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Subject review (reverse sequence)

Posted by Dralnu   USA  (277 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Tue 29 Mar 2005 08:04 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
Thanks everyone. Helped alot. I know this reply is a bit late, been busy with school and stuff. I think the tutorial Gadush may help a bit, but if anyone knows a good book for reference (I've seen alot of crappy books out there, and would like a little help finding a good one before spending 50 dollars on something useless).

As for hooking up with a MUD, I play on one that seems down at the moment, but the guy who is in charge of it I've talked to a bit, so I think I can get some help from him, and maybe a position as a coder there.

But, Thanks again everyone
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Posted by Raz   (32 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Fri 25 Mar 2005 11:49 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
As a follow-up, I would still suggest learning C in some form before you play with SMAUG. You need to walk before you can run, and the same applies here. Taking time to understand the basics will largely help you down the line in programming. Moreover, like Robbert said, it is important that you begin by inserting snippets. It would even be better if you could hook up with an existing MUD, since you would have a guiding hand.

But on learning C, I still suggest a book to at least complement that which you would learn online.
-Raz
C++ Wiki: http://danday.homelinux.org/dan/cppwiki/index.php
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Posted by Nick Cash   USA  (626 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Fri 25 Mar 2005 09:57 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]

Amended on Fri 25 Mar 2005 10:00 PM (UTC) by Nick Cash

Message
I believe there was a post about all of this a while back, but whatever.

I agree with both approaches. I did kind of a mix. I looked at SWR, said some obscene words, and then went out and got myself a book. I had absolutely no programming experience before this (unless you count making a web site, but HTML is hardly even related to coding....). Though I may not have gone through and compiled every example, it sure clear a lot up for me. Then I was able to look at SWR with a new perspective.

I constantly find that a good book is an valuable reference tool. You will not find much, if anything, about coding for SMAUG specifically. Overall, knowing the basics (by basics I mean the first forty or so pages of the book) really helpped me out, but it took a lot of practice to get to where I am now. However, I still find that the book is handy for a lot of other things besides a MUD (come on, we have to broaden our coding eventually, don't we?). Not to mention its great to be able to look something up while on a road trip or using a laptop with no internet access.

All in all, I suggest getting a book (at least for reference), and doing a lot of playing around yourself. Learn how stuff works and why it works that way. Practice is really the key here, as I doubt any of us became "good" coders overnight (one night that is, not several :P). Of course, when you get stuck, you can post your problems here. Delve back into the forums a ways and you'll see my first posts. ::laughs::

Good luck.
~Nick Cash
http://www.nick-cash.com
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Posted by Zeno   USA  (2,867 posts)  [Biography] bio   Moderator
Date Fri 25 Mar 2005 03:48 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
Same here. Sure I bought C for Dummies, but I read the first page, threw it down, and jumped into Smaug. I have many (annoying) people IMing me and asking how to fix compile errors, crashes and so on. In their opinion, I'm quite good. In my opinion, I have much more to learn.
Zeno McDohl,
Owner of Bleached InuYasha Galaxy
http://www.biyg.org
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Posted by Samson   USA  (683 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Fri 25 Mar 2005 12:11 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
I too would disagree with Raz's approach only because I myself didn't go that route, and apprently from what I'm told I'm some kind of guru anyway :P

Like Robert, I too only had limited experience with programming prior to picking up my first copy of Smaug. I used to dabble with some things in Commodore Basic that would make today's programmers cry in pain. Or something. But it did give me enough footing to know what loops, conditionals, function calls ( remember GOSUB anyone? same idea ), and variable declarations.

It's not impossible to pick up on C without having done something beforehand though. I know plenty of folks who dove straight in and can hold their own just fine.
SmaugMuds.org: http://www.smaugmuds.org - The Smaug MUDs Community Center

"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." -- George Orwell, 1984
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Posted by Gadush   (92 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Fri 25 Mar 2005 03:33 AM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
Big thing is to keep with it. At first is will all seem like a hopeless jumble of unintelligible gobbledegoop, but with time you will start recognizing things.
Here is a decent tutorial to get started with C programming.
http://www.le.ac.uk/cc/tutorials/c/index.html

Good luck, and have fun.
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Posted by Robert Powell   Australia  (349 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Fri 25 Mar 2005 01:14 AM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
I disagree somewhat with Raz, the only realy programming i had prior to working in Smaug was a 3 month course in Pascal back in the Old School BBS days, and writing some pascal modules for the BBs games of the day.

Now sure i have a limited understanding of some of the most basic fundamentals of programming and that has helped me greatly, but most of the C programming tutoiral sites out there will teach you all that i knew about programming befor i got my hands wet in C.

My personal opinion is the learn about the most basics of programming, this doesnt even have to be language specific. Once you know what loops do, what a conditional statement is and things like that, then take a look at the Smaug code.

Start by adding some snippets, simple ones at first, like a spell or a simple command. This will help show you where a lot of things go in the smaug code, like the tables.c monolith.

Also read throught the code you are adding, as painfull as it sounds. It will help you a lot. You will get excited when you can follow the logic of a section of code and deduce what the hell it does, and why something might be going wrong.

Lastly a C book will be of some help, tho i found only marginaly, what i do recommend is asking a lot of questions, especially about sections of code you cannot work out whats going on. Having an understanding of whats been done befor will help you in changing it, and also in adding to it, as you will find (unless your re-writing the wheel) that most o f what you want to do has been done befor and you can learn from that.

Good luck with it.
EldhaMUD Game Developments
The_Fury: Lead Developer, Head Coder
http://fury.eldhamud2.org
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Posted by Raz   (32 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Thu 24 Mar 2005 10:48 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
Well, the best thing would be to buy a book on C from a bookstore before you tried to start up the SMAUG. Play around with the language for a few weeks and then begin. It will make things a lot easier in the long run.

As for online C tutorials, there aren't any I would suggest. I have yet to see a really good one.

Overall, you should hold off on running a MUD until after you have learned the basics. You should not run it while you are trying to learn, since it will not help your learning.
-Raz
C++ Wiki: http://danday.homelinux.org/dan/cppwiki/index.php
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Posted by Dralnu   USA  (277 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Thu 24 Mar 2005 10:04 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
Just so I don't have to keep making post here, where would I get some instuction on coding for SMAUG? I know nothing of coding, but I'm trying to get my own MUD going, so I figure I'll need to know at least something to start making my own code to do the things I want it to, and maybe if I'm feeling froggy later on making my own codebase (from what I've heard, Java is the most powerful, but starting in it seems a bit ambisions)
Enviroments, code type, ect. kind of info would be nice, along with some tutorials. All I need really is a website and I think I can go from there
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