1. Money
Michael Packard wrote:
> The books give you the option of going deeper than we can here on the
> listserver.
I agree. And the book has been highly recommended by David Gay. Let me make
it clear that I consider the book a Good Thing for what it does. But not as
a substitute for answers in this group, because that puts Michael Packard in
competition with this group, and the group loses.
> That being said, I think the book reference is MUCH more useful than an
> incomplete overview of some pretty complicated material.
The utility of your text is not in dispute by me.
> Which is better to teach someone, a five minute general response to a
> question, or a 100 page dissection of the theory and a line by line code
> walkthrough explaining the WHY's of each line and HOW it ties in to all
> you do?
I ascribe no unkind motivations to David Gay or others. I will grant that
perhaps his answer was *exactly* what was needed. But in the instances I was
referring to, there was no overview, or code snippet offered.
> I spent 4 months developing a generic arcade game engine, it's a
> disservice to wave my hands in the air and say "you know, just do this..."
A disservice to whom?
It's not "disservice" to tell someone how to do something. By the time a
person has reached the point of knowing that they have a question, they've
probably reached the level of being able to understand a direct answer. In
terms of teaching method, sometimes it's better to give someone a five
minute explanation of the theory (with salient examples), and leave them to
their own devices.
You've made a point of listing the things that your game engine does (large
numbers of sprites, collision detection, etc.) to the group, and followed it
by remarks that if people did not want to have to wait a number of months
for the information to be published piecemeal, they would have to purchase
your book.
By giving out the information, the primary person you'd be doing a
disservice to is yourself. You've labored months to put together a great
product, and to give all the information away at once would marketing
disaster - where's the incentive to buy something, if you can get it free?
This is a commercial venture, plain and simple.
> A hint and a code snippet is different from A Crash Course in Game Design
> and Production.
Another plug.
> If you're curious about a technique, you want a hint and a code snippet,
> if you are serious about learning from the ground up, you want more
> serious training materials.
Sell, sell, sell. Even in a response to too much commercialism in this
group. Where's my "ironic" smiley? %^(
Your training materials are for SALE, being touted as a solution on a list
that was set up to provide Euphoria users with FREE information. That's why
I am concerned when a sales pitch is substituted for a direct answer. It's a
sort of creeping commercialism, and the beneficiary sure isn't me, or the
group.
-- David Cuny
2. Re: Money
On Tue, 25 Mar 1997, Cuny, David wrote:
>
> Michael Packard wrote:
>
> > The books give you the option of going deeper than we can here on the
> > listserver.
>
> I agree. And the book has been highly recommended by David Gay. Let me make
> it clear that I consider the book a Good Thing for what it does. But not as
> a substitute for answers in this group, because that puts Michael Packard in
> competition with this group, and the group loses.
No it doesn't. I enjoy the stuff that gets posted here, but quite
frankly, there is some stuff on here that gets very technical, beyond my
attention span especially when I'm not using the code being discussed.
I'm sure much of what is required for a complete explanation of one of the
topics in the book gives people who aren't interested the same reaction.
That's why I wrote the book. If you want more than a hint, you can get
the resource, and I don't clutter everyone's mailbox with stuff they don't
need.
> I ascribe no unkind motivations to David Gay or others. I will grant that
> perhaps his answer was *exactly* what was needed. But in the instances I was
> referring to, there was no overview, or code snippet offered.
Without an understanding of the theory and the pieces that have to work
together to make the puzzle work, a code snippet is useless. I have given
a general overview of what I've done, MANY times. There comes a point
when I've answered the same question 50 times, you just gotta say "read
the book"
> > I spent 4 months developing a generic arcade game engine, it's a
> > disservice to wave my hands in the air and say "you know, just do this..."
>
> A disservice to whom?
It's a disservice to those asking the question. I have a complete
solution to their problem, but it takes a lot of time to explain. If they
want to go through the steps by trial and error they can, by all means.
If they want to avoid the serious problems I've had, they need to know
what I did and why.
