I'm searching for a 2D or 3D programming language (thats working with both Linux and Windows). I've tried Tao Framework, and GTK+ openGL, but both doesn't have many examples.
Anyone know one ??
Most of the commercial AAA games you can see are coded in C/C++, using OpenGL or DirectX to render to screen. Note that DirectX only works on Windows (and Xbox). However, to get started, I’d recommend something easier such as the SDL.
There’s heated debate about Java being suitable for games, and I won’t get into it: as this language is often deemed easier than C++ to grasp, you might want to give it a try, along with JavaGL if you are into oriented object programmation.
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I am working on a Genetic Algorithm solution to TSP in Lua, and have reached a point where I need a better method of troubleshooting and checking results. The best way to do this would be with a GUI, but I can't seem to find anything about GUIs in Lua.
I've done some searching around Google, and haven't found anything built in to the language. I have found Toolkits such as the one found here:
http://lua-users.org/wiki/GraphicalUserInterfaceToolkits
However, I am new enough to Lua that I do not know how to properly use these. Any help on the matter would be greatly appreciated.
A few ideas:
But first, what platform are you on?
Are you constrained by platform? If not, I've done very exciting things directly on an iPad, in Codea. Pure Lua, built on OpenGL, so built-in API for graphics support.
Beyond that, you could probably use Love2d. It's meant for game dev, but you could probably adapt it to your needs. It's a Lua API, has graphics support, and is cross-platform. I don't know much about it (yet), so others could pipe in with their thoughts/opinions.
If you are still shaky in Lua, I suggest to stick to the console for a while. GUI, whatever the language, is usually messy and unsatisfying for beginners.
If you already know some HTML and Javascript, consider using Lua with a web framework, and using the browser to control your program through a REST API:
Awesome-Lua#Web/Networking Platforms
Apart from that, I have yet to find a GUI framework that feels right for Lua. Almost everything is a thin wrapper around a C or C++ API and handles exactly like that. On the other hand, with the web and Electron on the rise there seems little need for it.
I have just started learning OpenGL using the tutorials on Nehe, and so far I am following them ok.
How necessary is it to understand all the setup code? The tutorial is using the Win32 api to set up a window, and I think I understand about 50% of the code.
Is it vital to understand all of the system calls and OpenGL boiler-plate initialization stuff, or can I just crack on without getting heavily lost down the line?
This is sort of a subjective question, but my opinion (and that of many others) is that you don't need to write all that platform-specific boilerplate.
If you use another library like GLUT or SDL, it becomes much easier: let the library worry about setting up a window, and then you can focus on learning OpenGL. Unless of course you want to learn the WinAPI, but it seems like your priority lies elsewhere.
The NeHe tutorials are somewhat out of date; I've pointed people towards Learning Modern 3D Graphics Programming as a good source to get started, but there are many other "modern" OpenGL tutorials as well. It uses GLUT.
Ok, this is an interesting question to ask because everyone has a say in it.
What is your favorite library to program in for GUI's and the language that you program it in. Give a short reason why. (ex. Gtk, Qt, Windows, etc..) Just an FYI, this includes any scripting language that you program a GUI in Python, Perl etc...
Frankly I've always done Gtk in C, but I'm starting to warm up to Qt in C++ with the new KDE. I've never been a big fan of Windows programming.
ChrisW. stated that I did not give a reason for Gtk/Qt so here goes. I started with Gtk because when I started programming GUI's I was working in Linux and there was more Gtk information available. Started utilizing Qt when I started working more in KDE but really the move to Qt was based on trying to move to C++ and learn more languages. I've never been a fan of basic Windows programming, but I do enjoy a little DirectX now and then :P
Recently I had the opportunity to work with both wxWindows and QT, while some time ago I wrote some small programs using FLTK and Gtk. My conclusion is that widget libraries tend to be very similar; each one has its strenghts and its quirks.
Instead of advocating a specific library, then, I would like to advocate the use of high level languages in GUI programming: the development cycle is way faster and GUI programs are rarely CPU bound, so the performance hit is rarely a problem.
