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I am attempting to develop a GUI application for Tails. I'm doing the initial development on Debian 8 since development directly in Tails can be a pain.
I started out using Anjuta, but the documentation is essentially non-existent. The Anjuta website has nothing at all about how Glade is integrated or how to use it. I can't even track down documentation on how to change the main window title. The only tutorial I found has you start a project and build it using the default files that are generated for a GTKmm project.
Is there a good book or online tutorial out there for doing GUI development in Anjuta?
This is maybe not a complete answer, but it's too large to put in as a comment. I use Anjuta fairly regularly, but I share your feeling about the missing documentation (which is, by the way, not unique for Anjuta). I appreciate Anjuta (and Glade) very much, so don't take the following as criticisms on either program.
I would recommend you consider using PyGTK for GUI creation. It is a lot more productive. You can design the GUI in Glade - exactly the same way you would do for C/C++ - and then implement the code in Python, which you can also edit and manage from Anjuta. There are plenty of code examples, for example on the nullege code search engine.
About the work flow in Anjuta (for C/C++). It is based mainly on the Autotools system, so you should really read up a little on make, Makefile, and related tools. Though in principle Anjuta manages this, you will, sooner or later hit a problem, and some knowledge about Autotools will help you a long way (also this tutorial or this one. This slide series is interesting - probably because it is more graphical. There are even some video tutorials, like this one.).
There is no real necessity to use Glade from inside Anjuta. In fact, Glade has passed a long process distancing itself from 'code generation'. It now only contains an XML generator, which can be called separately. I find the screen space left for Glade inside Anjuta insufficient for comfortable work anyway.
So, in conclusion: If you mainly need a GUI, consider Python + Gtk. If you do need C or C++, Anjuta is a great IDE, but look at Gtk Development examples (like this one). Following those, the use of Anjuta should be a lot clearer.
EDIT:
Very useful answer. I have some underlying legacy code that has to be
C++. Is there a way to mix Python and C++ in Anjuta, or do you know of
any guideposts or tutorials for such?
You can open a C++ project in Anjuta - maybe even import you legacy code directly as a Makefile project. You can also add new files to your C/C++ project and create them as Python files. I've never tried to do that though, and I'm not sure how Anjuta would treat them, for example, in the Makefile(s). I don't have large projects mixing languages at the moment, but for small projects, I like 'Geany', because it doesn't get in the way. You do have to maintain the Makefiles manually.
I've been looking through the sites of Haxe / OpenFL / Flixel but am struggling to understand what each one is for.
As I understand it:
Haxe is a language that can be deployed to multiple platforms.
OpenFL is something to do with Flash.
Flixel is a library to help you make games.
Could anyone correct me/make it clearer.
Haxe
To quote from haxe.org:
Haxe is an open source toolkit based on a modern, high level, strictly typed programming language, a cross-compiler, a complete cross-platform standard library and ways to access each platform's native capabilities.
Language:
Haxe is a programming language. It's similar to AS3, C# etc. It is strictly typed, but has great type inference. It has a lot of powerful features such as Pattern Matching, Enums (ADTs), Macros etc. These work no matter which target you compile to.
Standard Library:
Haxe can compile to JavaScript, C++, Flash, Java, C#, PHP, Neko, HashLink, Python and Lua. It has low level standard classes that work consistently across platforms, such as: String, Int, Float, Date, Map etc. It also has some useful cross platform code for things like Serialization, Xml, Json, Date formatting etc.
As a general rule, anything on api.haxe.org that is in the top level, or in the haxe package, is going to work whichever target you compile to.
Each target has its own package. These let you access native capabilities of that target via externs. Eg. js.html has DOM externs, flash has externs for the Flash API, etc.
There is the sys package, which is available on "backend" targets: C++, Java, Neko, HashLink, PHP, Python and Lua. It's also available on JavaScript/Node with the hxnodejs library.
