Increasing traffic on PGD... [Archive] - Pascal Game Development

WILL

22-02-2012, 04:21 AM

Hello everyone!

I used to dread posting these topics as it always seemed as if I were begging people to come to the site and post. However other than simply asking other PGD members to start posting what they are doing or being more active, I'm going to try something a little different.

What this community needs is new members and more exposure. That is something that has faded due to other outlets changing over the years. Many of the old Pascal development related sites have shut down and there is no longer Object Pascal forum on GameDev.net. Embarcadero, much like Borland seems to appeal more to big business than the small indie developers and many of the old developers have moved on to other things or away from software and game development altogether.

So where does this leave us? Well first of all, since we have lost a lot of our visibility we need to get some of that back. We can do that a couple of ways. Posting on other game dev forums can help increase awareness of what the top Pascal-based tools are capable of. Posting links back to PGD would certainly help expose to others what exciting things are being done within the community. Creating websites or pages dedicated to your game projects is another way of helping show that Pascal is used often as well.

A new medium that can now easily take advantage of is many of these social networks such as, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Google+ among others also available. I'm not saying go nuts, but signing up for one or two and making posts showing off what our favorite tools can do is sometime more than enough to get attention. Especially with a social network as eye-catching as YouTube. Reference Darthman's showcases of the cool Russian IGDC competitions.

These are some ideas to expose Pascal game development that would allow others to see all the great ideas going on in the community. One of the key things however to increase traffic here though, is to post a thread and a link on those other external posting back to here. This site is meant to be a central place for all Pascal programmers to come and congregate and get ideas and increase their knowledge in programming and game development from other Pascal game programmers and developers.

This place has so much to offer everyone, but we need to be known. So go out there are tell everyone about us! :)

22-02-2012, 06:12 AM

Embarcadero, much like Borland seems to appeal more to big business than the small indie developers and many of the old developers have moved on to other things or away from software and game development altogether.
I don't agree with this and I think this argument is fallacious.

Honestly, PGD has been for quite some time, what I once called it, FreePascal Game Development, since the majority of posters here use FreePascal (there was a poll about it few months back) and the majority of material is focused towards FreePascal being "somewhat" compatible with Delphi. In addition, the majority of people tend to use Unix/Mac instead of Windows (Delphi developers can only use Windows).

There are many Delphi forums in different languages including Chinese, Russian and so on, and they are quite busy. For instance, I'm reading occasionally this forum (http://www.clubdelphi.com/foros/) (in Spanish).

In earlier days, Turbo site, received huge traffic because it had important news and a lot of material very useful for Delphi developers that in addition for game development had other uses (e.g. interactive apps, scientific, etc.).

If you keep focusing on FreePascal/Lazarus, then you'll stay with a niche community of few developers.

The new release of Delphi XE 2 has provided a lot of great stuff for Delphi developers with ability to target 64-bit Windows, Mac OS and even iOS; and they say that their own ARM compiler is underway. However, as much as I've tried to open Delphi discussion here, it wasn't successful.

As a Game Developer, here are some topics that I would like to see here:

1) 64-bit development and performance (I've opened the thread about it: no interest).
2) DirectX: nobody cares here because OpenGL is the only way to go for Unix/Mac OS guys, who are the majority here.
3) Mac OS specifics: there was some discussion in Delphi XE 2 news thread with Czar and me, but that's all.
4) iOS specifics: how to use sensors, compass, magnetometer, etc. There are random threads on Embarcadero forums, but I would like to see this material *here*.
5) Databases, networking, multiplayer in Delphi.
6) Publishing of Delphi made iOS apps and publishing in general.
7) Performance optimizations in 64-bit inline assembly in Delphi.
8 ) Math materials (libraries, code snippets, etc.) For example, nobody here mentioned the issue of Extended support lacking in 64-bit platform: seems like an interesting discussion to do and there is an alternative posted somewhere on Embarcadero. Why not mirroring it here?

Above topics can be applied to FreePascal, but doing so will be of little interest to Delphi developers. If you look at above points, there is mostly nothing of this on PGD.

Arguments against Delphi Starter and Delphi's price are unfounded - Delphi has always been expensive except for Turbo versions. In my own case, even though I've been in financial trouble last year, I've sold some of my equipment to purchase Delphi XE 2, which was totally worth it. Many other developers also choose Delphi, but just because they don't come here doesn't mean they don't exist.

Therefore, please, try to target Delphi audience more. After all, FreePascal and Lazarus have their own forums and are doing just fine. Myself, I keep visiting PGD often trying to find something interesting to discuss, but I hardly find anything useful for me as a Delphi game developer in here.

Most articles on the front page posted by WILL and Code_Glitch are based on FPC/Lazarus using Jedi-SDL and similar approaches. What about Delphi and DirectX, or Delphi and FireMonkey? Remember: what you seed is what you get.

Edit: If you think that Embarcadero doesn't care about indies and game developers, then perhaps if you provide valuable indie and game development Delphi content, they would. Someone needs to break the cycle, don't you think?

WILL

22-02-2012, 07:50 AM

Hmm... I realize that I have been pushing other alternative methods of Pascal development other than Delphi, but I guess you may be right in that I might have given the cold shoulder to "Delphi developers". I don't want that as I want PGD to encompass ALL areas of Object Pascal, Delphi, Objective-Pascal, etc...

I agree with you that we've not had much in the way of non-porting articles and threads showing up on PGD. I would as well love to have some of those topics you suggested discussed on PGD. :) Maybe you can help with this and start up conversations and help bring other Delphi developers here via Twitter, Google+, etc... I could then take your lead and spread the word myself. This creates a catalyst effect in which higher numbers passing the word create a buzz. I've tried to do this more and more, yet I alone won't bring in enough traffic.

So while I understand that some may feel that Delphi has been a little snubbed here, there hasn't been an outlaw against Delphi talk so go for it. If you feel PGD needs more Delphi-specific developers then send some our way too if you can.

Also, why not write a simple tutorial on PGD about setting up Asphyre and creating a simple demo using the library? Or if you want more Delphi-centric content, why not write a tutorial on the new Delphi XE2 suite or how to make a casual game with FireMonkey?

As it stands, it is just me and code_glitch running things. (AthenaOfDelphi still helps, but she is too busy to help daily) I have a full time career and code_glitch is in school so who is going to write these things? :)

When I originally joined the community that was later to become PGD, the rule of thumb was that this community is YOUR community. YOU make it what it will be. And from what I've seen it's a matter of assuming that the PGD Staff will generate all this content on it's own. I'm not paid to run PGD I volunteer, nor is anyone else that helps run PGD. I have written things in the past and I do intend to write a few more things, but sadly I don't develop software nearly as much as I have been organizing and running things here on PGD.

If there is another way to bring in the developers, or Delphi-specific developers that we seem to be missing, please let me know. I'd love to see this place running as busy as it once was.

22-02-2012, 04:15 PM

Jason, none of us get paid to participate here and many of us have families and full-time jobs.

My point was to add Delphi-specific interesting stuff, which will lure Delphi/Windows users in here. Unfortunately, with FireMonkey platform many things are not easily interchangeable between FPC/Lazarus and Delphi, especially on non-Windows platforms.

