QB Express #16 Now Available

[Pete]

The November Issue of QB Express is now available!

It seems like just a few weeks ago that the last issue of QB Express came out...because it was. It's been only about three weeks since Issue #15. But despite the shorter timeline, we've still managed to scrape together another awesome issue.

This issue, we've got a Gallery preview of Lithium's new FPS "The Janitor," both Bobby The QBasic Maniac and QB Horse Humor comics, and more news briefs than you can shake a stick at. Lachie Dazdarian reviews Bozula Block Buster, MystikShadows looks at Tera-Mamoliny, Agamemnus tells us about Programming Language Syntax Tenets, Simon Bradley describes porting the Official Hamster Republic RPG Creation Engine, and Lachie Dazdarian provides us with a great article called "Writing A Story For A Computer Game."

For tutorials this month, MystikShadows continues his GUI Design series with parts 3 and 4, Rick Clark tells us about "Managing Complexity" and explains those data structures called Unions, and Imortis Inglorian instructs us on how to create a simple QB/FB text parser.

Check it out now: QB Express #16.

[Josiah Tobin]

Great issue! I like the preview of Janitor, that looks like one cool game.

[marzecTM]

very kwel, i always annoy ppl by asking when the next qbe comes out frequently 1 week after the last came out hee. thanks for mentioning the gfxlib "port" which is really just a rip off. to my defense i have to say that i added freetype support, wrote a network library and am in the process of adding the final module ( sound ) to the lib, it's gonna be my personal sdl replacement :p. so i actually do some of the work myself though most credit goes out to lillo.

keep up the great work and don't forget to remind your writer slaves who's their master

[Z!re]

I'm leet, cause mennonite says so!


I wonder why though.. NO! No wondering!


*shines with leetness!*

N00bs!11

[Agamemnus]

A few words of constructive (in my opinion) criticism, if I may.


Hmm, ok, I read the part on unions by Richard Clark. I was able to get a better understanding of what he was talking about here:

http://www.freebasic.net/wiki/wikka.php?...KeyPgUnion

I would just like to say that a rambling such as this on unions can be made much more understandable in two ways.

1) Post a link to the keyword in the freebasic keyword site.
2) Explain clearly why your way is better than some other way X. Richard Clark's explanation is that you would not need routines for separate data types, but that is completely wrong. Unions are several steps ahead of that, and it's two dimensional:

Dimension 1: Routines for each data item, or for one data item.
Dimension 2: Separate variables, types, arrays, or types+unions.


I would approach this from a QB to FB perspective.

Without unions, I would approach this by:
*creating arrays for the general data item
*creating separate arrays for the particular data items (i.e. armor)
*In the general data item array/type array, I would have two indexes for the inventory items, one for the type of the particular data item, and one for the location in its array.

The disadvantage of this is that you must define the maximum lengths of your specific data beforehand while the union approach dynamically creates the types that you need for each inventory item. Obviously the complexity of the program is increased with the array approach, but not in the way that Richard Clark describes.

[Deleter]

very nice issue there, as usual

[Torahteen]

Another awesome issue. I would write an article/tutorial, but I'm out of ideas right now, and I have lots of school work. Anyway, I can't wait 'till the next issue.

[na_th_an]

Awesome issue, as always.

But you forgot again to mention what I told you about my tutes

[Pete]

But you forgot again to mention what I told you about my tutes

Whoops, sorry! Completely forgot.

[na_th_an]

No probs. After all, everyone knows that I'm probably the busiest man in the QMunity.

You all will have my tutes, but in a near future. I have to uh... tidy my life a bit.