Anybody messed around with or is involved with XNA?

[blurredvision]

Anybody here given any thought to actually attempting to develop something for the XNA studio? I'm really starting to become interested in programming after teaching myself PHP and actually learning it pretty decent enough to write some programs for work, and would definitely be willing to start looking at C++ or C# (or whatever is used).

So has anyone here looked into this at all? I'd really like to poke around with it a little bit. Consider this a generic feeler thread to see if anybody is involved already with XNA .

 

[mugs]

Game programming is a lot harder than PHP. I'd take a stab at it myself, but isn't it $100/year?

I actually downloaded the XNA studio, but I tried compiling the PC version of one of the sample projects, and it failed. I didn't bother figuring it out.

 

[Modeps]

Yeah, what mugs said. C++/C# is completely different than PHP, Coldfusion, and other web based scripting languages. Some of the concepts translate, but in general they're two separate monkeys. I've tried in the past to code in C++ and Java... While I feel I'm pretty skilled in PHP (not an expert at all), I just cant wrap my head around real object oriented programming.

 

[erwos]

Yes, I've played with it, and even written a couple sample games with it (not released, because my art sucks). I'm not a C# programming guru, although I have a ton of experience with soft-real-time Java, C, and C++, so the transition wasn't hard to make. I would say XNA is the easiest game SDK to use so far, but that doesn't mean a non-programmer is going to have the slightest idea what to do.

Like mugs said, game programming is an entirely different beast than trying to make a PHP script output something to a web browser. PHP was my first programming language, too (this was back when PHP 3 was new), but there's no way I would have been in any way prepared to do anything useful with XNA. There are just a ton of concepts you probably won't know (compiling, linking, OO, etc.). Maybe you're smarter than me - it can't hurt to give it a try.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: mugs
Game programming is a lot harder than PHP. I'd take a stab at it myself, but isn't it $100/year?

Only if you want to participate in the 360 side of things. If you just use it to create stuff on the PC, it is free.

I haven't tried it myself because I'm just not a programmer anymore. But, there are a ton of tutorials out there on XNA.

 

[dwell]

I tried it out and wrote a couple sample games with it. It's ok. Simple enough to write a 2D game or basic 3D game. I didn't have the art assets to proceed with anything big time though.

If you know the basic concepts of programming games it gives you a lot of the stuff you need to get started without having to deal with C++ and un-managed code.

I don't think PHP knowledge is going to get you too far though. You're probably better off doing Flash games.

 

[oznerol]

It primarily uses Visual C#. Their dev kit is a bloated monster. Check their forums to get a rough feel of what you'd be dealing with.

I'm not sure if I agree with mugs and Modeps claiming that PHP is so different from other languages. Although if you wanted to code (and I mean seriously code), I doubt I would suggest using PHP as a foundation. Personally, I did it the other way around - learned C first, then if I needed to code in any other language, syntax became the only real hurdle. But if you understand fundamental programming concepts - even if just in PHP - other languages should be relatively easy to jump into.

All that aside, I wouldn't recommend XNA, anyway. If you want to make games and already know PHP - learn Flash. 90% of what I've seen from independent developers on either XNA or Wiiware is just ported Flash.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Modeps
Yeah, what mugs said. C++/C# is completely different than PHP, Coldfusion, and other web based scripting languages. Some of the concepts translate, but in general they're two separate monkeys. I've tried in the past to code in C++ and Java... While I feel I'm pretty skilled in PHP (not an expert at all), I just cant wrap my head around real object oriented programming.

That's probably why the teach OOP early in college, before you get your hands on a language that lets you be lazy. I really like OOP, but game programming concepts are a bit more complex than the average business app.

Originally posted by: ducci
I'm not sure if I agree with mugs and Modeps claiming that PHP is so different from other languages. Although if you wanted to code (and I mean seriously code), I doubt I would suggest using PHP as a foundation. Personally, I did it the other way around - learned C first, then if I needed to code in any other language, syntax became the only real hurdle. But if you understand fundamental programming concepts - even if just in PHP - other languages should be relatively easy to jump into.

I wasn't referring to the language, but the type of programming it is usually used for.

 

[blurredvision]

Well, I wasn't really concerned with discussion on the contrasts between PHP and any of the C languages, I was just merely mentioning that I've been messing around with PHP and am enjoying the programming aspect of it. I understand the difficulty of learning an advanced language like C#, I'll be alright . I never said I wanted to start creating XNA games tomorrow.

But thanks for what little information you guys provided on XNA itself.

 

[Aikouka]

It's not that hard to use... although, I use C# in other places as well, so that helps a bit .

But let me tell you... I really miss the quick watch feature in VS2005 Team Edition . Real time evaluation of code is really nice when you're a bit unsure of how things will work overall or just need some assurance.

EDIT:

Missing the feature referring to the fact that I only have the Express Edition of VC# at home.