You don't have to write everything from scratch for Delphi. You just need to show a little enthusiasm. There are a lot of online articles, which can be explained in one or two paragraphs.

Here are examples, some of which I've mentioned previously in my posts:
1) First Look at XE2 Floating Point Performance (http://delphitools.info/2011/09/02/first-look-at-xe2-floating-point-performance/).
2) Floating Point and Currency Fields (http://synopse.info/forum/viewtopic.php?id=500)
3) Delphi XE2 64bit Bottleneck in Trigonometric Functions (http://delphitools.info/2011/09/22/delphi-xe2-64bit-bottleneck-in-trigonometric-functions/)
4) Extended FPU Backend (http://cc.embarcadero.com/Item/28488) for Delphi 64-bit and discussion (https://forums.embarcadero.com/thread.jspa?threadID=60551). Alternative AMD LibM (http://developer.amd.com/libraries/LibM/Pages/default.aspx) solution.
5) Delphi XE 2: GPS and Compass on iOS (http://blogs.embarcadero.com/ao/2011/10/13/39171).
6) Sending E-Mail on iOS (http://cc.embarcadero.com/Item/28602).
7) Using SQLite on iOS (http://cc.embarcadero.com/Item/28605).

There are many more of them, but you need to show interest and facilitate this information for Delphi (game) developers, which will make PGD interesting and let new people in. On the other hand, PGD staff using Mac, FreePascal and Lazarus exclusively will not accomplish it: you need to get your hands dirty in other tools (e.g. Windows, Delphi XE 2+) as well.

As for Unix/FPC current demographics here, you need to understand OS Market Share (http://www.netmarketshare.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9) and Programming Language Marketshare (http://www.tiobe.com/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html). As you can see, right now you are serving less than 6% of people on OS side and very small development group (FPC/Lazarus). This is probably one of the reasons why there are mostly no newcomers here as you are focusing on smallest niche market. If you want more people, you need to target other audiences.

Now, personally, the posts in News (http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/forumdisplay.php?17-News) section for me are uninteresting and unappealing. I would like to see news like new component for iOS, new tricks, new problems found in development tools, publishing deals and so on. Things like games released here and there can be consulted elsewhere and they do not belong to News section. This is my opinion.

Finally, for the lack of time I recommend avoiding the usage of social networks as these things eat up your time greatly... err, as well as posting on forums :-P.

SilverWarior

22-02-2012, 09:01 PM

I have been increasing PGD popularity in a way from the wery first day I came here. How? When I visit PGD site from work I always come here trough Google. When I started visiting this site I had to write atlest "pascal game dev" for google quick results to show link to PGD in the results. Now it is enought just to write "pascal ga". So by doing this I increased PGD popularity in Google sercher. This means that there is greater chance for PGD site to come up in serch results even if they are the search isn't about PGD directly.

Also I plan to contact Žarko Gajić author of Delphi About site so that he will update his site acordingly or point any Delphi devloper who is interested in game development to PGD.

Also one of the problems is that many pepole doesn't know that Delphi uses pascal language. I must admit that it took me quite some time to realize that myself. But blaime for this goes to the Borland wich tried to create a uniqe programing language caled Delphi and not pascal. Only recently Embarcadero started to metion again that their Delphi IDE actualy uses pascal programing language and not Delphi programing language.

I would also ask PGD members who have developed their own Graphic engines and such to try to make those compatible with Delphi and write proper tutorials of seting up their graphic engines in Delphi. Yes I know that it isn't easy to do that especialy since you don't use Delphi yourself but without this only a few of Delphi developers would be wiling to try and hastle of seting your graphical engines to work in Delphi by themself.

Also if we want to atract more newbies we should start writing some tutorials about how to start a game developement preferably for both Delphi and FPC and write tehm in a way so that they would be understod by newbies. We also have to take into acount that there may be many newbe programers wich might be interested in game development from start. What does this means? Our tutorials must sometimes even explain some programing language technics. For instance in my article about RPG battle system I heavily rely on classes and class inheritance. And becouse of this the article will include short explanation of how classes and calss inheritance works and why I used this aproach. That is the second biggest reasony why I'm working on my article for so long.

I myself am still working on my article about making a Combat system for RPG game. I also have ideas for a few more articles (Handling Savegames, Making GUI components, Making proper code structure for games - using gamestates). If noone else would write them I will do it myself but unfortunatly I don't know when since my free time is werry limited.

WILL

22-02-2012, 09:52 PM

Well more Delphi specific stuff is in the works as requested. I will do my best to push this more.

Best thing I can say is if you want it talked about here, make the post in the forums. I will do my best to tweet, facebook link it and draw others to come talk about it. (If Delphi users think that it really is FreePascal Game Development, then we have to make the effort to show that it's not that anymore!) but if you don't make these posts then you're only failing PGD and you will not get what you want out of it.

"[PGD] is a community you can only expect to get out of it what you put into it." -- Alimonster(aka Alistar Keys) telling me off for blasting the old DGDev forums for being quiet as a new member. ;)

As for the game releases, I feel that this is just as important as the technical information. It lets people know not only that there are actual commercial or freeware game projects out there (from someone other than the authors who know about PGD), but it also shows the areas where Pascal is being used and how to track it's success in the industry. So I will continue to post these along with more technical information about things like Delphi4Lua and the TKinect library and other game libraries and/or engines such as Asphyre Sphinx and TERRA.

I'd love to get more people writing tutorials for PGD. So far only Ben(code_glitch) has been creating tutorials in the last few months. Sadly I think that he has been overshooting by being overly technical or heavy in the project management portion alienating beginners or simple hobbyists that don't care about methodologies and the like. Being of simple mind some times, I can't say that I've been overly drawn to them myself. Not that hey are bad articles, it's just that the scales have tipped too far to that side I believe. We need simplier more basic articles.

Maybe something like A* pathfinding, LOS, how to make a tilemap, loading 3D objects with FireMonkey, plug in code for making a screenshot with OpenGL/DirectX, etc... these are simple and probably don't require a lot of writing on the part of the author(YOU).

The social networks seem to actually bring in traffic. Yes if can spend a lot of time reading Tweets from Notch, IGN and many others who I've come to follow recently, but it is a great networking tool. Recently I've spent a little time on Facebook and I've seen the Pascal Game Development group grow from only a mere 9 group members to about 45. Plus I've been posting in the Delphi developers group which has well over 500+ members and I'm sure that has attracted the attention of a few and maybe added a couple of new members as well. (Members also include Nick Hodges, David I., Jim McKeeth, Malcolm Groves, etc)

Visibility is the key for social networks. You just have to stay away from getting caught up reading them too much, I have to agree there.

And a huge thanks to you SilverWarior for your efforts! I don't know how many others are doing what you are doing, but I'm very happy that you are making all this effort. It really does help. :)

I was also considering doing some ad campaigns as well. Maybe Google Ads or something, but those can get costly over time.

