Something... else...

Since we talk about XNA and C# and occasionally Pure and Dark... I figure I won't get smacked too hard if I mention that Cobra has been released finally.

It was released weeks ago, wasn't it?

just the demo... The purchasable full version came out a couple hours ago.

Man... I think my sig DOES make baby jeebus cry. I'm gonna have to change that soon.

I've got sigs turned off so I don't know what you're on about.

I'm a bit too buried in blitzmax stuff at the moment to even consider looking at new languages just yet, though.

Im waiting for ION

He even ain't got a features list on his page. 2D stuff sounds good, but I thought it has a powerful 3D engine, no?

3D Pack should come out soon...

and... Where's the Unicode support?

Sound familiar? :p

I'm going to buy it - I see 'Cobra' as being a sort of Blitz product. "GK" has been a Blitzer for a very long time and Blitz must have been involved in the development plan - it's like he is doing his own version of Blitz.

I don't intend on using Cobra in it's 2D form. However, I think "GK" has committed himself in the same way that "Mark Sibly" has. Both have talked the talk and walked the walk to finalised products.

I bought the PC version of Blitz Basic out of respect for "Sibly" and Blitz - I had no intention of ever using it and, in fact, I never did use it (other than running the demos).

I shall purchase Cobra and patiently wait for the 3D version.

you never used blitz? you are only talking about blitz 2D right?

Yep, the original Blitz Basic on PC - never used it.

To be fair, it was much harder to steal graphics out of games in those day.

Not really.

yeah... the difference, if you believe Graham... And while he's perpetually late on his estimates... is that he says the 3D module is finished. Done. He just wants to make sure that the base install is stable across the board before he goes and drops 3D into the mix.

I take offence at that...
Well, actually no I don't 110% accurate unfortunatly ;)

It is finished, but I'm spending the time between now and release, tweaking it to make sure it's stable, trying to make sure it performs correctly under Vista, and making sure Cobra is solid first.. (oh, and there is Ion in that mix too ;) )

anyone has the lnk for this cobra thing?

"anyone has the lnk for this cobra thing?"


if you don't have sig's disabled, click on GrahamK's sig

and if you do have them disabled:
http://www.squeakyduck.co.uk/

;-)

3D is still OpenGL only, right?

So what do you think of Cobra so far, Puki?

Well, in honesty, I've not bothered too much with it.

It hasn't got a lot of use for me - I don't do 2D stuff. Still, I will tinker about with it.

Tomorrow I intended to sit down and actually look at the command set and see what goodies it has.

I'll be honest, I didn't play with the demo - didn't research Cobra - I just went and bought it with no real intention of using it until it goes 3D. This is what happened with me and BMax - I bought BMax and have never bothered to use it.

I love Blitz3D and Blitz3D loves me. I have a feeling that I might grow to love Cobra3D. However, I am suspicious that it will not be love at first sight - but may grow as soon as I have got its kit off.

I'd certainly suggest that people download the Cobra demo and play about with it.

I do find it odd to use though. As an example:

Setting up arrays:


In Blitz:

Dim position(10,10)
Dim name$(20)


In Cobra:

position : Array[10,10] of Integer
name : Array[20] of String


I'd be honest and say I prefer the standard BASIC way of doing things.

When you use the above in your program it is clear in Blitz/BASIC as to what they are - in Blitz/BASIC 'Print name$(1)' at least refers to a String array - without '$' it is integer or '#' float. Cobra doesn't use this 'visual' system.

Most programming languages don't. The convention is to name your variables accordingly.

EG:

fVariable - Float
bVariable - Boolean
iVariable - Int
sVariable - Short
dVariable - Double
lVariable - Long
strVariable - String

Whatever you like best.

Oh, I see.

We have been spoilt with Basic and Blitz.

/me cuddles Blitz3D.

I've yet to try it but did poke around the site a bit. The only thing that I thought was a bit off was the fact that the automatic type conversion doesn't behave the way most languages do but instead converts the type of the object on the right to the type of the object on the left.

That just seems foolish since you might have some code which looks like this

float2 = int + float1

Now float1 is getting converted to an int and you've just introduced an error (or at least a degree of imprecision) into your code. Type conversion should always convert numerics into the type of the most precise numeral in the expression.