Other stuff:
The Haxe compiler is super fast compared to a bunch of other compilers. That's a selling point in itself. There's also macros, which let you do a bunch of pre-processing in a really powerful way. Then there's tools like Haxelib which let you link in with 3rd party libraries.
OpenFL
When Haxe first started, Flash was still a big target, it was installed everywhere, and it was great for making games. A lot of Flash developers liked Haxe because it was fast, type safe, open source, and gave them more features. But the flash API (sprites, graphics, movie clips, events) only worked on Flash, not on mobile, or on HTML5 etc. Which was a problem once flash started becoming less popular.
What OpenFL does is make that Flash API work on other Haxe targets. So you wrote a Haxe game targeting the flash API using sprites and graphics and flash-style code. Then, you want to compile to C++ (for targeting mobile etc). OpenFL lets your Haxe code use the Flash API, even if targeting C++ or JavaScript. For example, OpenFL creates the flash.graphics.DisplayObject class not only for flash, but for C++ and JavaScript. So if you know how to write Flash games, you are close to writing OpenFL games already.
OpenFL also has some great tools for making it easier to deploy your games to specific platforms. Where Haxe targets are things like "JS", "SWF", "C++", OpenFL platforms are things like "iOS", "Android", "Switch", "HTML5", "Windows EXE" etc. When you hear about Haxe targeting mobile, a lot of the time it is OpenFL, because it works with Haxe to compile your code (into C++, JS, SWF or whatever) and then packages those binaries for mobile.
Flixel
Haxe is a language, compiler and standard library.
OpenFL builds on this and adds the Flash API working across targets.
HaxeFlixel builds on this even further and provides game specific APIs that work on OpenFL.
An example of how it all works together:
You create a game. All of it is written in Haxe. Things like player name, scores, and completion info all use data structures from the standard library. They'll work in your game, but you could also make them work on your PHP website.
Your game uses OpenFL to compile to Flash, HTML5, iOS and Android. As part of OpenFL, you also have access to standard Flash API classes, like the Stage and Buttons and MouseEvents, which you might use for your menu screen. Because OpenFL provides the flash.* classes for other targets, your app compiles to all different things.
For your actual game, performance is important, and the flash DisplayList approach is a bit slow and not optimised for gaming. HaxeFlixel is optimised for gaming, and is very fast. So you design your game with HaxeFlixel using their APIs.
Summary
Haxe is a language, compiler, toolkit and standard library. It provides the most basic tools for cross-platform code.
OpenFL is built on Haxe, and provides the Flash API to multiple targets (Flash, C++, JavaScript) and makes it easy to compile to a bunch of platforms: web, native, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch etc.
HaxeFlixel is built on OpenFL - it uses the APIs provided by OpenFL to create a game specific framework that is high performance and easy to make 2D games.
I just recently discovered HaxeFlixel, and I LOVE it! I came from making games in AS3 using Flixel, and now I'll probably never go back!
So, to attempt to answer your question (and the way I understand it):
Haxe is sort of the bottom layer. It's the programing language that can be compiled into Flash, Windows, Android, iOS, etc, etc, etc.
OpenFL is a software development kit which uses Haxe to make it easier and smoother to get games to work via Haxe and allow you to easily harness the power of Haxe's compatibility while not having to deal with a lot of the hassle and problems that you can get into. It takes care of a lot of the basic stuff for you and makes it easier to code.
HaxeFlixel is a 2D Game framework based on a combination of Adam Atomic's Flixel for AS3 and Flixel Power Tools by Photon Storm. It makes it easier to make 2D games in almost the same type of code as in AS3/Flixel.
When just starting out, you should only need to worry about the highest level, which in your case is HaxeFlixel.
So, to summarize a bit: Haxe is a powerful programing language. You can try to figure out how to code with it 'as-is', which is complicated, or you can use one of a number of libraries to make it easier - OpenFL is one of these libraries.