22-02-2012, 10:02 PM

Also if we want to atract more newbies we should start writing some tutorials about how to start a game developement preferably for both Delphi and FPC and write tehm in a way so that they would be understod by newbies. We also have to take into acount that there may be many newbe programers wich might be interested in game development from start. What does this means? Our tutorials must sometimes even explain some programing language technics.
Actually I think teaching programming by itself is not a very useful tactic here because newbies have many options to choose from: C# and XNA, C/C++, Perl, Python, Lua, Java and so on. This is what institutions are for, and dealing with institutions, I think, is quite out of scope for PGD commuinity.

My posts were about luring *existing* Delphi developers in here as in Language Stats (http://www.tiobe.com/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html) which I've mentioned earlier it is clear that Delphi is still quite popular. It is not that difficult as you just need to provide interesting stuff to motivate people visiting this site; eventually, they may decide to participate in forums.

Specifically for the forums, I would recommend joining together all graphic's libraries forums as well as compilers since there have not been much activity (some had no posts since 2007!) but together they will appear quite populated to outside public. Honestly, right now with so many forums and very low activity, it is counterproductive: I only use "What's New?" button as scrolling through entire forums takes quite some time and is confusing. You may want to get rid of forums with less than 10 posts and join them together as well. This type of hierarchical navigation is not needed: Search option exists exactly for cases where you need to find something specific.

P.S. I've been trying to get my hands on writing tutorials for some time now, but since I also work on scientific articles, which is quite stressful (especially when dealing with reviewers), you get tired and at the end of day writing more text is the least thing you want to do.

WILL

22-02-2012, 10:16 PM

Specifically for the forums, I would recommend joining together all graphic's libraries forums as well as compilers since there have not been much activity (some had no posts since 2007!) but together they will appear quite populated to outside public. Honestly, right now with so many forums and very low activity, it is counterproductive: I only use "What's New?" button as scrolling through entire forums takes quite some time and is confusing. You may want to get rid of forums with less than 10 posts and join them together as well. This type of hierarchical navigation is not needed: Search option exists exactly for cases where you need to find something specific.

I had been thinking of archiving and slimming down the forums lately. You are right it's becoming more like a ghost town in the Forums section of PGD. I have most of them collapsed, but still they are all open by default. Another motivation for this was how long and hard it was for my to move it all from the old server to here. The database in raw SQL was 500MB large. I had to break it up into 46 pieces to run it all for the import.

Rather than simply merge libraries, I'd rather archive them and take them off the forums page altogether. Noone cares about the XCESS library at this point it's been dropped ages ago for example.

Some other forums like Writing, Technical and all the other non-programming stuff probably could be merged and trimmed down. They are somewhat excessive. I can slim down the forums quite a bit just with these.

P.S. I've been trying to get my hands on writing tutorials for some time now, but since I also work on scientific articles, which is quite stressful (especially when dealing with reviewers), you get tired and at the end of day writing more text is the least thing you want to do.

No review process here at PGD! If that helps... ;)

WILL

22-02-2012, 10:27 PM

...and let us not forget to welcome new members! http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/showthread.php?13022-Welcome-to-PGD!-Make-your-first-post-here

WILL

22-02-2012, 10:51 PM

Reorganizing the forums as per some of Lifepower's ideas...

SilverWarior

23-02-2012, 01:28 AM

Actually I think teaching programming by itself is not a very useful tactic here because newbies have many options to choose from: C# and XNA, C/C++, Perl, Python, Lua, Java and so on. This is what institutions are for, and dealing with institutions, I think, is quite out of scope for PGD commuinity.

I disagree with you. I myself am stil a newbie in game development (hasn't published any game jet) and my programing skils also arent very advanced.
When I found first article wich suposinlgy would teach me how to make my fist game in Delphi I hardly understood it. Reason for that is that at the time my programing skils were still quite bad. I still hasn't understand some basics at the time (namely classes and class inheritance). So even after reading that article for few times I still didn't knew how to make my own game. I only figured that out about a year later when I was reading another article about creating custom components (components heavilly rely on classes). Actually at that time I had no intention for writing games, becouse I thought they are out of my reach becouse of me lacking knowledge. If someone would have told me then that I requre proper knowledge of handling classes, today I might have already some game finished.
That's why I'm including this knowledge in my article becouse I suspect, that many potential game developers are turned away on the start, becouse they don't understand neccesary basics, and noone tels them that they have to.
Anywhay it is not neccesary that you always write about programing basics in your article, but atleast do point the readaer to another article wich would help him understand yours.

Also if we don't take atleast some time for teaching some programing, pepole might turn to other programing languages instead, becouse they might find other forums who do so.

The main reason why I decided to become programer becouse I wanted to make my own game similar to some other but much better (don't recal wich one). So basicaly if I wouln't be so stuborn by nature I would have already given up long time ago.

Eric

23-02-2012, 05:13 AM

Actually I think teaching programming by itself is not a very useful tactic here because newbies have many options to choose from: C# and XNA, C/C++, Perl, Python, Lua, Java and so on.
I disagree, this is because they still have choice that you can capture new recruits.Though in that reguard Delphi starts with a severe disadvantage as there is no "free" option anymore besides Lazarus.

Also sites like turbo & Delphi3D did thrive a lot on "teaching", just not programming, but games, Ai, graphics, etc.

This is what institutions are for, and dealing with institutions, I think, is quite out of scope for PGD commuinity.

I disagree here too, institutions are in practice either universities (where they usually don't have any serious grasp of game programming) or work-sponsored (and bosses ain't gonna pay for game programming).

My posts were about luring *existing* Delphi developers in here

The problem is that a good deal of existing Delphi developpers are on old versions, sometimes very old (Delphi 7), and XE2 caters to just a niche of the Delphi users.
Even though I wrote some articles about XE2 during the time my trial lasted, I'm still primarily on XE.

XE2 doesn't have any free version, so the situation just isn't like in the turbo & Delphi3D days, when people that found something interesting could go test it.

IMHO this goes beyond any raw cost consideration as it affects mindset: people just don't have the same incentive/willingness promoting "for free" a tool that isn't free.

Specifically for the forums, I would recommend joining together all graphic's libraries forums as well as compilers since there have not been much activity

Agreed.

Cybermonkey

23-02-2012, 09:36 AM

Sorry, if I barge in as I am rather new here, but please do not drop support for Freepascal. I am not interested in Delphi but searching for good tutorials for FPC. Most good libraries (e.g. Asphyre) seem for Delphi only. The only exception is ZenGL.
It was mentioned that in the Language Stats http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html Delphi is quite popular but as far as I can read the item is named
Delphi/Object Pascal (http://www.tiobe.com/content/paperinfo/tpci/Delphi_Object_Pascal.html) which refers to Freepascal/Lazarus as well (Object Pascal).
Well, I am also interested in mobile developmet (Android/iOS) but again: if a tutorial is made please with Freepascal. ;)
Just my two cents from a newbie.

Carver413

23-02-2012, 11:32 AM

Educating new members is the best way to insure new members stick around. most of us don't have the luxury of school training. and what classes are out there for delphi/fpc users anyway. any good group takes care of it's own. what is really needed is a modern opengl code base to work from some sort of wikki to organize it. DGL has a nice setup but most of us don't speak German and goggle does a poor job of translating.