PHP's a fun language too... I usually write DB-driven websites in it, although when I was first messing with it, I had such a huge problem with sessions. I could never get one to work no matter what I did . Never really messed with them since and that was probably around 3-5 years ago.

Just a piece of advice if you start playing. I'd say to follow the tutorials as mentioned to get a feel for how things work. Download some sample (small) games and look at them to see how they work. If you're a bit unsure of exactly what a function does, try piecing through it during runtime. Then try doing things such as taking those tutorials and modifying them a bit to handle differently (don't worry if you make the game weird compared to what it should be... it's all about learning what things do).

Another thing to remember is to start small . The first game I ever wrote was a weird tetris clone for a class in college (along with another guy that wrote the graphical front-end... I handled all the behind the scenes stuff).

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: ducci
It primarily uses Visual C#. Their dev kit is a bloated monster. Check their forums to get a rough feel of what you'd be dealing with.

You can use C# Studio Express for free. It's not what I'd call bloated.

I'm not sure if I agree with mugs and Modeps claiming that PHP is so different from other languages. Although if you wanted to code (and I mean seriously code), I doubt I would suggest using PHP as a foundation. Personally, I did it the other way around - learned C first, then if I needed to code in any other language, syntax became the only real hurdle. But if you understand fundamental programming concepts - even if just in PHP - other languages should be relatively easy to jump into.

Realistically, people teaching themselves programming through PHP aren't learning any concepts beyond simple functions and loop management.

All that aside, I wouldn't recommend XNA, anyway. If you want to make games and already know PHP - learn Flash. 90% of what I've seen from independent developers on either XNA or Wiiware is just ported Flash.

Flash has its limits, which are generally much tigher than XNA's. You also can't run Flash on your 360 (actually, you can, but that's a different story).

 

[purbeast0]

i dl'ed the studio for PC and tried to compile a sample program and like mugs said, it failed and i just did not bother trying to figure it out.

i learned C++ first and then java and have picked up PHP afterwards pretty easily, and I do C++ at my day job. I also took a class in openGL in college and even doing openGL games w/C++ is a lot different than programming an application.

maybe one day i'll sit down and just mess around with it more because i would love to mess around with it and come up with something.

 

[Aikouka]

OpenGL with C++ is just weird as OpenGL is not designed as an OO library like DirectX is. I had most of my exposure to DirectX before I tried OpenGL in college and the simplicity of OpenGL was nice, but the cleanliness of DirectX really appealed to me.

 

[Drekce]

I wrote a two player pong game using XNA about 4 months ago. I suck at art, so it didn't look good, but it played well enough.

The main difference I found from normal event based programming is that when using XNA everything is controlled via a game loop. Instead of writing an event handler that responds when the user does something you have to write code that checks to see what the user is doing at each loop iteration. This isn't harder, it is just different than what most non game Java or C/C++ programmers normally do.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Modeps
Yeah, what mugs said. C++/C# is completely different than PHP, Coldfusion, and other web based scripting languages. Some of the concepts translate, but in general they're two separate monkeys. I've tried in the past to code in C++ and Java... While I feel I'm pretty skilled in PHP (not an expert at all), I just cant wrap my head around real object oriented programming.

That's probably why the teach OOP early in college, before you get your hands on a language that lets you be lazy. I really like OOP, but game programming concepts are a bit more complex than the average business app.

Depends on the business app.

Separate manufacturing, CRM, and general ledger software glued together with custom middleware maintaining complex business rules and all exposed via an n-tier website is going to have vast namespaces which would be a nightmare to maintain without a proper OOP foundation.

That said, even though I've work on more than a few massive codebases, every time I start messing with DX or OpenGL, it makes my head spin. LOL

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Modeps
Yeah, what mugs said. C++/C# is completely different than PHP, Coldfusion, and other web based scripting languages. Some of the concepts translate, but in general they're two separate monkeys. I've tried in the past to code in C++ and Java... While I feel I'm pretty skilled in PHP (not an expert at all), I just cant wrap my head around real object oriented programming.

That's probably why the teach OOP early in college, before you get your hands on a language that lets you be lazy. I really like OOP, but game programming concepts are a bit more complex than the average business app.

Depends on the business app.

Separate manufacturing, CRM, and general ledger software glued together with custom middleware maintaining complex business rules and all exposed via an n-tier website is going to have vast namespaces which would be a nightmare to maintain without a proper OOP foundation.

That said, even though I've work on more than a few massive codebases, every time I start messing with DX or OpenGL, it makes my head spin. LOL

Yeah, good point. I guess instead of "more complex," I should have said "complex in a different way," as you alluded to in your last paragraph.

Originally posted by: erwos
Realistically, people teaching themselves programming through PHP aren't learning any concepts beyond simple functions and loop management.

Agree.