I think you just nailed it Ric, I agree

I taught myself and then learned from asking questions on the forums when I joined it. I'm sure that's how many of us learned, so it's not impossible. Follow the tutorials, ask questions, study code.

Soulman,

The cost of $114 is outrageous for a book, I agree. I'm not sure why the shipping is so high, but I'm also not sure how much TGC can actually do about it.

I also found it on Amazon.co.uk by searching:
Hands On DarkBASIC Pro Volume 1 : A Self-Study Guide to Games Programming (Paperback)
I'm in the U.S. and I've had Amazon.co.uk deliver here before - the shipping usually is a decent rate. I hope that helps.

-Xol

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.

All because you can't get a single book at the price you want? That seems a bit extreme. I think we have explained that you don't need to buy books to learn DBPro, and by buying that book you won't automatically be able to write great games. I doubt there is anything in there which isn't covered by something on this site.

If you are serious about learning to program then the best advice I can give would be to take a course. Any course which teaches you good programming theory, structure and perhaps even game design nowadays would be very helpful - no matter what language they teach. Once you learn the principals its relatively easy to transfer that knowledge to whatever language you choose. As an example, after I learnt BASIC, Pascal and COBOL it didn't take long for me to teach myself Delphi and a small amount of C. Like Jinzai, that was before the Internet could help me. After that I learned the majority of the syntax for PicBASIC, JavaScript, PHP, ASP and DarkBasic Pro purely from online resources. I am not bragging, just trying to show that once you have the fundamentals its just a matter of learning each languages structure, syntax and quirks. I hope this explains things better.

poorly written tutorials?

I take comments like that to heart - possibly having written more tutorials for DB than practically anyone else on here.

It's also why I'm such a pain in the ass to anyone else who writes 'tutorials' if they aren't quite up to scratch. A couple of bad ones and we all get tarred with the same brush...

I don't claim that the ones I write are 100% perfect, but I rely on comments in the threads to tell me if I've not gone into enough depth or not explained anything clearly enough - and then alter them accordingly.

Luckily I've not had to so far...

So, I ask you to check them out and let me know what parts of them are poorly written:

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=99497&b=10

Yes, they were originally written for DB Classic, but tutorials by nature are for beginners and at that level of programming DBC and DBPro's commands are essentially identical.

In summary, yes there are some not so good tutorials out there. On the other hand, there are plenty of good ones too, if you look for them - many by better programmers than me.

And - even if I do say so myself - collectively they are better than any book. For a start, when there's an error in a program listing in a book and your program won't run, can you ask the author for help - like you can on here?

TDK_Man

TDK, you are one of the exceptions in that you wrote your tutorials well. A lot of the other tutorials are un-organized or they are no longer there because the link is bad or the author removed them.

For my programming skills, I've already taken courses on C/C++, Java, Basic/Visual Basic. At my job I've written small programs to take a flat text record file and convert it from one layout to another layout. Sure my programs could be written better, but that's not what I am paid to do, or at least yet. I'll be learning a new scripting language in about a month or so for my job.

It's not learning programming that I am after, it's learning how to use Dark Basic Pro's functions and how to meaningly construct a game from those. That's what I am after. As for the price of the books, GET THIS STRAIGHT. $60 books are not a problem, it's when I have to pay $120 to get a $60 book.
ARE WE CLEAR?
SoulMan

I think that there is maybe ten percent difference between the "meanest" post and the nicest one here. What a difference though.

SoulMan, the book situation won't change because that is the nature of capitalism in the modern world. I wasn't kidding about the books; they look great. That is a shame. I share your pain; I'd have bought them, but...I don't really need them, and I would rather not support that. Come up with something better if you want my money, that's all I'm saying.

What Ric said is quite true, except I was more than 8...just makes me older now, that's all. I would add that DBPro is clearly written by the same type of people that are answering this thread. That is part of the irony, and why I am trying simply to say...I am not the best, but I have developed a method that works for me. So have others, which is very apparent in Code Snippets, 20-line challenge, WIP, really all over here. That seems to be an issue, impatience to get started, coupled with alot of code in wildly different areas of the process. I write tools all day; not shaders and all that, I need the code first. I have alot of utilities to add to my games, however...and I still experiment with things I see here all the time. You need to get a few bits of utility code written, I think.