Eric

23-02-2012, 11:35 AM

the item is named which refers to Freepascal/Lazarus as well (Object Pascal)
IIRC the FreePascal entry was merged not long ago, but there is still a "Pascal" entry, and I have no idea what it covers.

23-02-2012, 03:40 PM

Sorry, if I barge in as I am rather new here, but please do not drop support for Freepascal. I am not interested in Delphi but searching for good tutorials for FPC.
How did you infer from me suggesting to promote more materials for Delphi, to drop support for FreePascal? Seems like a irrelevant thesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi) fallacy.

I disagree, this is because they still have choice that you can capture new recruits.Though in that reguard Delphi starts with a severe disadvantage as there is no "free" option anymore besides Lazarus.
I don't recall that there was free version of Delphi before Delphi 6 personal and it was still popular. Also, you may wonder why many developers, myself included, are paying a thousand dollars (!) for a product, where they could have simply used a supposedly free alternative.

In addition, Embarcadero is offering (http://www.codegear.com/education/academic-program) (similar to what Borland did) Delphi versions to academic institutions at huge discounts (90%-97% discount).

I disagree here too, institutions are in practice either universities (where they usually don't have any serious grasp of game programming) or work-sponsored (and bosses ain't gonna pay for game programming).

This is a common misconception. There are many institutions, including the one I was in, that have a very strong software engineering program. This program makes you competent not only for game development, but for any software development in general. After you finish, you can also optionally opt for M. Sc and even D.Sc. degrees, which are highly competent as well. Yes, studying is not easy here at ITESM, you will probably have to study overtime, working on projects at night and so on, but it's totally worth it.

Sure, there are some universities where some teachers stink, but this is part of life. In one point or another, you will have a lousy teacher, a business partner that is a jerk, a boss that stinks or even a president that sucks. This, however, does not mean that you should put away the education.

Just by getting first university degree, you can get a work as software engineer for an average salary of $55,000 (http://www1.salary.com/Software-Engineer-I-Salary.html) ($4500 per month for Software Engineer) in US. A higher position requiring more advanced degree gives $115,000 (http://www1.salary.com/Software-Architect-Salary.html) ($9500 per month for Software Architect). Average salary for Game developer is around $80,000 (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/34304/Game_Developer_Reveals_2010_Game_Industry_Salary_S urvey_Results.php).

Also, many universities worldwide have a scholarship program. In my own case, 12 years ago when I went to study Computing Systems Engineering, I've got scholarships from many universities in US, Canada and UK, many of which included 100% of study coverage plus staying expenses. This is still the common case for many students that are wiling to put all their effort to learn and build their careers.

Being a software engineer, learning new/different language is a trivial task, since programming language now is just a way to translate your architecture/design into code (and there are tools that can help you).

Educating new members is the best way to insure new members stick around. most of us don't have the luxury of school training. and what classes are out there for delphi/fpc users anyway. any good group takes care of it's own.
Sorry, but what you imply is simply laziness. If you have enthusiasm, interest and are wiling to learn, you can always get a scholarship in one of universities with a good computer science program. Here in Mexico, lower class students with family earnings of less than 1000 $MXN per week ($80 per week) can still get to the university almost for free and if they are talented, even get paid to study (!). [Granted, some prefer to consume drugs and shoot their neighbors instead, but that's another story]

Plus, if you get to study to university, you can always opt for Delphi Academic Program and pay roughly $100 for a Professional version.

Cybermonkey

23-02-2012, 04:09 PM

SilverWarior

23-02-2012, 04:32 PM

Sorry, if I barge in as I am rather new here, but please do not drop support for Freepascal. I am not interested in Delphi but searching for good tutorials for FPC. Most good libraries (e.g. Asphyre) seem for Delphi only. The only exception is ZenGL.
Nobody sad anything about dropping support for FPC. We only talked about increasing support for Delphi. The reason for this the fact that latly most articles are just FPC oriented.
As for the libraries most of them can be ported and used in FPC quite easily. Yes the Asphyre is exception du the fact that it relies on some Embarcaderos libraries wich ships with Delphi. But as far as I know there is a plan to include FPC support for Asphyre in the future.

Sorry, but what you imply is simply laziness. If you have enthusiasm, interest and are wiling to learn, you can always get a scholarship in one of universities with a good computer science program. Here in Mexico, lower class students with family earnings of less than 1000 $MXN per week ($80 per week) can still get to the university almost for free and if they are talented, even get paid to study (!). [Granted, some prefer to consume drugs and shoot their neighbors instead, but that's another story]

Plus, if you get to study to university, you can always opt for Delphi Academic Program and pay roughly $100 for a Professional version.

Here in Slovenia none of our universities doesn't teach programing in any of the pascal dialects. All that you can learn in our universities is Java, .NET and C based languages. And even teaching of theese languages is of poor quality becouse they teach the mostly same stuf as they did 10 years ago. So when most of our students come out of school they still lacks some needed knowledge to become sucsessful programers on their own.
Another problem in Slovenia is that all of theese universities are full. So if you didn't have excelent grades in highschool you don't even have a chance to sign in.
Also here in Slovenia it is werry hard to get any scholarship at all. And even if you do get it, it won't cover all the expenses for study. So many students are forced to do parttime jobs during study. And this means les time and energy for study itself.

I myself haven't got a chance to sing into the university so I was forced to learn all by myself. And since I need money to live I had to find myself a job to earn enough for living. And to be honest I don't like my job wery much. I work as a customs officer. I have 12 hour shifts. The job itself can be verry stresfull becouse I had to work with various pepole (none of them isn't happy to see me). So many times when I come home from work I have no more energy to do some learning or any programing.

Eric

23-02-2012, 04:35 PM

I don't recall that there was free version of Delphi before Delphi 6 personal and it was still popular.
Previous versions were available for free via the CD that game with various magazines (at least in France, Germany and UK, can't say for other countries)

In addition, Embarcadero is offering (http://www.codegear.com/education/academic-program) (similar to what Borland did) Delphi versions to academic institutions at huge discounts (90%-97% discount).
That's only good for students and academics, and more hassle that getting Visual Studio or Eclipse (which can be download with no fuss).

There are many institutions, including the one I was in, that have a very strong software engineering program.
How, I don't doubt there are good institutions, but "many" is another story entirely, and anyway, that's only for the student side, and only for those students that have taken such a course, so it is only an option for a small minority.

Yes, studying is not easy here at ITESM, you will probably have to study overtime, working on projects at night and so on, but it's totally worth it.

As you just said, these course take a lot of time. Some require a background. Many are heavy on theory, light on practical aspects, etc. They're just not (and can't be) and alternative to more focused articles. They cater a different crowd with different needs.

This, however, does not mean that you should put away the education.

That wasn't my point, I've got quite a high degree myself (not sure how it translates, that's one that is normally completed at 23-24 yo), and that was quite a few years ago already.