You can use OpenFL on its own, and code a game with it, or you can use one of a number of different frameworks to make it easier - HaxeFlixel is one of these frameworks. There's also the Starling and HaxePunk frameworks which have their own pros and cons.
Opinion Time!
I highly recommend sticking with HaxeFlixel - since it was so similar to Flixel, I managed to pick it up and learn how to use it, and made this complete game in exactly 1 month and released a Flash, Windows, and Android version all on the same day - which is outstanding considering I had not touched Haxe before, and had never had time to even start looking at Android Development before. That game's source code, by the way, is completely open source, so feel free to dig in and see how I did stuff.
The community for HaxeFlixel is also pretty amazing and people will help you out and answer questions.
It's really not too hard to jump in and start working with HaxeFlixel:
http://haxeflixel.com/documentation/getting-started/
Follow those steps and you'll at least have a Hello, World! up and running in minutes (excluding the time it takes to download and install all the stuff). Like I mentioned earlier, until you're more comfortable with it, just follow the directions for Haxe and OpenFL but don't even think about it for now!
Good luck! And let me know if you make it anywhere or not!
I am working on a new language, targeted for web development, embeding into applications, distributed applications, high-reliability software (but this is for distant future).
Also, it's target to reduce development expenses in long term - more time to write safer code and less support later. And finally, it enforces many things that real teams have to enforce - like one crossplatform IDE, one codestyle, one web framework.
In short, the key syntax/language features are:
Open source, non-restrictive licensing. Surely crossplatform.
Tastes like C++ but simpler, Pythonic syntax with strict & static type checking. Easier to learn, no multiple inheritance and other things which nobody know anyway :-)
LLVM bytecode/compilation backend gives near-C speed.
Is has both garbage collection & explicit object destruction.
Real OS threads, native support of multicore computers. Multithreading is part of language, not a library.
Types have the same width on any platform. int(32), long(64) e.t.c
Built in post and preconditions, asserts, tiny unit tests. You write a method - you can write all these things in 1 place, so you have related things in one place. If you worry that your class sourcecode will be bloated with this - it's IDEs work to hide what you don't need now.
Java-like exception handling (i.e. you have to handle all exceptions)
I guess I'll leave web & cluster features for now...
What you think? Are there any existing similar languages which I missed?
To summarize: You language has no real selling points. It just does what a dozen other languages already did, with syntax and semantics just slightly off, depending on where the programmer comes from. This may be a good thing, as it makes the language easier to adapt, but you also have to convince people to trouble to switch. All this stuff has to be built and debugged and documented again, tools have to be programmed, people have to learn it and convince their pointy-haired bosses to use it, etc. "So it's language X with a few features from Y and nicer syntax? But it won't make my application's code 15% shorter and cleaner, it won't free me from boilerplate X, etc - and it won't work with my IDE." The last one is important. Tools matter. If there are no good tools for a language, few people will shy away, rightfully so.
And finally, it enforces many things that real teams have to enforce - like one crossplatform IDE, one codestyle, one web framework.
Sounds like a downside! How does the language "enforce one X"? How do you convince programmers this coding style is the one true style? Why shouldn't somebody go and replace the dog slow, hardly maintained, severly limited IDE you "enforce" with something better? How could one web framework possibly fit all applications? Programmers rarely like to be forced into X, and they are sometimes right.
Also, you language will have to talk to others. So you have ready-made standard solutions for multithreading and web development in mind? Maybe you should start with a FFI instead. Python can use extensions written in C or C++, use dynamic libraries through ctypes, and with Cython it's amazingly simple to wrap any given C library with a Python interface. Do you have any idea how many important libraries are written in C? Unless your language can use these, people can hardly get (real-world) stuff done with it. Just think of GUI. Most mayor GUI toolkits are C or C++. And Java has hundreds of libraries (the other JVM languages profit much from Java interop) for many many purposes.
