[SDL] New to SDL/programming

[Jason Farmer]

I really enjoyed the book (Programming Linux Games), I got it as soon as it 
came out, I've heard people say that you'll soon out grow it, but I beg to 
differ, it's SDL section is great for quick reference.

Although the name probably turned away a lot of sales from possible Win32 SDL 
customers as a lot of the code inside would be relevant to Win32 coders too, 
in fact there's even a Win32 version of TCL I believe.

Any chance of an advanced SDL book soon John? ;-)

But for newbies, I'd say, have a play with SDL. It's very forgiving and 
simple. You can get something very simple up and running very quickly.

Yes, Avoid Prima's, Linux Game Programming, I bought it a while ago. I read 
through it, it taught me a little but it wasn't worth the price, I never got 
to using the CD. You reckon it's coaster fodder? You're probably right.

I tell you what would be nice, a book written by an estabished Games 
Development house on how to write games properly. 'cos there arn't all that 
many around. So people tend to re-invent the wheel everytime and find their 
own way. Which to some people is all well and good as new techniques are 
invented, but just look how many books there are about database programming. 
And Database programming is SOoo much simpler. I think there's a market being 
missed there.

Jason


>
> I've got both.  PLG is good.  LGP is not.  Prima made a mess out of the
> book.  A different publisher may have done it better, but I warn you now
> that the included CD is even more useless than an AOL CD - at least those
> look cool sitting on your case all melted.  ;)
>
> I am sorry to say that John didn't put a CD in his book, but if you found
> this mailing list you should also be able to find the source code for his
> book at its No Starch page..

On Monday 18 March 2002 12:19 am, you wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 18, 2002 at 12:09:34AM +0000, Jason Farmer wrote:
> > I second that.. or is it I second the agreement.. erm..
> >
> > Programming Linux games by John R Hall (ISBN:1886411492) is the way to
> > go, you'll get a good insight into SDL and TCL scripting among many other
> > things. There's also the book Linux Game development, but I didn't think
> > it was as good as Programming Linux Games, but it does touch on SDL and
> > OpenGL for that matter.