Dig Gil wrote:
How did you learned programming? Through a course?
Me?
I started with writing a shell out of DOS batch files, then around my 14th birthday somehow got my hands on a pascal compiler
with a lot of examples, and started on working it out from here, hardly read any computer-related book other than references
until recently.
Yet, only after i got thru four years of all-sides programming education at Moscow State University's Computational
Mathematics and Cybernetics faculty, i realized just how awfully computer science and programming education is done almost
anywhere you find it.
The "for dummies" book itself is rather good when it comes to teaching to code in C++, but it does not teach to program as it
claims, only to code C++.
Third edition was more frank on the point, recommending that the reader have some programming background, fourth edition
explicitly states, that no programming background is needed, fifth edition degenerates completely, stating that it will teach
you to program from ground up.
And all three only teach to code in C++, almost nothing beyond that.
And here comes the second substance in the bomb - the people attitude to it. Many think that if they learned to code in C++,
or believe what the book said, thought they learned to program, and go on, making that 70% of software of restroom quality.
That attitude that if you read a book on C++ coding and attended a course on advanced C++ coding, then you become a qualified
programmer by definition is the worst part of the mix.
Cutting the off-topic rant, the idea as Dig Gil stated it seems quite interesting.
As i understand, one make the mesh in whatever mesh making program he likes, then fire up the Orbiter Shipyard program, that
allows him to define vessel interactions in graphical drag&drop way, kind of like putting docking port locations by clicking
the mouse where the port is.
Define animations, define ports and gears, define VC surfaces and panel structures, define UMMU ports and parameters, engine locations and exhausts, etc, maybe even an option to add integrated systems simulation, all in a nice visual environment.
Then, the output from the program will be a vessel dll that makes it all work in Orbiter, no ini's or cfg's like spacecraft3,
and no coding involved.
Sounds like a grand idea, allowing all the graphic artists that make great meshes but can't code a calculator to make add-ons
with interactivity as good as the ones made by programmers who can't make a mesh of a cube.
Post Edited ( 10-01-08 14:40 )