Finally, on performance: LLVM can give you native code generation, which is a huge plus (performance-wise, but also because the result is standalone), but the LLVM optimizers are limited, too. Don't expect it to beat C. Especially not hand-tuned C compiled via icc on Intel CPUs ;)
"Are there any existing similar
languages which I missed?"
D? Compared to your features:
The compiler has a dual license - GPL and Artistic
See example code here.
LDC targets LLVM. Support for D version 2 is under development.
Built-in garbage collection or explicit memory management.
core.thread
Types
Unit tests / Pre and Post Contracts
try/catch/finally exception handling plus scope guarantees
Responding to a few of your points individually (I've omitted what I consider either unimportant or good):
targeted for web development
Most people use php. Not because it's the best language available, that's for sure.
embeding into applications
Lua.
distributed applications, high-reliability software (but this is for distant future).
Have you carefully studied Erlang, both its design and its reference implementation?
it enforces many things that real teams have to enforce - like one crossplatform IDE, one codestyle, one web framework.
If your language becomes successful, people will make other IDEs, other code styles, other web frameworks.
Multithreading is part of language, not a library.
Really good languages for multithreading forbid side effects inside threads. Yes, in practice that pretty much means Erlang only.
Types have the same width on any platform. int(32), long(64) e.t.c
Sigh... There's only one reasonable width for integers outside of machine-level languages like C: infinite.
Designing your own language will undoubtedly teach you someting. But designing a good language is like designing a good cryptosystem: lots of amateurs try, but it takes an expert to do it well.
I suggest you read some of Norman Ramsey's answers here on programming language design, starting with this thread.
Given your interest in distributed applications, knowing Erlang is a must. As for sequential programming, the minimum is one imperative language and one functional language (ideally both Lisp/Scheme and Haskell, but F# is a good start). I also recommend knowing at least one high-level language that doesn't have objects, just so you understand that not having objects can often make the programmer's life easier (because objects are complex).
As for what could drive other people to learn your language... Good tools/libraries/frameworks can't hurt (FORTRAN, php), and a big company setting the example can't hurt (Java, C#). Good design doesn't seem to be much of a factor (a ha-ha-only-serious joke has it that what makes a language successful is using {braces} to delimit blocks: C, C++, Java, C#, php)...
What you've given us is a list of features, with no coherent philosophy, or explanation as to how they will work together. None of the features are unique. At best, you're offering incremental improvements over what's already there. I'd expect there's already languages kicking around with what you've said, it's just that they're still fairly obscure, because they didn't make it.
Languages have inertia. People have to learn new languages, and sometimes new tools. They need incentive to do so, and 20% improvement in a few features doesn't cut it.
What you need, at a minimum, is a killer app and a form of elevator pitch. (The "elevator pitch" is what you tell the higher-ups about your project when you're in the elevator with them, in current US business parlance.) You need to have your language be obviously worth learning for some purpose, and you need to be able to tell people why it's worth learning before they think "just another language by somebody who wanted to write a language" and go away.
You need to form a language community. That community needs to have some localization at first: people who work in X big company, people who want to do Y, whatever. Decide on what that community is likely to be, and come up with one big reason to switch and some reasons to believe that your language can deliver what it promises.
No.
Every buzzword you have included in your feature list is an enormous amount of work to be spec'd, implemented, documented, and tested.
How many people will be actively developing the language? I guess the web is full of failed programming language projects. (Same is true for non-mainstream OSes)
Have a look at what .Net/Visual Studio or Java/Eclipse have accomplished. That's 1000s of years of specification, development, tests, documentation, feedback, bug fixes, service packs.
During my last job I heard about somebody who wrote his own programming framework, because it was "better". The resulting program code (both in the framework and in the applications) is certainly unmaintainable once the original programmer quits, or is "hit by a bus", as the saying goes.
As the list sounds like Java++ or Mono++, you'd probably be more successful in engaging in an existing project, even if it won't have your name tag on it.
Perhaps you missed one key term. Performance.