If a GUI program has to perform some intense computations, just develop a core library in C or C++, but keep the interface in Python or whatever other interpreted language.
People like to bash Swing for being old, slow and ugly, but it's just not true. Swing is mature, is faster than ever on Java SE 6/10, looks decent enough, and is tolerable to program. Above all, I've found Java + Swing to be the most trouble-free cross-platform combination. It also works remarkably seamlessly with Jython (Python on JVM).
SWT could also be an option, but so far I've been happy with Swing.
I realise you're focusing on application GUIs but if you want a quick, powerful and fun way to visualize anything on your computer, you can't go past Processing
From the site:
Processing is an open source
programming language and environment
for people who want to program images,
animation, and interactions. It is
used by students, artists, designers,
researchers, and hobbyists for
learning, prototyping, and production.
It is created to teach fundamentals of
computer programming within a visual
context and to serve as a software
sketchbook and professional production
tool. Processing is an alternative to
proprietary software tools in the same
domain.
WPF in particular, and XAML in all its reincarnations (WPF, Silverlight, Moonlight).
C# on top of .Net 3.5/Mono: $0
Visual Studio Express/MonoDevelop: $0
Being able to tell the designer "make my program pretty" and continue coding features: priceless.
I liked writing to video memory under DOS: for an animated game (i.e. an Asteroids clone), that was as fast (performant) as I knew how to do it (certainly faster that using the BIOS API).
This is really a somewhat subjective question, so there is no best or correct answer to it. The following is based on my (limited) experience:
I personally like wxWidgets with PLT Scheme for writing simple but flexible GUIs. There are much more advanced toolkits, but I usually do not need their features. wxWidgets is flexible and the Scheme interface follows Scheme traditions of being powerful with a relatively simple structure. I like the fact that wxWidgets is portable, and yet tries not to actually draw its own widgets, but can use native or common toolkits of the environment it is used under. It is written in C++ but I never used its C++ interface.
That is not to say that in my opinion Scheme will generally be the optimal language to write your application in. In fact there are many kinds of applications I would not write in Scheme, even though I like the language. But regarding the GUI programming part, that is my favourite because of its straight-forwardness, and the way that a functional language like Scheme goes well with declarative-style GUI programming.
Of course you will not have the same level of control when using that as when having your program involved in every stage of the window construction and input reaction, by using an event loop (such as with Win32API or Xt/Intrinsics). But that is not always convenient and often unnecessary, and seems to become decreasingly common.
Note: The wxWindows toolkit was renamed wxWidgets, but my installation of a rather recent version of PLT Scheme still comes with the older wxWindows. I am not sure whether there is an updated package of wxWidgets available or if it is going to be included in a future version of PLT Scheme.
Qt4 without question for me. Now that it has an LGPL license it makes sense for all kinds of applications that previously weren't possible. Additionally, it changes C++ in ways that dramatically improve the experience of using the language. (Things like a foreach and forever loop, atomic operations on integers, and memory management)
Gtk and is the primary window-drawing graphical subsystem I have experience working with (and is therefore my favorite XD).
As far as general graphics subsystems go, however, OpenGL (typically in combination with GLUT) has been an easy and productive ride for me. Regrettably I have little DirectX experience to compare to, though :S
For writing souped-up versions of standard Windows components, I loved Borland's VCL, and am very pleased with .NET.
I'm using Emacs, with CLISP and Slime, and want to be able to draw pictures on the screen. I'm specifically thinking about drawing graphs, but anything that would let me draw basic shapes and manipulate them would be able to get me started.
Doug is right; CAPI will work fine. Other things you can try:
cltk: http://www.cliki.net/Lisp-Tk
I know that Allegro has something for Windows programming also, but I've never tried it.
What may also work is cells-gtk: http://common-lisp.net/project/cells-gtk/
Again, I can only tell you that it exists but not how bad it is or if it even really works...
I can not comment also on the quality of
http://www.cliki.net/GTK%20binding
But that's mostly what is available.
