Starting with straight 6502 or BatariBasic?

[+Gemintronic]

I don't comment in code because I'm lazy/sloppy. Descriptive variable and constant names are a must though.

 

Batari BASIC kernel features are pretty much what the 2600 can do. However, assembly lets you make sacrifices for better features in another aspects of your game. Disclaimer: Born and raised BASIC/4GL programmer.

 

It's your programming background that determines whether BASIC first or assembly first is better. Most people I know were raised on farm fresh MS Basic and worked "down" to assembly routines.

Edited August 19, 2010 by theloon

[endrien]

I don't comment in code because I'm lazy/sloppy. Descriptive variable and constant names are a must though.

 

Batari BASIC kernel features are pretty much what the 2600 can do. However, assembly lets you make sacrifices for better features in another aspects of your game. Disclaimer: Born and raised BASIC/4GL programmer.

 

It's your programming background that determines whether BASIC first or assembly first is better. Most people I know were raised on farm fresh MS Basic and worked "down" to assembly routines.

I've never done too well with assembly, though I did do pretty well with visual basic(derived from basic)

[endrien]

I've started into bB. I just have to comment that so far I think starting with it is much better. Being able to get a sprite to appear on the screen without much effort is quite encouraging.

[+batari]

Not to put anybody on the spot or anything...but I'm reminded by a recent example where the idea was to check a bunch of variables and set a value if all cases were true (which was to be checked for a few different starting variables). It quickly became a problem just to try to figure out how to compose the lines...when in assembly it could be accomplished in a handful of bytes. That's an example of the language having a negative effect on a programmer's creativity.

I agree with this, as bB's simple conditions made it harder for beginners and experienced programmers alike. I spent the last few evenings working on this. It can generate efficient code, such as converting this (compiled with -O)

 if !u{0} then skip_the_rest
 if v<>1 then skip_the_rest
 if (a&3)=0 then set_x
 if (e&3)=0 then set_x
 if (i&3)=0 then set_x
 if (m&3)<>0 then skip_the_rest
set_x
 x=2
skip_the_rest

To this:

LDA u
LSR
bcc .skip_the_rest
    
LDA v
CMP #1
bne .skip_the_rest

LDA a
AND #3

beq .set_x
LDA e
AND #3

beq .set_x
LDA i
AND #3

beq .set_x
LDA m
AND #3

bne .skip_the_rest
.set_x

LDA #2
STA x
.skip_the_rest

Furthermore, the code suggestions that failed before will now work.