In any case, unless this new language has some really out-of-this-world features(ex: 100% increase in performance over other web development languages), I think it will be yet another fish in the pond.
Currently I'm responsible for maintaining a framework developed/owned by my company. It's a nightmare. Unless there is a mainstream community, working on this full time, it's really an elephant. I do not appreciate my company's decision to develop its own framework(because it's supposed to be "faster") day 'n night.
The language tastes good in my opinion, I don't want use java for a simple website but I would like to have types and things like that. ASP .NET is a problem because of licensing and I can't afford those licenses for a single website... Also features looks good
Remember a lot of operator overloading: I think is the biggest thing that PHP is actually missing. It allows classes to behave much more like basic types :)
When you have something to test I'll love to help you with it! Thanks
Well, if you have to reinvent the wheel, you can go for it :)
I am not going to give you any examples of languages or language features, but I will give you one advice instead:
Supporting framework is what is the most important thing. People will tend to love it or hate it, depending on how easy is to write good code that get job done. Therefore, please do usability test before releasing it. I mean ask several people how they will do certain task and create API accordingly. Then test beta API on other coders and listen carefully to their comments.
Regards and good luck :)
There's always space for another programming language. Apart from getting the design right, I think the biggest problem is coming across as just another wannabe language. So you may want to look at your marketing, you need a big sponsor who can integrate your language into their products, or you need to generate a buzz around it, easiest way is astroturfing. Good luck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages
NB the names G and G++ aren't taken. Oh and watch out for the patent trolls.
Edit
Oops G / G++ are taken... still there are plenty more letters left.
This sounds more like a "systems" language rather than a "web development language". The major languages in this category (other than C++/C) are D and Go.
My advice to you would be to not start from scratch but examine the possibility of creating tools or libraries for those languages, and seeing just how far you can push them.
Let me setup my question with some info. I'm not in college yet and strictly a hobby programmer. Probably a little more than 2 years ago I got started programming on mac. I started with very simplistic GUI examples with Cocoa and XCode. Long story short, I learned from the top down, first learning objective-c, then venturing into more "low-level" projects where I became better at basic C and even used a few C++ libraries in my existing projects.
What I'm saying is that I've never really done anything outside of an XCode project and occasional iPhone project. I've implemented lots of stuff, algorithms, math, etc. but all within that environment. I look at the world of programming and there is so much out there that's not necessarily a standalone application. It seems to me that the hardest thing is finding out where to start; how to setup the environment. I guess I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions, projects, tutorials, maybe on setting up environments for different languages on different systems. Web programming, java applets? etc.
On the note of environments, I would be interested in knowing on a more basic level what makes a "development environment." To my basic knowledge, an "environment" combines the language, with the compiler that interprets that language, and contains libraries that provide an API for the language, where the compiled product runs on a certain system. This is my basic concept, but again, I'm here.
Sorry if this question... well... combines too many questions, but any input or guidance is welcome. Thanks in advance for any replies!
Not sure if I understood your question correctly or if this will help you, but here are my (relative newbie) thoughts and rambling:
I've done Java at uni in two different courses, one where we wrote the code in Notepad and then compiled it in command line, in some dubious DOS application, and then two years later when we worked in NetBeans and while NetBeans was a lot better and easier, I learned a lot and was a lot more careful when writing code after the Notepad experience (especially after waiting for several minutes for a compile only to see a message caused by a silly bug).
If you can choose between IDEs, I would read on different blogs, see what people prefer and why and make a choice. The problem is that most of the time, both at uni and at work, you can't choose and have to go with the teachers/managers choose, and make the best of it.
It seems to me that the hardest thing is finding out where to start; how to setup the environment.
I think it would be easiest if you found something that you want to do, and then take small steps and get bits done. I work as a desktop app developer and 3 years ago I set up a wordpress blog for a friend and imported posts and comments from a different blogging platform, with minimal knowledge about everything involved. I started with things that were already done by others and learned how to use them and then slowly tried to fill in the gaps - the comments part wasn't done then, so I had to learn about databases, how I could see them and then write the code that inserted in them, etc.
