows Box, then
double-click it to install on the local box. Then you can write Perl
programs (scripts) and run them on the local workstation.
Perl programs are text-files, but when you run them, the Perl
command interpreter compiles it "on the fly", so program executes with
speed of a binary program.
I have been using perl here at work for about 6 months. I have
found it fairly easy to "pick up". You dont have to learn a lot of its
functions before being able to produce some pretty significant code.
The Perl language has developed quite a following in the computer
industry, and there are quite a few websites devoted to supporting
Perl programming. It's used by working system administrators at many
sites to automate often-run tasks.
The Perl langauge is especially suited for manipulating text data,
text formats, text files, and text strings. It is sort of like a cross
between C, Unix Shell, AWK, Grep, and other languages. The motto of
the Perl User Community is "there's more than one way to do it!" -
meaning, the Perl langauge is so flexible, so adaptable to a task, so
function-rich, that many times there's multiple ways to get something
done in Perl.
There are a couple good books out there on Perl:
1. Learning Perl (O'Reilly) . (has picture of LLAMA on the front)...
this is good "entry level" tutorial on learning to program Perl.
2. Programming Perl (O'Reilly) (has a picture of CAMEL on the
front)... to some, this is the "defacto" 'reference' for Perl
programming. Goes into much greater details about stuff.
3. Perl,How-to-Program (Prentice Hall), by HM Deitel - This is the
closest thing I've seen yet to a paced, structured, college-like
approach to art and science of Perl programming. Excellent
instruction, organization, charts, diagrams, examples, even warnings
and best programming tips. The copy I have shows 2 little
buggie-things snorkeling down to open an Oyster w/ a perl.
4. Writing CGI Applications with Perl (Addison Wesley), by Kevin
Meltzer & Brent Michalski. Another indepth treatment of using Perl
with CGI.
5. I think there's also a "Learn PERL in 24 Hours" type book out
there. That one would likely be pretty good as well.
5. Finally, here is an EXAMPLE of a simple Perl program, to kind of
show you how it looks. This program accepts about 10 line arguments,
which are passed to it from within a CAD program, opens a local text
file, writes all the arguments to the text file, closes the text
file, and then copies the text file to a local drive and a network
drive. A server-side program will pick up the text file, read it in,
and use it to figure plot-job cost charging.
#!C:\perl\bin\perl5.8.3
# NAME bldptr.pl
# AUTH ****************************************
# TYPE Active Perl Script
# DATE 29-June-2005
# VERS 1.00
# FUNC Build a customer Plot-Transaction-Record. Copy same to C: and X: drives.
# SET PERL CHECK LEVELS
use strict; use warnings;
# DECLARE VARIABLES
my $DT = "0000000000";
my $CJ = "abcdefghij";
my $FN = "abcdefghij";
my $FS = 123456;
# GET DATE-TIME
$DT = localtime;
# GET FILESIZE OF USER'S FILE
# WE MAY USE THIS LATER IN TONER COST CALCULATION
$FS = (stat("$ARGV[5]"))[7];
# OPEN PTR FILE
open( PTRFILE, ">>newptr.txt" ) or
die( "cannot open file newptr.txt : $!" );
# LOAD PTR FILE WITH DATA
print PTRFILE "PTR_START\n";
print PTRFILE "DT=$DT\n";
print PTRFILE "UN=$ARGV[0]\n";
print PTRFILE "DN=$ARGV[1]\n";
print PTRFILE "SN=$ARGV[2]\n";
print PTRFILE "EM=$ARGV[3]\n";
print PTRFILE "AN=$ARGV[4]\n";
print PTRFILE "FN=$ARGV[5]\n";
print PTRFILE "FS=$FS\n";
print PTRFILE "JN=$ARGV[6]\n";
print PTRFILE "CN=$ARGV[7]\n";
print PTRFILE "JQ=$ARGV[8]\n";
print PTRFILE "TD=$ARGV[9]\n";
print PTRFILE "TT=$ARGV[10]\n";
print PTRFILE "FF=$ARGV[11]\n";
print PTRFILE "PTR_STOP\n";
# CLOSE PTR FILE
close PTRFILE;
# SET TARGET PTR FILENAME TO DATE-TIME TEXT
$FN = $DT; $FN =~ s/ //g; $FN =~ s/://g;
# COPY THE PTR TO X: AND C: DRIVE LOCATIONS
# WE USE \\ TO INDICATE A LITERAL \ IN THE PATHS
$CJ = `copy newptr.txt X:\\PTR\\$FN.ptr`;
$CJ = `copy newptr.txt C:\\TEMP\\PTR\\$FN.ptr`;
# DELETE PTR FILE. READY FOR NEXT PLOT.
unlink ("newptr.txt") ;
# BYENOW
Finally, I dont know if Perl provides functions that directly
manipulate the "graphics functions" on typical PC's. I do know however
that Perl provides multiple ways for you to make "system calls" from
within the main program. You could use these to call and run external
programs & functions that could do the real "graphics" part of your
game. I would think that Perl would be very good for the "main" or
"control" program.
if you want to lookup some Perl websites, try this search from Google:
"Perl"+"website" or
"Perl"+"website"+"support"
You're likely to turn up quite a few...
In my opinion, from what I've seen so far, Perl is fairly easy to pick
up and start learning, you dont have to learn a lot to begin to be
able to do useful things, it is very flexible and powerful and
feature-rich, and the more programming you do with it, the more you
begin to realize just how flxible it really. It also compiles on the
fly, and runs very fast.
happy programming...... |