> It's not "disservice" to tell someone how to do something. By the time a
> person has reached the point of knowing that they have a question, they've
> probably reached the level of being able to understand a direct answer.
That's plain not true and you know it. I get MANY questions from people
who haven't a clue about how to get going with it. I ask many questions
about things I have no clue about how to get going with. To this day,
I haven't been able to understand ANY of Jacques' techical answers to me,
but I use his code every day. (Brilliant stuff Jacques!) If you want to
teach, you need to take more time than just typing a quick answer. I
personally find short answers frustrating. Almost nobody here documents
their code adaquately enough to answer the questions.
> You've made a point of listing the things that your game engine does (large
> numbers of sprites, collision detection, etc.) to the group, and followed it
> by remarks that if people did not want to have to wait a number of months
> for the information to be published piecemeal, they would have to purchase
> your book.
We WILL get to most of the issues in the book in crash course, eventually.
Eventually may be a few months away. Some people want to know NOW
everything we'll get to THEN. The book is available now.
> By giving out the information, the primary person you'd be doing a
> disservice to is yourself. You've labored months to put together a great
> product, and to give all the information away at once would marketing
> disaster - where's the incentive to buy something, if you can get it free?
Giving people access to what I've discovered will make Euphoria stronger,
that is my only purpose. The Crash Course Lessons are free, not as a
marketing ploy, but because many people are interested in doing games. I
don't have to do them. I do because some people find them useful, they
want to understand the process, and pick up some of what I've picked up in
the last 15 years doing game design and production. Eventually the
lessons will be another book, but not until we finish it together. To
cover the material generally will take a few more months.
> This is a commercial venture, plain and simple.
No it isn't. If it were a commerical venture I'd sell the lessons, and
charge for access to the web site. I've spent hundreds of hours creating
lessons and preparing the book to help people get where they want to go
with Euphoria, to change how we and the rest of the world see Euphoria,
and for all of that I've asked for and received almost no compensation at
all. If I were doing it for the money, I wouldn't have. Its really
frustrating to have people like you go off at me after all the work,
especially when you haven't gone to the extremes I have to share what I
know. I really liked what I've seen of your editor, but I have no idea
how it works, or how to do something like it. I've read your code
snippets, but I am no closer to doing it myself. What you've done is make
a VERY cool toy for us to play with, which is an achievement, but it
doesn't help anyone LEARN how to do it. They just look at what you've
accomplished and go "oooo!" For you to go off at me for what I'm doing is
unfair.
> > A hint and a code snippet is different from A Crash Course in Game Design
> > and Production.
>
> Another plug.
ARRRGGH. It's NOT. a five minute answer isn't a 200 page discourse on
game production, it isn't countless checklists of things to keep in mind
when taking what you're doing seriously. It isn't mentoring people on how
to reach their goals. It isn't holding their hand through the entire
process.
> > If you're curious about a technique, you want a hint and a code snippet,
> > if you are serious about learning from the ground up, you want more
> > serious training materials.
>
> Sell, sell, sell. Even in a response to too much commercialism in this
> group. Where's my "ironic" smiley? %^(
You completely miss the point. You're ideal is for us to not produce
anything useful, just give vague answers and hard to understand code
snippets. If we stay as we are, if we don't go out on a limb to share
what we know, if we don't produce the serious materials others need to
stand on our shoulders, Euphoria will not grow. And there will continue
to be only a few programming gurus and a ton of wannabees. I'd rather
have everyone be a guru of some sort.
> Your training materials are for SALE, being touted as a solution on a list
> that was set up to provide Euphoria users with FREE information. That's why
> I am concerned when a sales pitch is substituted for a direct answer. It's a
> sort of creeping commercialism, and the beneficiary sure isn't me, or the
> group.