You keep cuddling B3D puki... while I keep reading your posts of cuddling over on the cobra site. You two-timer! :)

Are you sure about this? You're suggesting that the following two lines would store a different value in float2?

float2 = int + float1

float2 = float1 + int

It seems bizarre to convert to an int and then back to a float. Now if you said that the following two lines resulted in a different answer, I could see the logic.

float3 = float1 + float2

int = float1 + float2

I could see the floats being cast to integers before they are added. It's perhaps not ideal, but since the answer is going to be cast to an integer anyway, I could see that it might hold an advantage for the developer to make such assumptions.

But not the former.

Actually let me look that up. I'm not sure if it's converted to the type of the actual LValue, or if the parameters of the right hand value are converted to the type of the leftmost value of the right hand value.

Hmm, it's not real clear from the site...as this is the example posted:

MessageBox( 1 + 3.4 + 0.4 )
// 3.4 is converted to 3
// 0.4 is converted to 0
// the total value 1 + 3 + 0 is converted to the string "4" and displayed

He says this


But given that the only example is the one above, where there is no true "LValue" it's hard to say from what he's said. Either way it just doesn't seem wise to ever automatically convert into a less precise type when it comes to numbers. That's what explicit casts are for.

So until I grab a copy of the demo I don't know if "left value" means the left most value of an RValue or the actual LValue, or both.

Polite request,
With respect to Mark/mods and other blitz users on this site, can I suggest that any discussions on Cobra are held over on my own site www.squeakyduck.co.uk.

Up to you, but I feel it's only fair.

Nevermind, I just found something that gives me a concrete answer.

Program
Var
a, b : Real

Begin
b = 1.4  
a = 5 + b
MessageBox(a)
End 

And this is his comment about the code



So it appears that it does not convert them to the actual "LValues" type, but instead converts to the type of the left-most parameter of the right hand value.

Yep, you're right. Very strange, never seen that before.

I can respect that request Graham. Btw, I hope it doesn't come across that I'm slogging Cobra, as I'm really not. That was just the one 'peculiar' thing I noticed and was sort of baffled by, although I don't doubt that there could be a good reason for that approach that is just eluding me. :)

Uh, okay. Sorry.

One question though Graham - wouldn't it be a good thing to foster some discussion about Cobra over here to raise awareness and interest from current Blitz users?

While there are a lot of overlap between the Blitz products and Cobra, there are still enough distinguishing features of each to make the prospect of owning more than one product quite feasible.

In my opinion, this is not the place to blatantly advertise a competing product, SculptureOfSoul.

Well, Graham did request the convo be moved to his forum. ;)

Also, I see threads about any number of other languages on here, all the time.

I know he did. You'll notice that my last post went "blah blah blah, SculptureOfSoul" rather than "blah blah blah, Graham."

My point is that there is a difference between mentioning other competing languages and purposefully advertising them (which SculptureOfSoul would seem to be recommending.)

Well, that's not really what I was recommending. I was just discussing the language (and what I perceived as a flaw). My point was, given that it *wasn't* just an advertising thread, that I don't fully understand why Graham wanted to quell the discussion here.

If it had been a thread full of blatant advertising, I could understand and agree with his decision. As it is, I still respect his opinion, I'm just not sure I understand it. Maybe he feared that it would turn to Cobra bashing?

Nah. He's just respectful of the fact that this is a BRL forum, I reckon. ;)

Very Delphi-esque, not a bad thing in my eyes :)

To focus on the "other langauge" question. When Ion comes out, even though I will ask some soly Ion questions on Squeaky duck, I will almost certainly ask some questions about it on this site.
(Just as I ask GMan or Ziggy some questions here)

Ok so mayby I should ask Ion (or Irrlicht) questions on their respective sites, but there will be some questions that need a more Bmax answer than a Ion answer.

So are these questions to be allowed. Or not?

Yeah I do like the extra structural stuff - helps stop my code getting messy. Needs 'elseif', though.

As for where to hold discussions about other languages - I like talking about them here because I value the opinions of this community, thanks. As long as BRL don't mind I'll be interested to hear about what members think about Dark BASIC Pro, C#, Cobra and anything else out there...