What I'm saying is that I don't think PGD should assume a public constituted of software engineering PhDs ;-)

SilverWarior

23-02-2012, 04:36 PM

Sorry, I answered to the post and hit accidently the back button of my browser so everything is lost. Anyway, I wrote that I am not a studied man but a simple hobby programmer. I can hardly find Freepascal ressources for game development in the net but Delphi and Delphi everywhere. So, maybe one can empathize my fear that this place will be pure Delphi eventually.

It seems that Delphi is quite popular in Germany but since my German is werry bad I have no use of those. So I myself am facing similar problem of having dificulties to find necessary game development articles for Delphi.

23-02-2012, 05:42 PM

Here in Slovenia none of our universities doesn't teach programing in any of the pascal dialects. All that you can learn in our universities is Java, .NET and C based languages. And even teaching of theese languages is of poor quality becouse they teach the mostly same stuf as they did 10 years ago. So when most of our students come out of school they still lacks some needed knowledge to become sucsessful programers on their own.
Unfortunately, it is true for Java, .NET and C part. Another unfortunate fact is that here in Mexico the highest paid Software Engineering jobs require Java and/or .NET knowledge, which is probably why they teach these languages in the first place, to ensure student's quick entry into business (I see announcements for these jobs on daily basis).

However, I don't agree with the second part. Ex-students of my 1999-2004 generation from Computing Systems department are all working now in top places in the software development industry, some here in Mexico and others in U.S.

Another problem in Slovenia is that all of theese universities are full. So if you didn't have excelent grades in highschool you don't even have a chance to sign in.
Also here in Slovenia it is werry hard to get any scholarship at all. And even if you do get it, it won't cover all the expenses for study. So many students are forced to do parttime jobs during study. And this means les time and energy for study itself.
You can always try to get to the universities in other countries. Yes, it may be hard to pull it off on your own (living and studying alone in foreign land), but on the bright side you get to know new cultures, make new friends and later on it will be a bonus for the career. In addition, it's never too late to get the degree, when I was studying 6 years ago for M.Sc., most "classmates" (it was research-oriented, so we were technically researchers) were like 20 years older than me. Not to mention my research for D.Sc., where only few people were present and were all > 50 years old.

That's only good for students and academics, and more hassle that getting Visual Studio or Eclipse (which can be download with no fuss).
Yes, I agree with that and it's unfortunate for Embarcadero. However, if you have used Express editions of Visual Studio, you should know that you don't get 64-bit support as well as other platforms such as Windows Phone, so it's very similar to Delphi Starter, except that it is for free. (Honestly, I wouldn't use Delphi Starter even if it was free because of the above limitations).

How, I don't doubt there are good institutions, but "many" is another story entirely, and anyway, that's only for the student side, and only for those students that have taken such a course, so it is only an option for a small minority.

I've never seen such an argument before that contained in itself more logical fallacies than phrases. Cherry picking, base rate neglect, illicit major and hasty generalization among others. Please don't do that.

As you just said, these course take a lot of time. Some require a background. Many are heavy on theory, light on practical aspects, etc. They're just not (and can't be) and alternative to more focused articles. They cater a different crowd with different needs.

Same as above.

"Good" or "bad" institution is subjective and a trend of black and white thinking (yet another fallacy). They are simply institutions with the goal of teaching students. Subjects from computer sciences are present in almost every area of institutions: management, accounting, physics, chemistry, architecture and so on. Yes, you can learn by yourself reading some articles on Internet, but instead of learning random bits by yourself, you can let other people professionally certified to help and guide you with the learning process; in fact, both are not mutually exclusive: you can learn at university and *still* read articles you want.

As for your "time argument", I don't believe there is such thing as "easy" or "quick "money. A person who worked hard and long, who invested time and effort into learning and becoming a professional will usually get higher salary and better jobs than a person who did not. (even though there are always rare exceptions.)

In addition, education is not just programming. If you don't educate yourself enough, you may fall prey easily to Crown manipulation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_manipulation), Brainwashing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing) among other techniques very common on today's mass media including TV, radio, social networks and so on. (And guess what? Many of these techniques are based on careful injection of fallacies!)

[By the way, the Wikipedia links I've provided to crowd manipulation and brainwashing in English are quite biased and misleading themselves. Check other language versions with the Google translator, which are more meaningful.]

What I'm saying is that I don't think PGD should assume a public constituted of software engineering PhDs ;-)
Referring to my point, you are making a logical fallacy called "Appeal to ridicule". I never said what you are mocking (which is disrespectful, by the way), I just said that basic programming skills are taught in the majority of institutions now so instead of reinventing the wheel it is better to focus on people that are already familiar with the language.

Also, there is an entire Delphi section in About (http://delphi.about.com/) web site dedicated to all sorts of programming tips, which is more than sufficient to get you started and even make you proficient in some areas that you may not be aware of.

Edit: Really, please check Delphi section in About.com, it has articles for beginners to start from zero. What else do you need?

WILL

23-02-2012, 06:49 PM

Well I can assure everyone that PGD will not become a support group purely for any one singular IDE, compiler or platform. In fact I believe that the increased development towards new platforms might be what's been making core Delphi developers think otherwise. There seems to be this odd conception amoung Pascal developers that you have to choose either one of the tools or the other. I'd use Delphi on my Mac if there was a native version. Maybe it will come, maybe not, but until then I use Lazarus.

My support goes to the language. And other dialects of the language.

There has been a lot of Delphi relevant topics posted in the News section, but not as much news as I'd like being posted there. Part of that is because I've been away and busy doing my real job which supports my family and unable to spend the time I'd love in finding new and cool things going on with ALL Pascal game developers. This is where I really need your help.

Since we have been airing fears; I kind of fear that the PGD News section/RSS isn't as popular as it should be. Not sure who here reads from RSS syndication feeds or subscribes to DelphiFeeds.com. I've put PGD up for inclusion to these feeds, but it seems we didn't get enough votes. Should enough people sign up and have us added, that might finally put us on there.

The only time that we do make it on there is when someone like Eric Grange (http://www.delphifeeds.com/go/t/89953) or Jon Lennart Aasenden mentions something we've posted. I think our RSS feed for news is very valid, but noone else has spoken up about it. Here is the thread http://delphifeeds.uservoice.com/forums/14264-feedback/suggestions/1731307-please-add-www-pascalgamedevelopment-com-news-rss- Apparently 3 votes won't do it. So who here actually wants PGD on DelphiFeeds or thinks we should be on there?

Go here and vote about it please! http://delphifeeds.uservoice.com/forums/14264-feedback

WILL

23-02-2012, 06:54 PM

BTW, I've slimmed down the Forums a bit. I don't know if I want to merge all the development tools together much like I don't want to merge all the library-specific forums either. Sure it would make it seem even smaller, but there is a reason we made each forum for all of them. Maybe moving discontinued ones to an archive of some kind instead.