Corman Lisp probably has something to offer for Windows programming also.
Anyway, the choices on Windows are relatively slim. The you can probably have the most confidence in CAPI, which is used for the LispWorks IDE on Windows, Linux, MacOS X and on quite few big unices also...
Regards
I think I've found my own answer. Clojure seems to have everything I was looking for, just because I can now use all of the Java GUI items natively in LISP. It is a different dialect of LISP than the Common-Lisp I was using, but seems to have a lot of community support, and integrates with my Windows installation of Emacs either through SLIME or through the Inferior-Lisp interpreter. So far I've been very impressed.
Oh, a code sample:
(. javax.swing.JOptionPane (showMessageDialog nil "Hello World"))
Any guesses what this does? :)
Bill Clementson's blog has quite a bit on Clojure, including a lot of helpful posts on installing it. See here: his posts on Clojure
You could switch from CLISP to the free LispWorks Personal Edition and use the CAPI Graphics Ports drawing API.
Or you could use Lisp's Foreign Function Interface and use one of the graphics toolkits available for your OS.
For rolling your own (like you said, basic shapes) try Lispbuilder-SDL or one of the cl-cairo FFIs (it's just my guess that the latter work with MS Windows, though).
I know this is an old post, but so the information is here for others like me who find this thread looking for the same thing.
This library for tk bindings in common lisp seems to work fairly well.
http://www.peter-herth.de/ltk/
Clojure is an excellent Lisp, and Swing is a solid (if not particularly visually exciting) windowing toolkit. If you want do do more advanced graphics and/or dabble with game programming you might want to check out Slick, which is a general purpose graphics/game library that sits on top of Swing and gives you access to OpenGL and lots of other stuff.
I've found the Clojure/Slick combination an excellent way to do exploratory graphics programming, as you can interact with the graphics window directly from the REPL.
There's cl-cairo2 - a binding to Cairo vector drawing library. It can be used to draw various pictures on various surfaces. There's a cl-2d library that uses cl-cairo2 to draw charts.
And there's cl-gtk2 - a binding to Gtk+ library. You can create widgets that are drawn with cl-cairo2 (or cl-2d) that draw what you want.
CLISP users might find The following useful for their graphics applications:
cl-vectors is a pure Common Lisp
library to create, transform and
render anti-aliased vectorial paths.
It can be installed using
ASDF-Install.
http://projects.tuxee.net/cl-vectors/
Vecto is a simplified interface to the
powerful CL-VECTORS vector
rasterization library....the results
can be saved to a PNG ... Since Vecto
and all supporting libraries are
written completely in Common Lisp,
without depending on external non-Lisp
libraries, it should work in any
Common Lisp environment. Vecto is
available under a BSD-like license.
The current version is 1.4.3, released
on August 26, 2009.
http://www.xach.com/lisp/vecto/
I want to start programming with D. I have a simple application in mind that needs a GUI but I want to make sure it's portable to Linux/Windows/Mac equally well and with minimal (no) change for each platform.
wxD is looking like the contender of choice because I know the wx toolkit already.
I see fltk4d as a contender and a (unfinished) wrapper around Qt.
Are there any other truly cross platform GUI toolkits for D that will go where I want with little effort and what would the the toolkit of choice for people here?
GtkD should be a very good option for you as a stable Windows/Linux/Mac GUI toolkit.
DWT was once considered the standard, it has its own newsgroup on the Digital Mars server and I think Walter Bright may have called it the standard too. I don't think it's completely working on Mac but this should change in the future.
Here is a nice list of some other options but most have less active development and/or are not yet ready for production.
I have not used any of D's GUI libraries, but I would go with wxD if I wanted to use one now. I would pick it because I think wxD would have the most native looking controls and is cross-platform. Especially since you already know wx, it looks like a good choice.
I'm actually writing a cross-platform GUI library, Dynamin, but I have not released it yet. It is not a port; ported libraries tend to not have as nice of APIs or take advantage of as many language features. But it is not far enough along to do more than simple programs. I also don't have a Mac backend or GTK theme yet.