I’m a c++ beginner, and I just finished reading “Beginning C++ Through Game Programming,” so I feel like it’s time for me to start venturing outside of the STL, and SDL seems like a good place to start. I’ve been reading the Lazy Foo tutorials, but I’d really like to have a real printed book on SDL. So I’ve checked out what’s available, and I’m thinking about getting “Focus on SDL,” by Ernest Pazera. The other SDL books I’ve found look like they might be too advanced for me, or else they don’t have very good user reviews.
But I’m concerned about how old the book is. I guess my question is – will I get a lot of obsolete information from an 11-year-old book? I know there’s a new version of STL now, but I’m assuming the core concepts are the same, right? I just want a book that will give me a good foundation in SDL.
But I’m concerned about how old the book is. I guess my question is – will
I get a lot of obsolete information from an 11-year-old book?
Given SDL2 is not backwards compatible? Yes. Probably.
Mind you, regarding the basic concepts, many of them remain the same
(e.g. events pretty much remain the same, and audio is more of an
upgrade than a total change). The big change is the way SDL handles
video output, since now it has the concepts of multiple windows and
also has renderers that let you draw stuff without having to make your
own routines (and with the GPU by default). I’d say the video part got
completely reworked and pretty much the concepts related to it are
mostly obsolete (except maybe some stuff relating surfaces).
But I’m concerned about how old the book is. I guess my question is –
will I get a lot of obsolete information from an 11-year-old book? I
SDL2 is very different than 1.2 in some cases. If you’re really eager
and interested, though, you could probably work through that book and
then get the important differences from the Migration Guide…
https://wiki.libsdl.org/MigrationGuide
…but this wouldn’t be the ideal way to do it.
Anyone want to write an SDL 2.0 book?
Although I should say: If you’re just learning to program, and want to
make some fun experiments, SDL 1.2 is perfectly fine for now.
Focus on sdl seems to be in the public domain so ,for instance, if you type
"buy focus on sdl" into google one of the first few things will be the
entire book in pdf format for free. Print it at your leisure and decide
what you like :)On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 2:38 PM, Ryan C. Gordon wrote:
But I’m concerned about how old the book is. I guess my question is –
will I get a lot of obsolete information from an 11-year-old book? I
SDL2 is very different than 1.2 in some cases. If you’re really eager and
interested, though, you could probably work through that book and then get
the important differences from the Migration Guide…
https://wiki.libsdl.org/MigrationGuide
…but this wouldn’t be the ideal way to do it.
Anyone want to write an SDL 2.0 book?
Although I should say: If you’re just learning to program, and want to
make some fun experiments, SDL 1.2 is perfectly fine for now.
Dang… I went ahead and ordered “Focus on SDL” yesterday. If I had known that it was available to download for free, I probably would have saved my money. Oh well, it was only 20 bucks.
I find it faster to flip pages in a book than scrolling through a PDF,
if that makes you feel better (also you won’t get interrupted by not
being able to use the computer).
2013/11/20, Explodey :> Dang… I went ahead and ordered “Focus on SDL” yesterday. If I had known
that it was available to download for free, I probably would have saved my
money. Oh well, it was only 20 bucks.
I own it, got it many moons ago. I prefer physical books to ebooks anyway.
It was a good book, but not as well laid out as most programming books in
my opinion.
If there was an SDL2 book covering the new stuff, that would be cool.
Swyped from my droid.On Nov 19, 2013 8:41 PM, “Explodey” wrote:
Dang… I went ahead and ordered “Focus on SDL” yesterday. If I had known
that it was available to download for free, I probably would have saved my
money. Oh well, it was only 20 bucks.
2013/11/20 Jonathan Greig > I own it, got it many moons ago. I prefer physical books to ebooks anyway.
It was a good book, but not as well laid out as most programming books in
my opinion.
If there was an SDL2 book covering the new stuff, that would be cool.
Swyped from my droid.
On Nov 19, 2013 8:41 PM, “Explodey” wrote:
Dang… I went ahead and ordered “Focus on SDL” yesterday. If I had known
that it was available to download for free, I probably would have saved my
money. Oh well, it was only 20 bucks.
Btw, I’ve been wanting to learn Python/Pygame as well, and I’ve heard
that Pygame uses SDL, so I figured that’s another reason to learn
SDL. But does Pygame use SDL 1 or 2? Or both?
I considered buying that one, but I read a lot of complaints that there were typos in the example programs. I also read some sample pages online and it seemed like it might be a little too advanced for me, anyway.
Btw, I’ve been wanting to learn Python/Pygame as well, and I’ve heard that Pygame uses SDL, so I figured that’s another reason to learn SDL. But does Pygame use SDL 1 or 2? Or both?
2013/11/20 Jonathan Greig <redteam316 at gmail.com (redteam316 at gmail.com)>
I own it, got it many moons ago. I prefer physical books to ebooks anyway. It was a good book, but not as well laid out as most programming books in my opinion.
If there was an SDL2 book covering the new stuff, that would be cool.
Swyped from my droid.
On Nov 19, 2013 8:41 PM, “Explodey” <@Explodey (@Explodey)> wrote:
Dang.. I went ahead and ordered "Focus on SDL" yesterday. If I had known that it was available to download for free, I probably would have saved my money. Oh well, it was only 20 bucks.
