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Planning Ahead Blog
17th October 2017
I give up.
Over the past 30-odd hours, I've tried a boatload of languages, and although all seem capable in their own particular ways, none of them seem to do everything that I need them to do.

I'm still annoyed that GLBasic doesn't do sound-pitching.
Seriously, WTF?!
An Amiga 1000 could do that in 1985.

-=-=-

Windows, HTML5, iOS, Android TV.
Those are the important ones.

In my mind, iOS typically uses Obj-C or Swift, whilst Android uses Java. But looking into it, it seems that both of them can apparently use C++.
I'm not sure what features I'd miss out on, if I did that. I can imagine iOS will be severely limited if I do just use C++, as Apple continue to add more and more features to the Swift language.

But the idea of writing my games with a language that is near-enough universal, will be interesting, and should hopefully open up a few more options in the future.

Start


Yesterday, then, I started experimenting and retraining myself in the ways of C++.
I started with the very basics, figuring out classes and includes and things like that.

It's amazing what years of using Mark Sibly's languages can do to your C++ skills. There's so much stuff I've forgotten.
Took about 2 hours just to get a simple function callable from one .cpp file to another!
But I'm learning, and I'm relearning this stuff fast!

..I'm going to have to deal with Strings, aren't I?! *shudder*

Targets


My aim, should I actually bother to continue with this, is to write a brand new 2018 Framework, using nothing more than basic C++.

Build up a similar set of commands for Win/HTML/iOS/Android targets. Things like DrawLine, DrawRect, DrawImage, etc.
Essentially creating my own mini-Monkey, so to speak.

I'll then need to create a compiler app of sorts, to take the chosen Main.cpp, couple it with the correct target .cpp, and create the correct compile-able set of files for the requested system.

It's a long road ahead, but I'm hoping that, by doing it all myself, I can start to add in features that I've not really had a chance to play with, previously.

Having a bloomin' Icon on Windows games, would be a start!

There's an awful lot of things to think about, and it's going to be a long hard slog to get it all working.

If I do continue, I'll be sure to chart my progress here, and keep you up to date on what does and doesn't work.

Hopefully it ends up being worth it.

.. Of course, I could always just give up and carry on using Monkey-X, and I'm not going to rule that out.
But it'll be interesting to see how far I get with this "project"..

Wish me luck!
I'm going to need it!!
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