That, to me is part of the challenge to TGC. They chose BASIC for a reason. I assume that it had more to do with making a language that was quick to learn, easy to use, and extensible. The trouble is that the underlying DirectX and the intended application are quite complex still, there has been no reduction in the work involved, DBPro is more glue than anything else - that is its strong point, imo. The book "3D Game Programming All-In-One" is not a bad place to start, just - it uses Torque, not DBPro. That is what this community lacks, and is what you are also complaining about, aside from the cost of the book. Am I reading correctly? If so, then I would again point out that this is an excellent opportunity for the community to get that started. I think it is more important to TGC, and DBPro than it might seem at first. Torque and Blender have much better user generated docs than DBPro, and DBPro is much easier to use, and with better results - that's almost criminal!

For my part, I would be willing to continue adding html files to the help for using Windows functions, dlls, writing plug-ins, really whatever. The thing about this knowledge is that it is not something we own, its something we should be willing to share. I want to say that the posters in your thread have a solid history of being hugely helpful in this regard, their only flaw is that they haven't written a book about it, they are just trying to get their code up and running, as well.

P.S. TDK also got plagarized, too! Ouch! (@TDK - I want to make the sounds for your Morse code snippet, just need a few hours and maybe Green Gandalf's help with new DBPro memblock issue.)

I first learned to code on the TI-83+ graphing calculator (12yrs old) with nothing but a list of commands that came with less documentation then even the DBpro help files. It's not impossible, and even "poorly written tutorials" contain useful knowledge. even if the tutorial is in german. looking at how the commands are used, commenting out lines to see their effects disappear, and so on. I agree the price is crazy, but that is the cost of living on the other side of the world.

knowledge is that it is not something we own, its something we should be willing to share

Preach on brother Jinzai!

and TDK, dont take one persons opinion too seriously, your tutorials are great. good enough for someone to steal them, and that says as much about your work as it does about the thief.

@soulman,
Spend a little less time posting here about your problem with the total cost of the book, and spend a little more time on the publishers web site and you just might find an alternative to buying from TGC or amazon ...

As for the price of the books, GET THIS STRAIGHT. $60 books are not a problem, it's when I have to pay $120 to get a $60 book.
ARE WE CLEAR?

I have gotta say, your posts are quite aggressive. None of us here control the price of books in your country. Moaning 'at' us for how much a publisher or distributor charges is a little unfair. I agree that $120 is a lot of money to ask for a book, which is why we have suggested alternative ways of learning DBPro which have worked for us. Again, I will say that I didn't need that book to learn what functions are available in DBPro. The majority of the people using DBPro didn't need that book either. If you are serious about learning it then spend time reading through what tutorials and code examples there are and use you programming experience to decide what is good and what is garbage. Keep a folder full of useful snippets or start writing your own notes on what commands do and how to use them. I guess the key word is "Experiment". Thats part of the joy of learning a new language - finding stuff out by experimenting.

Yes, that's very true. He is angry about the price, and then he is further frustrated because he sees noone that respects how this affects him. Its not complicated, and it has nothing to do with borders...he's venting. Not at you, just, you know...near you.

The situation is wrong because Mr. Stewart's work is not getting into the hands of his intended audience. The distribution channels cannot be working to satisfaction if people come on here from all over to complain about the price. Ignoring that is not a wise business practice in my opinion, but that's just me.

No, TGC cannot help that any more than they have already. Other channels probably do discount it alot, but the shipping is quite high for us, and isn't VAT pretty pricey, as well, or have I been away too long?

I don't understand why it cannot be published electronically, I have the sample files for both of them. They look professional, and extremely useful.

It would benefit my development if I had them, I can admit that...I like printed docs, and often can be found at the center of huge documentation "forts", coding away like a banshee, its great. I really enjoy doing that, just like everyone else.

Now, that is clearly not going to happen, because all players have stated emphatically, we've done all we can do about it. I wonder what Mr. Stewart thinks of that? Hmmm. Sorry, Alistair...I'd rather send you the 5 quid myself, and forego the actual books because that supports the lilies of the field, not the two persons in the transaction that are supposed to benefit. Oh, btw, nice sample chapters, I was quite impressed by them.

So, where does that leave SoulMan, and the rest of us? Here, which again is fabulous, but...daunting and somewhat erratic. Its organized, but that organization is not always apparent to someone that is just starting out, or someone that has been doing this for 20 years, either. Its onerous at times. Experience makes this less so, but at first it is very frustrating.

I'd like to think that this thread was started because SoulMan wants to fix his problem, at least. It would be nice if we could do that for him and everyone else, too.

People that moan about wanting things given to them their way disgust me.

Its a book, it took a lot of work to do, and its up to them what to charge. You have no say whatsoever in the pricing. This isnt even something important, there are already dozens of tutorials out there that anyone with a little common sense and computer savvy can figure out.

If you dont want to be a part of the community, feel free to go. If you cant see what a valuable learning resource these forums are then you need something a little more than a book to help you.