Andru

23-02-2012, 07:44 PM

Here is the thread http://delphifeeds.uservoice.com/forums/14264-feedback/suggestions/1731307-please-add-www-pascalgamedevelopment-com-news-rss- Apparently 3 votes won't do it.
"Idea has been closed"... :(

23-02-2012, 07:49 PM

Since we have been airing fears; I kind of fear that the PGD News section/RSS isn't as popular as it should be. Not sure who here reads from RSS syndication feeds or subscribes to DelphiFeeds.com. I've put PGD up for inclusion to these feeds, but it seems we didn't get enough votes. Should enough people sign up and have us added, that might finally put us on there.
Honestly, I've never used PGD's syndication system or any other syndication system for that matter except for what I added to my Blackberry, but even that one I rarely read. For some reason I always preferred to interact with the forums and news sites directly. Maybe you should open a poll about this?

SilverWarior

23-02-2012, 08:56 PM

I myself don't use RSS news on any site. When I'm interested in news from certain area I wisitn and browse trough respected sites and forums.

SilverWarior

23-02-2012, 09:07 PM

Also, there is an entire Delphi section in About (http://delphi.about.com/) web site dedicated to all sorts of programming tips, which is more than sufficient to get you started and even make you proficient in some areas that you may not be aware of.

Edit: Really, please check Delphi section in About.com, it has articles for beginners to start from zero. What else do you need?

I know Delphi About very well. Infact I learned most from that site. But sometimes there is a problem when you try to find something but instead you keep coming to wrong articles. Let's face it while Delphi About does contain a great deal of knoledge it is poorly organized wich makes it hard to find exacly what you need.

WILL

24-02-2012, 07:42 AM

"Idea has been closed"... :(

I new idea can be opened. :) Just post here and elsewhere about it so we can get it noticed and change the number of votes. I don't think it was properly announced last time. Maybe with Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and PGD all behind it we can get the votes up to make it happen.

I mean with some of the sites that are on DelphiFeeds.com I wonder why on earth we are not on it?? ???

Let's face it while Delphi About does contain a great deal of knoledge it is poorly organized wich makes it hard to find exacly what you need.

Yeah Delphi About is a glorified blog, not a community by design. I do appreciate Mr. Žarko Gajić's efforts to talk about and discuss Delphi/Object Pascal related things, a lot of the information posted there is a little dated and misinforming these days. I'm not sure if there is much posted that is really new, is there? I don't follow it because there is nothing really that PGD can draw from as current or new information.

Eric

24-02-2012, 07:58 AM

However, if you have used Express editions of Visual Studio, you should know that you don't get 64-bit support as well as other platforms such as Windows Phone
That's incorrect, f.i. see http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/windows-phone-developer-tools

"Good" or "bad" institution is subjective and a trend of black and white thinking (yet another fallacy).
No, it's just a fact of life. If it was a fallacy, then there would be no competition to enter the best ones.

you can let other people professionally certified to help and guide you with the learning process
Well, I've met enough "professionally certified" personnel to take those with a truckload of salt, especially when they're from a pure academic background, and I've met quite few. ;-)

That doesn't mean I say you should throw baby with the bathwater, but that acquiring a degree and mastering a trade are not the same thing, learning in institutions can be highly beneficial, but students have to work beyond academic requirements for that, and search for themselves, yes, in the internet and in other sources, as well as put things in practice in non-academic situations (that last bit being key).

in fact, both are not mutually exclusive: you can learn at university and *still* read articles you want

You not only can, but should IMHO. If only to put the academic learning in perspective.

As for your "time argument", I don't believe there is such thing as "easy" or "quick "money. A person who worked hard and long, who invested time and effort into learning and becoming a professional will usually get higher salary and better jobs than a person who did not.

I guess we have a major incomprehension here, I'm not a student, and many PGD visitors aren't and won't be. They won't be going back to university full-time, and even part-time university can be quite problematic when you have a full-time job already and children.

If you don't educate yourself enough, you may fall prey easily to...
I guess you skipped the part on me saying I already have quite a high degree, and got it, hmmm, almost 15 years ago. So what I'm referring to is mostly what I get from new hires & interns.

Edit: Really, please check Delphi section in About.com, it has articles for beginners to start from zero. What else do you need?
Check the flipcode archives, that's rather the kind of articles I would be expecting on a site like PGD (pity flipcode went away btw).
http://www.flipcode.com/archives/

Eric

24-02-2012, 08:13 AM

So who here actually wants PGD on DelphiFeeds or thinks we should be on there?
I was surprised it wasn't, maybe when it was submitted there weren't enough things in the RSS? or they had some issue accessing the RSS?

I wasn't aware it was submitted and there was a vote, maybe submit it anew and have us notified so we can vote!

Also, you may want to expose it through feedburner: the RSS can be requested quite often as it's a polled protocol. Using feedburner will redirect the load onto google's servers rather than PGD's. At least for my site, before moving it to feedburner, at some point it was the #1 source of bandwidth consumption.

WILL

24-02-2012, 08:32 AM

Well lets not get too off-topic fellas. :)

Mind you we could open a new thread called "Eric and Yuriy debating about degrees and programming education that I'll never receive at this point in my life." ;) (I'm joking of course... not about the education part though... :()

Basically what I want PGD to provide for tutorials is something above what you'd be taught in high school for basic Computer Science which teaches you everything from good ole printf all the way up to the blisteringly daunting lessons of function() vs. procedure() and the like. We don't need to teach programming it's self, but I would like to teach how to program things that can be used to make fun and creative games. To do this from a basic level and go up to a novice and then an advanced game developer's level.

So far we have only novice and advanced. There is a disconnect from the beginners to the people that have been here a while and it shows when those beginners go away and don't return. So it's important to bridge that gap and get more beginner tutorials out there. A part of that problem is that some of the older more advanced guys forget how to think small and simple. Or that it's just plain boring for them and don't want to bother.

(WARNING: This is where I start to get ranty...)

The trick to this however is not to simply teach Delphi or Free Pascal or any specific APIs, but to actually teach game programming. I don't think there has been a single new "game programming" article on PGD in years. (That was a challenge tutorial writers, yes! :)) Programming ideology, project management, API/library specific features or how to setup ____ dev tool maybe, but not one single game programming tutorial about game programming.

In fact the last game programming tutorial I read beyond my own Artillery game tutorial (which I never did finish I hate to,but have to admit) was the one about creating a platform game by Alexander Rosendal (our very own Traveler), but that was done years ago and I don't think they are up anywhere anymore and definitely not updated to today's current libraries or dev tools.

We need tutorial writers that write about making games, not making software theory or talking about how to implement some wacky new software language concepts just added to Delphi. Not necessarily to make specific genres, but often just to explain a concept such as faked physics in games or using tile maps, object detection or path finding. These can be applied to ANY game genre and don't need silly advanced programming methods like generics, ducking or object model

...and they get a beginner INTERESTED in programming games not giving up on all the weird stuff we're talking about in the forums.

The advanced stuff is great, really, but not when we don't have anything for newcomers to grow off of to get to that level. I just don't want to entertain much advanced stuff anymore for a while. Not until we have some good solid tutorials that will bring in and KEEP those new Pascal programmers that want something out of PGD. We've failed them and we need to fix it.

Flipcode was pretty cool, but at least we still have NeHe!

Eric

24-02-2012, 08:52 AM

Flipcode was pretty cool, but at least we still have NeHe!
NeHe doesn't seem to be active in the way it was (tutorials, rendering techniques) and seem more about news these days.

