[Audyssey] Game development was intro

[Thomas Ward]

Hi Rachel,
Yes, I think C#.net, (called C-Sharp,) is a good starter language. I'll 
explain a bit about myself and why I feel that way.
When I was in college taking Computer Science courses I took a course in 
basic C++ and an advanced C++ course. I found that the language was 
powerful, but there is allot of knolege needed to write a simple Windows 
application. If you were to write something in C++ an esential book to 
read would be Windows Programming by Microsoft press. The book is 
something like 1000 or 1200 pages long and some of the code you need is 
dificult for a beginner is extremely complicated. 
In 2001/2002 Microsoft decided to come out with their .NET platform, and 
one of the new languages was C#.NET. One of the things that has made 
C#.NET popular amung amature and professional programmers is Microsoft 
has simplified many basic tasks for drawing buttons, Windows, and other 
controls. They used the Visual form editor from Visual Basic, and gave 
it the power of a C++/Java style language without all the complication 
involved with it.  Now, days using C#.NET just go to your project menu 
and tell it to add a new Windows form, and it generates one for you. 
Want to add a new class go to projects ask it to add a class and it 
will, and then you can modify the generated class to your needs. If you 
want to add a button, timer, listbox, etc go to the toolbox drop one on 
to your form, and modify it to your needs. It speeds up development at 
the same time simplifying things for you.
One of the powers of C#.NET and even VB.NET is you don't need to know 
allot of info on how Windows works to write good apps. All you need to 
know is what classes are in what framework dll files, and you can then 
create what is known as an object to access the properties in that class.
For example, lets assume you have a simple form called window. Look how 
easy it is in C#.NET to change the width and height of the window using 
objects and built in classes.

window.Height = 300;
window.Width = 300;

Our object is called window. The Height and Width variables belong to 
window, and you can change them thus actually effecting the width and 
height of the window being shown. Pretty simple and cool right?
Another reason I suggest going with C#.NET is it's growing support from 
Microsoft as well as professional and amature developers. At one time 
Microsoft DirectX use to come with Visual Basic 6 and C++ examples. 
Well, since DirectX 9.0 and later the only two languages now officially 
documented and supported is C++ and C#.NET, and there is very little to 
no official support for VB.NET although it can work with DirectX 9 if 
you fight with it and know what you are doing. Since C#.NET has been 
released to the public in 2002 there have been a handful of C#.NET books 
written about game programming, and only one that I know of for VB.NET, 
and the one VB.NET book was terrible at best. To ice the cake, as it 
were, when Kickstart DirectX 9 came out to show off the new features for 
DirectX 9 it was done in C#.NET not VB.NET or C++. That really says 
support for C#.NET is growing and the Visual Basic languages are slowly 
in decline.
The final point is that on non Windows operating systems such as Mac OS 
and Linux they use a .NET Framework called mono. If memory serves me 
correctly it can run almost any precompiled .NET binary, but the mono 
compiler will only except C#.NET source code if someone on those 
operating systems was doing .NET development.
So by and large in 2003 when I opened U.S.A. Games I saw the simplicity, 
the power, etc in C#.NET and chose it as my game development language. I 
have never regreted my decision. I know enough about other languages to 
write my games in VB, C++, Java, etc however C#.NET has proven not to 
disappoint me, and I really enjoy it. I can easily recommend it to 
anyone interested in writing accesible games.