If I become a stronger programmer because of a programming resource you
game me info on, and I push the limits and expectations of Euphoria
because of it, are you saying that doesn't help the group? That's
silliness. Instead of us sticking together and supporting eachother in
Euphoria's advance, we're bickering about how wrong it is to earn a living
helping people learn what they want to know. We should be cheering each
other on when we start taking Euphoria seriously enough to develope
training aids for it.
I seriously recommend that everyone on here write a book about their pet
program. Go from ground zero and explain your reasoning for going the
route you went. Write out your design spec in detail, then explain every
line of source code, give reasons for what you are doing where, and how
you came up with every number in the code. I don't care what the program
is, if you do that, you WILL become a better programmer, because it forces
you to clean your code up. ( you don't want anyone reading your speghetti,
or laughing at your cheesy work around for a bug you didn't fix) Take the
time and do it right. (at least 150 hours) Make the reader understand
what you did and why.
I'll trade my book for yours. We MUST have training materials for
Euphoria. We MUST take what we do seriously.
Michael Packard
Lord Generic Productions
lgp at exo.com http://exo.com/~lgp
A Crash Course in Game Design and Production
http://exo.com/~lgp/euphoria
3. Re: Money
*Sigh*
When the nesting gets three ">" characters deep, things are getting out of
hand...
I tried to be very specific in my example about your book. The first, and
only option to the person inquiring (about virtual screens, I think) was to
buy your resource. Not even a /hint/ on how to go about coding it.
At a minimum, a first attempt should be made, like your excellent discussion
about virtual screens today. If nothing else, it proves to the person how
MUCH they need the resource after they've tried coding it themselves.
If something clearly takes more than a five minute explanation (for example,
using Mode X), or it's obvious that the question cannot possibly be answered
without a reference work (like building a complete game engine), I'm all in
favor of a resource being suggested instead of code being offered.
But even then, there is a lot of good, free code (and tutorials) for C and
BASIC that's not too hard to translate to Euphoria.
And now, some side notes...
> Its really frustrating to have people like you go off at me after all the
> work, especially when you haven't gone to the extremes I have to share
> what I know. ... For you to go off at me for what I'm doing is unfair.
I not trying to "going off" at you, and I'm not trying to be unfair. I
certainly admire and appreciate the work that you've done, and know that
you've put quite a lot of hard work into your games and tutoring. You are
quite entitiled to whatever compensation you want from it. I've tried to
stress this point several times, and I'm saying it again.
> That's plain not true and you know it. I get MANY questions from people
> who haven't a clue about how to get going with it. I ask many questions
> about things I have no clue about how to get going with.
There was no intent to deceive. I speak from my own experiences, and you
from yours. Very little of the code that I write does much interfacing with
the hardware. It's all pretty much "pure" Euphoria.
Video games, on the other hand, deal with a lot more obscure hardware calls:
DMA moves to the sound card, setting the registers of the video card and so
on. It's a whole other ballgame, and I can see that your experience is
different from mine.
> You completely miss the point.
What else is new?
> You're ideal is for us to not produce anything useful, just give vague
> answers and hard to understand code snippets.
That pretty much summarizes my whole philosophy. ;)
> I've read your code snippets, but I am no closer to doing it myself.
> What you've done is make a VERY cool toy for us to play with, which is
> an achievement, but it doesn't help anyone LEARN how to do it. They
> just look at what you've accomplished and go "oooo!"
Was this backhanded compliment really called for?
-- David Cuny
4. Re: Money
On Wed, 26 Mar 1997, Cuny, David wrote:
> When the nesting gets three ">" characters deep, things are getting out of
> hand...
I agree there! Of course, it didn't stop me from continuing this thread.
=S
> I tried to be very specific in my example about your book. The first, and
> only option to the person inquiring (about virtual screens, I think) was to
> buy your resource. Not even a /hint/ on how to go about coding it.
Rather than going into a dissertation without knowing what they want to do
it seemed right at the time to tell them to look at OZ, and if that was
what they wanted to do, then I could help them. I don't see a problem
there. If they want to do something I don't know about, I can't help
them very much.