Id also like to point out that the book is available electronically, because I have the set in my tgc orders page ready for download.

So you are disgusted? Okay, but when I go to the page for ordering it, this is what I encounter:
Part 2 of a 2 volume set that will teach you all there is to know about DarkBASIC Professional and good solid code structure.
Over 720 pages. Example code media available online.

$ Dollar € Euros £ Sterling Click to Buy
Price: $67.99 €53.99 £36.50

This item is a book and is delivered in the mail. We use a tracked postal service for this item, and a signature will be required upon delivery.

So, if it is electronically published, good...problem solved, but then it would not cost a c-note either, would it?

The point is that it is important to SoulMan, that is not for you or me or anyone else other than SoulMan to decide. That is what disgusts me, Ruccus...assuming you have the right to decide what is and is not important to another.

So what do you suggest then Jinzai? Should we:
a) Buy the book for him
b) Agree with him and whinge about it
c) Offer alternative learning methods which don't involve spending wads of cash

One is unlikely, one is pointless and one actually helps. I will let you work out which ones which. I know which I would prefer.

c, obviously, that's what others did that were trying to help the development effort. But b is not as ridiculous, or unlikely as the last two posts seem to tell. Is someone mad that HE is mad? Good, then you are getting feedback from your customer base. And one of the basic tenents of capitalism is that the market drives the price, not the other way round.

Scroll up, there's my modified help for DBPro, can someone add to that?

There is already alot here, as has been mentioned before, its just hard to track down in the heat of the moment, I think. It could stand some sort of cross referencing, and also indexing.

You want the truth? Haven't I made it clear enough? Quit beating guys up for not marching to your beat. Quit playing the intellectual snob like you are better than persons with less experience. Basically, help out or stay out. That's my message.

He never once moaned. He never once asked to be given anything, and he never said he wanted it his way, only he wanted to be able to afford it. Everything else, we all did.

For Sale: Hands On DarkBasic Pro 2 - like new condition. Shipping from NC, USA. $60 + shipping. I will be putting on eBay in a week or two. please email me: luz_s_azul (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Well, everyone having said everything, I would like to remind that if you bought DBP directly from The Game Creators you can download both Hands on DBP Vol 1 and Hands on DBP Vol 2 from the same page from where you download your electronic orders, just like RUCCUS said. I think that they are great books and don´t really see the fuss in all of this.

If you really want the printed version, then the problem is with the shipping companies and not with TGC or the publishers. I say this of my own experiences here in Mexico and am sorry if this does not apply to other places, but $67.99 dollars (Vol2) for a programming book is very reasonable price for me since many books here on similar subjects cost about $70.00 dollars, so the shipping is the one to be blamed in my opinion.

I can see that this is starting to get heated up, but I just want to post my bit of data and hope that I don´t conflict with anyone´s point of view. I think that we all have valid arguments here.

Yeah a little background story. I purchased DBPro from Real Game Tools which was the way to go for the US Customer base. Whatever happen to that? Guy(That's his name) up and walked away. So as for anything like this, no I do not get the same goodies for whatever reason. That wasn't really explained clearly at the time that they did this kind of thing. Regardless who you buy Dark Basic Pro from, it shouldn't really matter.
Oh and hey while I am at it, why don't mention the time I purchased membership into the Dark Basic Developer's Network. $50 for a whole year. One month later, they decided to make it free. Real nice. I give them $50 for nothing. I've mentioned it to them several times but never saw anything back on that.
SoulMan

Well, everyone having said everything, I would like to remind that if you bought DBP directly from The Game Creators you can download both Hands on DBP Vol 1 and Hands on DBP Vol 2 from the same page from where you download your electronic orders, just like RUCCUS said.

You've got to be crapping me! They are available to download if you only bought DBPro from TGC? Or if you bought the BOOKS from TGC? If it is the former then that is major suckage as I bought my DBpro copy from RealGameTools.

It would be worth it just to buy the DBPro online version from TGC if I can get both books electronically from it. But I am loath to do so since I already have DBPro.

It might be a good idea to go and read those books you got for free.
@tiresius = No, both are myths!

I have bought everything direct for this very reason. TGC is the bomb, I cannot blame any thing on them, i want to be clear about that.

GatorHex, I still remember your post. It reminded me that back in the day, we managed this by having some of the books written in the UK published over here, too. I contacted Howard Sams, a company in this type of market. We will see if they respond. Maybe Digital Skills and Sams could collaborate to ease the cost of getting these books over here. Who knows, maybe the reciprocal will take hold. It seems worth a try anyway.
http://www.samswebsite.com/description.asp?ID=IndyTech