Adv.Programming Course Outline
Ok I am asking you guys to provide me with a course outline...
I have a pretty good understanding of c++ base language. My total goal is to really understand the nitty gritty of how everything works relating to c++ in application development. The applications I want to build are 2D games with my own programmed engine..game tools such as map editors..ect. I am interested in how libraries are created such as allegro SDL even how directx is made..I want to know this stuff I know it sounds crazy :/
I am really more or less interested in the programming language itself, and how it interfaces with the computer..
I am asking for a guideline to follow because I can't learn or look to learn what I do not know...Please just throw topics at me that are relatable to what I want to learn and try to organize them in a sequential way so that I will be able to build off of what was previously learned.
I am aware of but do not know -> DirectX,COM,GDI?
How DLL's work?
***I am not interested using a prebuilt applications for my games...I have used them and I would rather program my own application before making my game however long that takes..
I have a pretty good understanding of c++ base language. My total goal is to really understand the nitty gritty of how everything works relating to c++ in application development. The applications I want to build are 2D games with my own programmed engine..game tools such as map editors..ect. I am interested in how libraries are created such as allegro SDL even how directx is made..I want to know this stuff I know it sounds crazy :/
I am really more or less interested in the programming language itself, and how it interfaces with the computer..
I am asking for a guideline to follow because I can't learn or look to learn what I do not know...Please just throw topics at me that are relatable to what I want to learn and try to organize them in a sequential way so that I will be able to build off of what was previously learned.
I am aware of but do not know -> DirectX,COM,GDI?
How DLL's work?
***I am not interested using a prebuilt applications for my games...I have used them and I would rather program my own application before making my game however long that takes..
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You have a lot of questions here, but I'm going to try and answer a few of them.
One of the first ones you should learn is how DLLs work.
A DLL is a "dynamically linked library". Normally when you compile, you create an executable. That is a file which can be executed by the OS through a single entry point (usually)
The user would then include the appropriate header, and tell the linker that these functions exist in a DLL to be loaded at runtime.
How is DirectX made?
I understand that you want to do everything from scratch, and that's cool, but at some point you'll want to use a 3rd party lib for some things and here's why. DirectX and OpenGL are very low-level libraries. They provide a C-API which allows you to use the provided functions in the DirectX DLLs to call code which actually packs processor op-codes and sends them to the appropriate video-card on the AGP, PCI or PCI-express bus. If you wanted to do this yourself, you'd need to get documentation from your video-card vendor about the opcodes and interface that card uses. Then you'd need to provide functions to the rest of your program to provide a simpler interface to perform the required actions. Now you're really getting hardware specific. Just to give you an idea of how complicated this is: hardware providers (ATI, Nvidia) build video cards to be compatible with DirectX/OpenGL. Software developers do not modify DirectX/OpenGL to be compatible with different video cards.
Note, at some point you will certainly need a 3rd party library, otherwise you'd need to even write your own OS. At the bottom of it all, you have calls to the operating system's libraries. If you want to get as low as you can without re-writing an OS, check out this tutorial:
http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/
It shows you how to create a windowed application using only the Windows API (the low-level C API, not the high-level C# stuff). If you want to go deeper than that, you'll want to move to Linux where you can see the sources of what is deeper (like xlib) and decide whether to write your own.
One of the first ones you should learn is how DLLs work.
A DLL is a "dynamically linked library". Normally when you compile, you create an executable. That is a file which can be executed by the OS through a single entry point (usually)
int main(int argc, char* argv[]). Now you may have a generic piece of code which is designed for use by multiple executables (like DirectX), or perhaps is designed as an extension to an existing executable. The first case is easier to describe. In this case you are providing a binary (just like an exe), but it isn't designed to be called by the OS when someone double-clicks on the icon. It's designed to be called by an existing process. It can provide an interface with more than just int main(). You could write a few functions, call it "novellofGenericFunctions.dll", compile it, and make it available to every one of the applications you ever write from now to the end of time.The user would then include the appropriate header, and tell the linker that these functions exist in a DLL to be loaded at runtime.
How is DirectX made?
I understand that you want to do everything from scratch, and that's cool, but at some point you'll want to use a 3rd party lib for some things and here's why. DirectX and OpenGL are very low-level libraries. They provide a C-API which allows you to use the provided functions in the DirectX DLLs to call code which actually packs processor op-codes and sends them to the appropriate video-card on the AGP, PCI or PCI-express bus. If you wanted to do this yourself, you'd need to get documentation from your video-card vendor about the opcodes and interface that card uses. Then you'd need to provide functions to the rest of your program to provide a simpler interface to perform the required actions. Now you're really getting hardware specific. Just to give you an idea of how complicated this is: hardware providers (ATI, Nvidia) build video cards to be compatible with DirectX/OpenGL. Software developers do not modify DirectX/OpenGL to be compatible with different video cards.
Note, at some point you will certainly need a 3rd party library, otherwise you'd need to even write your own OS. At the bottom of it all, you have calls to the operating system's libraries. If you want to get as low as you can without re-writing an OS, check out this tutorial:
http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/
It shows you how to create a windowed application using only the Windows API (the low-level C API, not the high-level C# stuff). If you want to go deeper than that, you'll want to move to Linux where you can see the sources of what is deeper (like xlib) and decide whether to write your own.
Thanks for your post..I don't want to remake directX, i want to use it, I would like to know how it interfaces with the COM...
I really blows my mind on how these applications work...Like to be on a dev team for directX..I would like to know how they do it! Really intriguing to me.
I really blows my mind on how these applications work...Like to be on a dev team for directX..I would like to know how they do it! Really intriguing to me.
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