More books on proramming with (Object) Pascal

[Bijo]

There should be more books on programming with (Object) Pascal, especially in regard to game programming, heh heh heh. Just wonderin': are there any programmers on this forum who are planning any such thing?

I recall the book Beginning C++ Through Game Programming and there should be a book Beginning Pascal Through Game Programming

[User137]

One thing about game making guide, is that it will have to bias itself on 1 graphics library that it will be written around. I saw that you are doing some basic console programming. Problem with that is, that any modern gaming theories don't have much in common with DOS age. Most you will learn is basic Pascal programming, using variables, types, maybe even a little object oriented programming.

If it is basic Pascal programming that you need to learn, then that is a good start, and there are many guides and books made especially for Delphi. When it comes to game programming, it is more of a uni-language topic, and you should expect to see some C++, Java, Python and other implementations of OpenGL, SDL (or DirectX). Unless skipping straight to use some ready game library, make some basic project with it, and in the process try to understand how the underlying engine works.

I read my OpenGL guides from C++ related sites mainly. But i had strong background on knowing Pascal for any programming tasks before that.

[Bijo]

I wouldn't mind such books that deal with a specific library or specific libraries and Pascal

I don't see a problem, by the way, regarding the console programming. I don't see how it is relevant. It was just to get what I learned already through the fingers and mind as refreshment after a very long time. And to be honest, as I was going, I did learn some simple principles relevant to games.

Anyway, if I could find a good book that focuses on a specific library (for example SDL) (using Pascal), I would probably get it right now. At the moment, I'd even get such a book that uses C++ and translate it as I read. (Does it exist and, if yes, where do I find it?)

Of course, my point is that there should not be a need to translate it from C++ even if I can. There simply should be books on the subject using (Object) Pascal. Maybe even: for as many books there are about game programming using C++, there should be as many such books using (Object) Pascal. Would you not agree?

[phibermon]

I'd say it would be nice if there were books specifically targeted at game programming in pascal but it's just not popular enough to justify a print run.

Game coding, graphic engine coding, the techniques you follow are not really anything to do with the implementation language, you could be the best Object Pascal coder in the world and you won't really get much advantage over somebody who's not been coding long, you've both still got to learn tons of stuff that's language agnostic.

Also things like OpenGL are the same no matter the language, so any OpenGL coding book is going to help a pascal coder.

If you're really serious, and I mean deadly serious about coding games or game engines in Object Pascal, you really should learn C/C++, at least to an extent where you can read some code and know how to implement it Object Pascal. Because all the hard core techniques? you're only going to find C/C++ examples for much of it, if you find any examples at all.

In terms of 3D graphic portions of game engines you can learn much from reading white-papers etc but if your maths skills are not up to a university standard, you don't stand much chance of understanding most of it, let alone abstracting it into an Object Pascal implementation.

Learning C/C++ really is the best option, then you don't need any Pascal books cause you'll be able to utilize the best books in the world for such things, GPU Gems, those kinds of things.

If I were to write such a book and all the examples were given in Pascal, you'd only be a little bit better off, actually constructing an engine execution/rendering pipeline is way outside the scope of just one book (unless it was a really massive, shelf breaking book)

---

For 2D games of course, it's trivial, child level maths (well, I'll be fair and say verging on high-school level) In that situation you just want to learn an API such as SDL, or 2D engines written by various community members (there are many still in active development) But if you want to create a modern 3D engine/game? accept the fact that it takes many years of study and experimentation. Be sure you're willing to make such a dedication and that you can persist no matter what (and if it's 3D you want to finally achieve, don't bother with 2D, just go straight to 3D OpenGL4+, thinking that 2D is easier and that it's a good jumping point to 3D is misguided, they're very different, you won't find it much easier switching to 3D from 2D as you would going straight to 3D)

Unless you use an existing engine of course, there are some awesome ones floating around!

[WILL]

Non-"learning to program" books written with Object Pascal in mind are extremely rare. I believe I have the last two that were ever published as such sitting on my shelf. These are 'Delphi Devloper's Guide to OpenGL' and 'Delphi Graphics and Game Programming Exposed!' They are dated 1999 and 2000 respectively. These are the latest that I know about and things have changed a lot in the Pascal game dev world in the last 13 years.

I doubt you will find anything more current as it's a fairly small niche compared to all the Objective-C, C#, C, C++, Java and HTML5 game stuff out there. But we gather here because we love the language and the tools anyways.

That said, I have a great many books that instead of basing all their code examples in some C derivative, they use pseudocode instead. Which is better anyhow because it gets the idea across without needing to focus too much on how you code it, but how it works.

I'd look for books on topics like AI programming, game design, structuring your code for games, math for games, physics, graphics, audio tricks, and so on. You'll find more use with these than the 1 or 2 books that will try to teach you Pascal programming that you can learn in a single month or so.

Most of the popular API functions such as OpenGL or example, are the exact same on C and they are Java as they are Object Pascal anyways so all those other books' info is highly transferable.