You heard me. $114 for the book if we want it over here in the states. I find that un-acceptable. This is crap like this that makes me want to completely drop any products that I have from this group and go elsewhere.
TGC and the publisher need to find a better way to handle this.
SoulMan

First of all, where do you see $114? I see $68

And how is the pricing different for the U.S.?

And if you don't want to buy it, you don't have too. It's not necessary for understanding the language, although if you've never programmed before it would probably help a lot.

-Xol

First of all, where do you see $114? I see $68

Well um there's shipping which is $40 so $108 plus taxes so it all adds up more or less. I bought the first volume and i thought it would be $68 too but then i found out about the shipping charges. I say this really is a problem but i still like TGC. I was wondering if TGC could provide the books in pdf then there would be no shipping but i'm not too sure how that would go.

I didn't realize that the forty dollars could possibly be for shipping . Perhaps TGC could put the books on Amazon.com or even Amazon.co.uk (their shipping costs are generally a few dollars to the U.S.).

But I doubt that this thread will impact them much either way. E-mailing TGC directly would probably provide a faster approach.

And before you ditch all of TGC's products, remember that they have tried very hard to make their products available by download for those of us who live in the U.S. DBpro itself is offered as a download now.

-Xol

The only thing that TGC have to do with that book is that they offer it for sale from this site.

Publisher: Digital Skills
Author: Alistair Stewart

They didn't write it. They didn't publish it. That means that the only thing they can do to make the book cheaper for you to buy is to lower their profit margin. As they've managed to reduce the price to the same as Amazon sell it at, and bearing in mind that Amazon are large buyers with big discounts, I think they've done pretty well for you.

I think you need to moan at the distributors, not TGC or the author. It is they that determine which markets the book reaches.

I know they are avalible in Pdf one way or another im sure they would be willing to work with you on it if you just send them a query claiming you don't have that kind of money and see what options they can offer other than that try some of the free tutorials arround they are good to spend some more time looking for those rather than having a go because you cant afford that book

If you can afford it then buy it, if not then get over it. It's not TGC's fault at all.

The books are nice but not necessary. There are plenty of other ways to learn Dark Basic.

Ok, then name the ways I can learn Dark Basic without the books.
A thin reference manual and poorly written tutorials?
SoulMan

I did. It's not that hard.

You can find the best tutorials on this forum

You've been a member of this forum for 5 years! you should know that by now.

If you really want to learn then start with the stickied thread in Newcomers Corner, it would take months to get through that material. If you don't want to learn, don't blame the community or TGC. You can find information on virtually anything right here in the forums and the links it provides.

weak effort if your 5 years down the track.

Books are heavey, shipping is expensive, and there is import duty, try your local Amazon you might find it cheaper from a local printer.

If it's any concilation a $50 book from the US (where most computing books come from anyway) costs UK buyers £50 istead of £25 at the current exchange rate!

You can learn DBP using the examples in the forums and help files. That's how most of us do it.

Ok, then name the ways I can learn Dark Basic without the books.

Well, programming theory and practice I learned at school and college (along with BASIC, Delphi and Cobol). I learned DarkBasic and DarkBasic Pro by looking at the supplied tutorials, examples and help files and by looking at code snippets and other freely available source code. I have released several free DB/DBP software titles available for download from several games sites across the Internet and been offered a publishing deal to turn one of them into a commercial title.

I have the printed manual but have hardly looked at it to be honest and don't own any of the 3rd party Dark Basic books.

Edit: Can you get your local library to order the book for you if you really want to read it?

@Zappo, that idea abou the library is quite smart, actually.

I would recommend getting "DARKBASIC PRO GAME PROGRAMMING SECOND EDDITION". I got it and it was very helpfull and is a good price. Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/DarkBASIC-Pro-Game-Programming-Second/dp/1598632876/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-0402203-0674431?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180895938&sr=8-1

I find it quite interesting how we've all responded to this post. This is a problem for newcomers, and it would help if we were all more open about the process. Its confusing, remember?

I taught myself to program, as well. On a TS-2068, the most undersupported computer of my time, I think. I have spent thousands of dollars on books, most of which were not helpful. I learned by coding things I already knew how to do, like hex conversion, factorials, etc. I didn't make any games at first, I drew alot of circles, and pixels. I made BlackJack as my very first program...it was HARD!

Those books are ridiculously priced, I don't care whose fault it is, that price is ludicrous. The sample chapters look stellar! The price is usury; I am sure Mr. Stewart sees little of it. Kudos to TGC for helping, but their manual is a (outdated)joke, and the help in DBPro is similarly "not so good." The point of those is not to teach programming, however. I'm okay with that...DBPro is a programmer's language; great - I've no truck with that.

Yes, there are many tuts here, but...they vary in applicability and even worse, there is versionitis on DBPro now.

SoulMan, I think that a good community project would be an e-book that tied DBPro to game programming. Here is my DBPro help, I am modifying it to include using Windows functions.



Tell you what I do, I wait until the $50 books are in the clearance bin. Then, I buy them for $5. They are yesterday's news, but...the bleeding edge is expensive, and it is based on the $5 book, anyway.

Most people here ignore Windows in this, and you can probably do that, but...it will be more of a struggle that way, and you will not get as far as you can working with Windows.

Finally, I 've put my e-mail and dreaded IM stuff on here, I've got docs out the wazoo, and probably already did alot of what you need to do. It makes little difference how long you've been here, that's not cricket to go there, for shame.

Jinzai,
Thank you very kindly to responding to all these negative posts. Apparently they don't get what the issue at hand is unlike us.
I purchased Dark Basic Pro with the goal of creating a game. While that hasn't come just yet, it will in due course.
If this is the way the community really wants to react, I really don't want to be part of it or have anything to do with TGC or the products that they sell.
SoulMan

If this is the way the community really wants to react, I really don't want to be part of it or have anything to do with TGC or the products that they sell.

If you want to give up that easily, then go ahead. We can't wave a magic wand and make the book cheaper for you - that's the reason why people are suggesting other ways of learning!

Many of us here like me learned to program long before such luxuries as internet forums with code snippets, and people to ask when we got stuck - we were on our own .... and we were about 8! What we did have, though, was determination and perseverence - we wouldn't have got anywhere if we threw the towel in as easily as you seem to be. Just so you know, this community is without doubt the best place to get help with learning the language. Together we are 100 times better than any book can ever be. That's if you're nice.