Making my own software (a newbie)

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AronE.
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Making my own software (a newbie)

Post by AronE. »

Probably you are tired of people like me, but I want to ask a question. How to make my own software with a functionality made by me?

Yesterday, I was happy.. sort of ...that i made a browser in java, but the most important part about the program (talking about the web engine) was already made for me. I had only to import it and use it (i believe thats called an API). Of course, i implemented controls to the "browser" and made them work, but its still disappointing that the engine is prebuild.

My question is - how to make this kind of functionality? I want to make my own software, like the ES dev team made their game engine from scratch, i dont want just to import stuff and *BOOM* make it work... Is that the reason we have scripting languages?
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dandymcgee
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Re: Making my own software (a newbie)

Post by dandymcgee »

Well, that is exactly the problem we are all trying to solve in software development.

What you've described in Java is indeed the same process you would use to make the engine itself. In fact, it is very likely that the engine you imported and used was itself written in Java. It sounds like you may have used some sort of visual form or window-driven development. I'm guessing you're looking for something more fulfilling, more powerful, probably a bit lower-level. Yes?

Well, the ES game engine is written in C++, on the foundations provided by libGyro which is primarily C. However, the only requirement for a programming language is that it meets your needs and can be compiled for your intended platform. If you're targeting PCs, you can pick pretty much any language in existence, including Java.

As for specifics of a web browser engine, it's actually quite likely that whatever browser engine you embedded in your program is open source. In addition, I know for a fact the WebKit layout engine that Google Chrome uses is open source, as well as Firefox's Gecko.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecko_(software)

Obviously these engines are extraordinarily complex. They are half of what's powering the modern internet experience (the other half being the web server software: Apache, nginx, IIS, etc.) The entire source code is right there, available for anyone to read, hack and play with.

Starting with something as complex as WebKit or Gecko is likely going to be overwhelming or confusing if you're relatively new to programming. If you really want to dig into the internals I recommend finding a decent tutorial or tech talk on the subject and working from there. Perhaps this one:
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/ ... wserswork/

As always, Google is your friend. If at any point you come across things you don't understand, do a Google search. Most of the time you'll find an adequate answer there. If you still can't figure something out, you're always welcome to come post on the forums and we'll do our best to show you the way. ;)
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AronE.
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Re: Making my own software (a newbie)

Post by AronE. »

Well pretty much I want to use my logic, instead most of the part i write in JavaFX(GUI), which is annoying, but its necessary and has to be done
I dont want specifically to write my own webengine i just wanted to know how hard it is actually to make my own.
I would appreciate it if you can recommend something else, probably exercises or give me ideas to make softwares where i can actually find a use for : while, do while, for loops etc. Because i NEVER use them, i use just bunch of if statements to make things work.

Sorry if i cant explain properly, its 7:50 am and i havent slept all night because today we have to meet at school, tomorrow is the first school day of the school year.
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dandymcgee
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Re: Making my own software (a newbie)

Post by dandymcgee »

AronE. wrote: I would appreciate it if you can recommend something else, probably exercises or give me ideas to make softwares where i can actually find a use for : while, do while, for loops etc. Because i NEVER use them, i use just bunch of if statements to make things work.
Nobody can tell you what you want to make. You have to decide that for yourself. That said, here's some random ideas off the top of my head:

Tic-tac-toe
Text adventure
Shoot 'em up
Tetris
Random geometry generator (like audio visualizations, particles, etc.)
Physics sandbox (bouncy walls, friction, angular momentum, etc.)

I have no idea what you're interested in, so you haven't given us much to work with. Do you like math? physics? ASCII? 2d graphics? 3d graphics? games? simulations? networking? reverse engineering?
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Re: Making my own software (a newbie)

Post by AaronGlazer »

AronE. wrote:I would appreciate it if you can recommend something else, probably exercises or give me ideas to make softwares where i can actually find a use for : while, do while, for loops etc. Because i NEVER use them, i use just bunch of if statements to make things work.
Have you ever seen /r/dailyprogrammer on reddit? I haven't used it, but it's pretty popular for learning (or, really, practicing) programming beyond simple syntax. What they do is post programming challenges (labeled Easy, Intermediate, or Hard) for programmers to complete.
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Re: Making my own software (a newbie)

Post by AronE. »

Okay so I checked out this daily programmer, and it really scares me... I looked for easy challenges and got blown away... It's confusing AF... The first challenge I looked at : letters in alphabetical order and had to make a program about this... I have letters, the program tells me which are in order, which are not and which are reversed.. And I had zero clue what to do... I looked at some guy's code who made it in Java and I'm still confused... Makes no sense to me...

I hate myself for liking this... I like programming and want to be good at it, but obviously my logic is shit... I feel like giving up, but don't want to in the same time...
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dandymcgee
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Re: Making my own software (a newbie)

Post by dandymcgee »

AronE. wrote:Okay so I checked out this daily programmer, and it really scares me... I looked for easy challenges and got blown away... It's confusing AF... The first challenge I looked at : letters in alphabetical order and had to make a program about this... I have letters, the program tells me which are in order, which are not and which are reversed.. And I had zero clue what to do... I looked at some guy's code who made it in Java and I'm still confused... Makes no sense to me...

I hate myself for liking this... I like programming and want to be good at it, but obviously my logic is shit... I feel like giving up, but don't want to in the same time...
I wouldn't recommend programmer challenges as a starting place. They are almost always intentionally convoluted, hence challenge.

That would be like choosing this as your first jigsaw puzzle:
Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)
Image
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Re: Making my own software (a newbie)

Post by AronE. »

dandymcgee wrote:
AronE. wrote:Okay so I checked out this daily programmer, and it really scares me... I looked for easy challenges and got blown away... It's confusing AF... The first challenge I looked at : letters in alphabetical order and had to make a program about this... I have letters, the program tells me which are in order, which are not and which are reversed.. And I had zero clue what to do... I looked at some guy's code who made it in Java and I'm still confused... Makes no sense to me...

I hate myself for liking this... I like programming and want to be good at it, but obviously my logic is shit... I feel like giving up, but don't want to in the same time...
I wouldn't recommend programmer challenges as a starting place. They are almost always intentionally convoluted, hence challenge.

That would be like choosing this as your first jigsaw puzzle:
Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)
Image
Very funny... =,=
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