> At a minimum, a first attempt should be made, like your excellent discussion
> about virtual screens today. If nothing else, it proves to the person how
> MUCH they need the resource after they've tried coding it themselves.
If you've been reading this listserver for any length of time, you'd have
seen that that was at least the 10th time I've replied with something
similar. When you get the SAME question every week, it is easier to refer
those things. After your last message, I noted that I hadn't done it in
awhile, so I did it then, for whatever good it was to the person who
asked. I hope it was useful. (did you notice I DIDN'T mention the
book in that post?) =) I'll probably put up a more complete answer on my
web page soon.
> But even then, there is a lot of good, free code (and tutorials) for C and
> BASIC that's not too hard to translate to Euphoria.
If you have the development hours to devote to it for no compensation.
> I not trying to "going off" at you, and I'm not trying to be unfair. I
> certainly admire and appreciate the work that you've done, and know that
> you've put quite a lot of hard work into your games and tutoring. You are
> quite entitiled to whatever compensation you want from it. I've tried to
> stress this point several times, and I'm saying it again.
That's not what you've said. You called my contributions to this group a
marketing ploy, a shameless plug, and a commercial venture.
> Video games, on the other hand, deal with a lot more obscure hardware calls:
> DMA moves to the sound card, setting the registers of the video card and so
> on. It's a whole other ballgame, and I can see that your experience is
> different from mine.
Most of what I know has nothing to do with hardware calls, it's about
indexing sequences and moving data around, pure euphoria. 90% of the
questions I receive are Game Design issues or Euphoria issues. Hardware
issues I refer to Jacques. =)
> > I've read your code snippets, but I am no closer to doing it myself.
> > What you've done is make a VERY cool toy for us to play with, which is
> > an achievement, but it doesn't help anyone LEARN how to do it. They
> > just look at what you've accomplished and go "oooo!"
>
> Was this backhanded compliment really called for?
Probably not, and I apologize for the way it came across. The point I was
grasping for was that code sharing isn't enough. I can use your tools
because they are available, but I don't know how you created them, what
your paradigm is, or really how they work. They aren't a teaching tool,
for me at least. They are a programming tool, and a darn good one, from
what I've seen. I would love to see a euphoria book on how to create a
text editor. "Here's HOW you do it" is fundimentally cooler than "Here do
it" and that's where I think we should go. We create cool software in
euphoria, then create "Programmer's Reference" materials to walk people
through the whole process we went through. Tutorials and example code is
fine, but it is NOT the same as going through the process of creating a
REAL application with someone.
Michael Packard
Lord Generic Productions
lgp at exo.com http://exo.com/~lgp
A Crash Course in Game Design and Production
http://exo.com/~lgp/euphoria
5. Re: Money
- Posted by William Eiten <atompunk at ROF.NET>
Mar 26, 1996
-
Last edited Mar 27, 1996
> If you've been reading this listserver for any length of time, you'd have
> seen that that was at least the 10th time I've replied with something
> similar. When you get the SAME question every week, it is easier to refer
> those things. After your last message, I noted that I hadn't done it in
> awhile, so I did it then, for whatever good it was to the person who
> asked. I hope it was useful. (did you notice I DIDN'T mention the
> book in that post?) =) I'll probably put up a more complete answer on my
> web page soon.
I know you've posted some stuff up about virtual screens before, and apologize
for you having to answer it a gazillion times, but I didn't have that e-mail
anymore. I think with that info and some of my old QBASIC stuff, I should be
able to figure it out. Even if you had mentioned looking in your book I
wouldn't have minded. But I could probably wait for the tutorial things to
finish for what I'm doing. If anyone would like more details about my game, I
would be glad to answer any questions. I might not be able to answer it all
mainly because I have just recently started on it. But what I have planned,
and what I have already started is looking pretty good. And again, thanks for
the help.