What I really liked in flipcode was the mix between articles illustrating various techniques, from rendering to AI to physics to using some new API, coupled with the IOTD "Image Of The Day", which was a great way to see what people were doing or start discussions about this or that aspect. It also drew in people that were seeking "technical" exposure for their work, game or engine.

An IOTD might be too much given the (still limited) contributing crowd in PGD, but an IOTW (Image of The Week) or VOTW (Video of The Week) should be possible?

Relfos

24-02-2012, 10:19 AM

An IOTD might be too much given the (still limited) contributing crowd in PGD, but an IOTW (Image of The Week) or VOTW (Video of The Week) should be possible?
I think this would be cool :)
Also I can make some free time to write tutorial about game programming (I'm open to suggestions, because I really don't have a clue what is the best topic to start)

24-02-2012, 01:21 PM

That's incorrect, f.i. see http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/windows-phone-developer-tools
Seems like they provide Windows Phone SDK separately. I stand corrected.

Well, I've met enough "professionally certified" personnel to take those with a truckload of salt, especially when they're from a pure academic background, and I've met quite few. ;-)
Not everyone can teach and those who can teach may not necessarily be good professionals to work for industry. Teaching is not as easy as you may think and there are even professional degrees (e.g. Bachelor/Master/Doctor of Education), which are required in many cases to give classes to children, for instance. The same applies to scientific works as the scientific approach might be different than a purely mechanical work, which is very common when working in companies (ranging from software engineering to top management positions). Perhaps you can't understand it because you have not done any scientific work and/or teaching yourself, but I'm just guessing.

I guess you skipped the part on me saying I already have quite a high degree, and got it, hmmm, almost 15 years ago. So what I'm referring to is mostly what I get from new hires & interns.
No, I saw it but you are moving conversation to a personal level. What you have mentioned is an equivalent of baechelor/undergraduate degree (roughly 4/5-year university education), which is a minimal degree required by most institutions. You should note that you are not allowed to give classes with this degree, nor do any scientific work in "traditional" universities/research centers, which sort of proves my point above. If you wish to pursue this conversation further, I'd like to point out the classical Unskilled and unaware of it (http://www.damninteresting.com/unskilled-and-unaware-of-it/) article, which you should read first. Please note that I'm not trying to be disrespectful, I believe that degree itself is not everything: education, experience and even personality/attitude are very important factors as well.

(edit) By the way, for comparison, here in Mexico to be *paid* to do research, you need 12 years of university education (5 bachelor + 2 master + 5 doctorate) plus 2 years of professional practice (e.g. postdoctoral stay, which must be done at least in a different state where you have got doctoral degree). To be able to teach lower degrees, you need Master's degree and 1 year of practice. This is somewhat similar to U.S., Canada and EU.

Edit 2:

I guess we have a major incomprehension here, I'm not a student, and many PGD visitors aren't and won't be. They won't be going back to university full-time, and even part-time university can be quite problematic when you have a full-time job already and children.
You are wrong. As I've said before, in M.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees that I took most people had families with children and were working either full or part time. Actually, in my own case (similar to some of my classmates), I got paid to do research in my D.Sc. degree both by institution and by Mexican's council of sciences and technology and the payment was pretty good! In fact, the payment may be even higher than what you receive while working in a company! These degrees give you more labor opportunities and sometimes change your way of thinking, which you may not acquire in your entire life with experience only. This is why I recommend for everyone who want to push farther in their career and life to take one of more advanced degrees and it is never too late to do so.

Yes, it really depends on the institution and indeed some may excel in some things, while other institutions may excel in other stuff, but you can choose even on international scale and pick what you want.

P.S. Jason, sorry for this sort of hijacking, but after all it's a discussion about programming skills taught in institutions as opposed to teaching them here on PGD, so it's somewhat related to topic.

Eric

24-02-2012, 02:13 PM

You should note that you are not allowed to give classes with this degree, nor do any scientific work in "traditional" universities/research centers
Actually, I am. :-) Though I've checked "Bachelor", that's two years less than I have, and a university degree. In France we have a system of "Grandes Ecoles" which runs in parallel to universities degrees aren't directly comparable to university degrees (it's another french historical oddity).

Anyway that's besides the point.

To get back on topic, I agree with the suggestions you made earlier.

1) 64-bit development and performance (I've opened the thread about it: no interest).
2) DirectX: nobody cares here because OpenGL is the only way to go for Unix/Mac OS guys, who are the majority here.
3) Mac OS specifics: there was some discussion in Delphi XE 2 news thread with Czar and me, but that's all.
4) iOS specifics: how to use sensors, compass, magnetometer, etc. There are random threads on Embarcadero forums, but I would like to see this material *here*.
5) Databases, networking, multiplayer in Delphi.
6) Publishing of Delphi made iOS apps and publishing in general.
7) Performance optimizations in 64-bit inline assembly in Delphi.
8) Math materials (libraries, code snippets, etc.)

To me 2, 3 and 4 are specs/docs material subjects, 1 and 7 are about programming in general (choosing the appropriate algorithm, profiling), 5 and 8 is what academic material is about (except multi-player), 6 is what WILL already does.

So all in all, they mostly fall into teaching programming from a gaming POV, and that's IMHO a good angle for PGD. What I disagreed with was

Actually I think teaching programming by itself is not a very useful tactic here because newbies have many options to choose from: C# and XNA, C/C++, Perl, Python, Lua, Java and so on.

When someone needs to do something, he'll use the tool for which material specific to his needs is available.
If all the material assumes you're already a Pascal pro, then you certainly won't be attracting any Pascal newcomers.

24-02-2012, 02:26 PM

Actually, I am. :-) Though I've checked "Bachelor", that's two years less than I have, and a university degree. In France we have a system of "Grandes Ecoles" which runs in parallel to universities degrees aren't directly comparable to university degrees (it's another french historical oddity).
Yes, but in France you have also additional degrees such as "Professor", which require even more time to get. However, translating these degrees to other countries is difficult and you may still need to take additional degrees to be able to give courses. This was the case of my brother as Doctoral degree in Ukraine is higher than Ph.D. yet he still had to do 2 postdoctoral stays (4 years total) before being able to do the research.

When someone needs to do something, he'll use the tool for which material specific to his needs is available.
If all the material assumes you're already a Pascal pro, then you certainly won't be attracting any Pascal newcomers.
You are repeating the mocking fallacy. I've never said to assume on PGD that visitors are Pascal "pro"s as you have put it. I suggested to assume some basic knowledge and as you have quoted my first posts, I've actually suggested some educational material with some specifics that not everyone may be aware of.

For instance, I agree that FlipCode had some very interesting stuff and in fact I've implemented some of it in Asphyre. Specifically, I think it will be very cool to have a specialized section here on PGD, which deals with issues such as: 1) calculating square root using pure integer math, 2) search algorithms (this is a general category, path-finding is a special case), 3) fixed-point math (not everyone is yet aware of its usefulness), etc.

