Hi Glenn!
>At 03:41 PM 10/23/2001 +0200, you wrote:
>>Forget it.
>Why not let this guy decide if he can cut it or not?
Well, so if these two words already stop him, he probably isn'nt worth
any further effort at all :-)
>We have no idea what
>his aptitude is. And I don't think it would necessarily take 1-3
years of
>external study to be "ready" for the VCS. It all depends on the
>individual's aptitude.
1-3 years is the absolute minimum for someone who hasn't programmed
anything at all before, who wants to start on the VCS.
(And that's the impression I got from his initial post)
>The VCS is an unforgiving programming environment, but it is also a
very
>simple one, not unlike the limited entities in HTML. The 6502 has
very few
>instructions to memorize. The 2600 has very few registers. The
Atari
>400/800 OS is far more daunting in comparison. A VCS program
typically has
>very few lines of sourcecode. A stable display (i.e. template) is
already
>available with How to Draw a Playfield and variants. That should all
be
>taken into account.
Yup. But there's worlds between explaining someone with absolutely no
further experience 'PRINT "HELLO WORLD' compared to 'How To draw A
Playfield', which even skips the 'WORLD' part...
>To me, VCS programming is far easier to grasp than, let's say, full-
blown
>C++ or Java where you have to know all the preexisting libraries to
prevent
>yourself from constantly reinventing the wheel. There is a LOT of
rote
>memorization there. Of course, once you do that, you spare yourself
a lot
>of manual coding [i.e. DrawCircle()) which is what Chris worries
about as
>the death of real-man coding] but to get there it's a long path--at
least
>to me it is. Everybody's aptitude is different.
Yes, but assume someone with no programming experience at all.
Take DrawCircle(), then take the XX lines of code to do that
in 6502 ASM, now what's better to learn for the start?
If my posting sounded way too rude, I want to apologise for that.
Greetings,
Manuel
-
Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/
Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/