William
6. Re: Money
- Posted by Michael Packard <lgp at EXO.COM>
Mar 26, 1997
-
Last edited Mar 27, 1997
On Tue, 26 Mar 1996, William Eiten wrote:
> I know you've posted some stuff up about virtual screens before, and apologize
> for you having to answer it a gazillion times, but I didn't have that e-mail
> anymore. I think with that info and some of my old QBASIC stuff, I should be
> able to figure it out. Even if you had mentioned looking in your book I
> wouldn't have minded. But I could probably wait for the tutorial things to
> finish for what I'm doing. If anyone would like more details about my game, I
> would be glad to answer any questions. I might not be able to answer it all
> mainly because I have just recently started on it. But what I have planned,
> and what I have already started is looking pretty good. And again, thanks for
> the help.
Even when I TYPE I put my foot in my mouth! No apology was necessary, and
I offer one back for giving the impression I don't like to tell people
helpful things. =) I hope it helped. I just get weird when people give
me flack for telling people about the book I wrote to help people learn
game programming in Euphoria. What's worse is that I had nothing to do
with this thread starting, other than telling Lucius that I'd pay for a
gif loader. I still would, because the bmp format is less useful to me
than GIF.
I personally would LOVE to see what you're working on, and toss ideas at
you if you can use them. I'm also looking for submissions if anyone
wants to market their games...
Michael Packard
Lord Generic Productions
lgp at exo.com http://exo.com/~lgp
A Crash Course in Game Design and Production
http://exo.com/~lgp/euphoria
7. Re: Money
At 06:29 PM 3/26/97 -0800, you wrote:
Hey! I'm the one supposed to start these arguments!! :)
Just kidding. This on got a little bit seroius, though. When I seen 47
messages in my E-Mail box with half having the title "money", I though it
was my lucky day, but it turns out someone else is coming down on good ol'
Packard about plugging his Reference. I think the real problem here wasn't
that Packard mentioned his book, it's just that for awhile there Packard was
replying to EVERY question saying "see his book". I didn't mind that (too
much), but saying the reference is a "MUST HAVE" for any serious graphics
programmer is a bit of league. However, he made up for that by delivering
that VERY useful response to virtual pages, which was rather nice of him
considering the code was from the engine he is trying to sell with his
Reference. One problem I have been noticing here is that we get so blown off
at each other so easily (I know, I do it too). E-Mail is definetly NOT the
best form of communication. Another thing that upset me in reading these
messages was the almost-forceful messages of sharing code. If someone writes
good code, it is their right whether they want to share it or not, and we
are actually PRIVILEDGED if they do. Just my thoughts for now. If you don't
know what side I'm on, neither do I. :)
Did you actually read all that? :)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Reaper (J. Lays) http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/4444/
reaper at auracom.com Check out my Euphoria Games page at:
-= http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/4444/eugames.html
........................
. .. -||..........__...... "There is a silence before a storm,
. / ||......../-- \\.:::: A calm that is spent in fear;
. ..| ||...... / | |.::: But if that time was spent running,
.| _-||.......|| / /.:::: There may be nothing to be afraid of."
..| |..||...... -\_- \ |\-.:::
.| |.[< \ .../ \.::
.||.|||\|\ | - - . \.::::
...|.\|| | \ | | |.:::.
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8. Re: Money
On Thu, 27 Mar 1997, The Reaper wrote:
>
> When I seen 47 messages in my E-Mail box with half having the title
> "money", I though it was my lucky day...
me too. Bahahahahahahahahaha!
> Did you actually read all that? :)
no, I was busy ROTFL after the first sentence.
Michael Packard
Lord Generic Productions
lgp at exo.com http://exo.com/~lgp
A Crash Course in Game Design and Production
http://exo.com/~lgp/euphoria
BUY my book, you need it. =)
9. Re: Money
- Posted by Ad Rienks <Ad_Rienks at COMPUSERVE.COM>
Mar 27, 1997
-
Last edited Mar 28, 1997
Michael Packard:
>BUY my book, you need it. =)
No, I don't. :-}
================================================================
Ad Rienks
AdRienks at compuserve.com