Edit: I think Multi-threading Tutorial on PGD by Athena is an interesting topic, but instead of long discussion I would put some rudimentary code to illustrate how threads can be created and used, instead of arguing why they are useful.

SilverWarior

24-02-2012, 02:50 PM

Yeah Delphi About is a glorified blog, not a community by design. I do appreciate Mr. Žarko Gajić's efforts to talk about and discuss Delphi/Object Pascal related things, a lot of the information posted there is a little dated and misinforming these days. I'm not sure if there is much posted that is really new, is there? I don't follow it because there is nothing really that PGD can draw from as current or new information.

Yes most of the articles on Delphi About are a bit outdatet. The reason for this is that most pepole who folows Delphi About still use Delphi 7 or even older versions. And even till recenty (about 2 years ago) Žarko was also still using Delphi 7 for programing. Žarko did publish some articles about the new fetures of newer versions of Delphi but unfortunatly there wasn't much interest in those from the comunity.

Anywhay I contacted Žarko yesterday asking hiim if he might be kind enough to advertize our site a litle (write and article about us) so that we might get some of the members from his comunity wich are interested in game development to join us. Till now I still haven't got any reply back from him.

Eric

24-02-2012, 05:11 PM

> 1) calculating square root using pure integer math

Also introducing approaches where sqrt becomes unnecessary, the fastest sqrt is the one you don't do!

> 2) search algorithms (this is a general category, path-finding is a special case)

That is a good subject indeed, mostly when dealing with pathfinding in something else than a grid.

> 3) fixed-point math (not everyone is yet aware of its usefulness), etc.

More of a micro-optimization issue, was relevant in the days of software graphics, though still occasionally useful in shaders.

On the same subject, articles on usage of floating point in situations where finite or exact precision is required would be quite relevant these days.

On AI aspects, there are two subjects I rarely see mentioned, but often (mis)used, usually by people who don't know they're using them:
- PID controllers, and the way to "fuzzy" them to make them look like natural behavior
- introduction of delays and phase tricks in algorithms to simulate natural behavior
- decision and action trees, or how to get interesting behavior in complex simulated words where direct approaches are not practical
which could make good articles I guess (the theory behind them is light, they're more about applying simple concepts from a different perspective)

WILL

26-02-2012, 02:21 AM

I have just posted a new suggestion about adding PGD's News & CMS to DelphiFeeds.com. Vote on it here http://delphifeeds.uservoice.com/forums/14264-feedback/suggestions/2628340-add-pascal-game-development-news-cms-feed (You'll have to create an account.)

WILL

26-02-2012, 02:41 AM

IOTW is a cool idea, but I can see if falling apart if each week we don't have a new image to post. The other issue is the software. I can think of a way to add it to the front page and have a sub-site that uses the PGD database to add new images so that it's fairly seamless. I'll think on this more and if I think it stands a chance of success I'll put it up to a vote. Get enough interest and I'll consider putting one up. :)

Right now however I want to focus on beginners tutorials. Who is interested in writing? I'll give assignments to each person that contacts me at contact@pascalgamer.com. :)

Eric

27-02-2012, 09:45 AM

IOTW is a cool idea, but I can see if falling apart if each week we don't have a new image to post.

Yeah, there would need to have a handful of images always in the pipe to handle the downtimes.

SilverWarior

27-02-2012, 03:31 PM

It doesn't have to be Image of the Week. It could be just a random image from random project. This will help promote users projects a lot. And it would be best if clicking on image would take wiever to site with short description of the project or even better to projects website if it has one.

WILL

27-02-2012, 11:54 PM

Hmm yeah we could just make it something like a Screenshot Showcase instead. Adding a box to the front page showing the "Current Screenshot Showcase" would be easy and I can custom-make the script to upload the images, etc...

Submissions could use a form and accept a screenshot, caption, project url/homepage. I could then tie it into the PGD site it's self, but have it separate, much like the AJAX Chat system works. Only it would enforce loggin in. :)

It doesn't have to be Image of the Week. It could be just a random image from random project. This will help promote users projects a lot. And it would be best if clicking on image would take wiever to site with short description of the project or even better to projects website if it has one.

Eric

28-02-2012, 08:30 AM

Hmm yeah we could just make it something like a Screenshot Showcase instead.

That could be used as a fallback, but IME screenshot showcases don't draw the same kind of interest/discussions, because they're not "news", but more like a rotating banner/add/random pic.

WILL

28-02-2012, 01:13 PM

Well it wouldn't be random the way I was thinking of it. We could have a minimum amount of time it gets to stay up there then when the next person (in a queue) submits their screenshot it becomes the profiled screenshot with caption and description kind of like IOTW/D, etc but without the pretense that it's a specific amount of time. IF there are no more submissions for a while the last one sticks around (including the time period its given to stay up there) until someone submits a new one.

Ñuño Martínez

23-10-2012, 09:47 AM

Not sure if it's the best place to put this, but in the last months I've added the GDR: Game Developer's Refuge (http://gamedevelopersrefuge.org/) site on my RSS to follow the development of the Moai tool (http://gamedevelopersrefuge.org//viewtopic.php?t=1137), and it looks a nice place. I'm tempted to join-in myself.

Ingemar

19-11-2012, 06:31 PM

As a Game Developer, here are some topics that I would like to see here:

1) 64-bit development and performance (I've opened the thread about it: no interest).
2) DirectX: nobody cares here because OpenGL is the only way to go for Unix/Mac OS guys, who are the majority here.
3) Mac OS specifics: there was some discussion in Delphi XE 2 news thread with Czar and me, but that's all.
4) iOS specifics: how to use sensors, compass, magnetometer, etc. There are random threads on Embarcadero forums, but I would like to see this material *here*.
5) Databases, networking, multiplayer in Delphi.
6) Publishing of Delphi made iOS apps and publishing in general.
7) Performance optimizations in 64-bit inline assembly in Delphi.
8 ) Math materials (libraries, code snippets, etc.) For example, nobody here mentioned the issue of Extended support lacking in 64-bit platform: seems like an interesting discussion to do and there is an alternative posted somewhere on Embarcadero. Why not mirroring it here?

I find the forum quite valuable, although there obvioulsy isn't all that many people using it regularly. My own visits are in periods. I post about issues that I find important, and sometimes I get some replies. Unfortunately, the really interesting topics don't tend to get long and deep discussions.

1) I find this very interesting but I havn't taken the time to figure out exactly how to work with 64-bit code. I suppose it is just a compilation switch and making sure that records have proper sizes. From there, as you say, performance questions. But I missed your thread about it.
2) Couldn't care less. If I do MSW programming I use OpenGL anyway.
3) My main target, but uncommon on this forum. Sadly, FPC game developers on the Mac are few.
4) I have worked quite a bit on iOS code, including iOS support in my IDE project, but this too doesn't seem to be what this forum is really about.
5) Database support might be fun, if I had any important application for them.
6) Publishing is indeed important, as if I had the time to finish a game to sellable state...
7) Delphi only? No thanks.
8) Math tools are really important.

A little bit of these issues can be addressed with forum organization. I don't think there are any Mac or iOS sections, but there are so many odd sections that it is hard to navigate.