What I'm trying to say is that if you find something to do (and if you don't have ideas for projects, you can find several posts with ideas here, on SO) and then set goals towards doing that, even if you don't finish it, or your studying takes you in areas you hadn't expected, it will all be useful at some point.
I guess I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions, projects, tutorials, maybe on setting up environments for different languages on different systems. Web programming, java applets? etc.
This is way too broad a question. If you're doing web programming, you need to set up a web programming environment. At a minimum, you would need an HTTP server. You'd probably also need a relational database. The rest of the web environment would be language dependent.
If you're doing GUI programmng, you would need access to the device or devices (iPhone, Android, etc.) that you want to write programs for.
To my basic knowledge, an "environment" combines the language, with the compiler that interprets that language, and contains libraries that provide an API for the language, where the compiled product runs on a certain system.
That gets you started, yes. You'd want an integrated development environment to write the code. Again, you'd probably need a relational or object oriented database. The rest of the development environment is language dependent.
So, I use Linux, and I've been trying to find the time to get into game programming. I started out with Panda3d and had some pretty decent results and got a feel for many of the concepts in game programming. Not too long after that, I decided to step it up a notch and go to something more powerful and C or C++ based.
I'm probably just really dumb, but I could never really figure out how to use Crystalspace correctly. If somebody has any useful resources on how to use it, I would appreciate that. But in the meantime, I was messing around with Irrlicht and I like it, but I would like to know what more knowledgable people have to say about the subject. And maybe theres another awesome option out there I don't know about.
If you ask me, Irrlich is the best open source engine - it has clear architecture, good performance and requires lesser code to be written by programmer. I can not honestly compare Irrlicht with Crystal Space or Orge. I consider CS as mess of code, written by many different programmers in different manners - I am hard to imagine how to use it too (due to absolute lack of documentation). As for Ogre, it is not easier than D3D. I've examined different samples and fount plenty multyline fragments of code that are done with a single line in D3D. So, I simply can not see a reason, why to spent months learning OGRE's terrible API - if one has free time, I would advice to learn D3D itself.
I can say even more - Irrlicht is better, than many commercial engines, for example - Torque (absolute lack of documentation, forces to start project over existing one etc.), Truevision etc. Of course, Irrlicht lacks some great features, AAA grade engines must have, but it is quite sufficient for smaller projects.
If you have not BIG money to acquire Gamebryo and similar grades engine, I would advice to stick with Irrlicht - for first several projects at least.
I've spent some time working in the game industry. I'm also a Linux guy. I used Irrlicht to make a couple games, and used those as part of my resume, which helped get me get a job as a game programmer.
Irrlicht has a cleaner API, lower system requirements and works better across platforms than Ogre, in my opinion. I've had a blast making games with Irrlicht. It's also fairly lightweight (much lighter than Ogre), with a very open license for any use, commercial or otherwise.
Working with that engine did a lot to prepare me for working within the commercial game industry.
Ogre3D
http://www.ogre3d.org/
Is typically named together with crystalspace and irrlicht.
Ogre and Irrlicht both are said to have a cleaner design than crystalspace so I wouldn't worry to much about problems with the latter.
If you're looking for productive game development, then my best bet would be to use Unity 3D. I started off by using Irrlicht but quickly backed out because of non intuitive tools and a lot of stress on programming. Ogre seemed to be even more complex.
Unity on the other hand is rapidly gaining grounds with each release. The recent Unity 4 is packed with a ton of features. With very little game dev knowledge, I've managed to write my own flight sim engine in Unity Android. Even learned to write shaders easily.
Though advanced Unity licenses are paid, but they are well worth it. But you can always use Unity free edition to make commercial PC games. In all, game development is all about getting the hang of a game engine. Master any, and you will rule.