Holiday offer.. 50% off Cobra3D Module

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Socoder -> Cobra -> Holiday offer.. 50% off Cobra3D Module
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Mon, 15 Dec 2008, 16:34
Hotshot	good Offer for Cobra 3D Module. So if you buy 2D and 3D then it cost £50 altogether which is good value for moneys. here for more informations below www.cobrabytes.com
Mon, 15 Dec 2008, 17:20
Jayenkai	Not a bad price at all.. And had I not completely f'ing wasted £60 on BlitzMax earlier on this year, I would probably be interested in giving that a go. As it stands, though, I really need to try and get a few projects finished, first, before I go messing about with a whole other new language.. .. again! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Mon, 15 Dec 2008, 17:24
JL235	Is the offer posted on the linked topic? Cos if your not a member it asks you to login when you go to it. Can you not see it without logging in?
Mon, 15 Dec 2008, 17:43
steve_ancell	And even when logged-in, I get the message... An Error Has Occurred! The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you.
Mon, 15 Dec 2008, 17:59
JL235	This seems like a bit of an oversight as this essentially excludes new users.
Mon, 15 Dec 2008, 18:28
HoboBen	Oh - It's on the CobraBytes homepage, if you scroll down. -=-=- blog \| work \| code \| more code
Fri, 19 Dec 2008, 14:02
Hotshot	had anyone bought COBRA yet while going on cheap?
Fri, 19 Dec 2008, 16:05
Jayenkai	Nope! I only just finished off AD2, and I've another 3 or 4 games planned, so.. too busy! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Tue, 30 Dec 2008, 08:24
shockwave	Is anyone still using Cobra? What's the 3D module like? I'm thinking of dropping support for the language from my forum tbh because nobody seems to want to use it. -=-=- https://www.dbfinteractive.com
Wed, 31 Dec 2008, 12:56
Phoenix	Hey, Shocky That's quite a rare face over here. As far as I can gather the community seems to be fairly small, and over here it's not being talked about in abundance either. HoboBen and flying_cucco are/were using it from time to time, if I remember correctly. It never seemed to grow as large as I expected it to do.
Fri, 02 Jan 2009, 14:13
shockwave	Hi Phoenix, Well I lurk here a lot, truth is that I had forgotten my password and had to email Jay for a new password. Shame it seems to have not taken off as well as expected, but there's lot's of competition I guess so anything new needed to be exceptional. I was dissapointed with Cobra personally, I found it slow, bloated and expensive. -=-=- https://www.dbfinteractive.com
Fri, 02 Jan 2009, 14:52
Jayenkai	Expensive? I'll admit to having (still!) not used it enough to see if it's either Slow or Bloated, but I wouldn't consider it expensive... I oughta give it a proper go, but every time I install the demo, I tend to carry on with Project XYZ, and forget all about the damned thing! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Fri, 02 Jan 2009, 16:08
mike_g	Well from what I can tell its faster than BB, which is generally good enough for me. Tbh, I havent really used it a lot since I bought it as I have been focusing on more mainstream languages. But I would agree that with the 3D module on top it gets fairly expensive especially when there are open source alternatives that seem to be just as good.
Fri, 02 Jan 2009, 20:14
JL235	And typically the free alternatives have more support/development.
Fri, 09 Jan 2009, 05:01
shockwave	I'll admit to having (still!) not used it enough to see if it's either Slow or Bloated, but I wouldn't consider it expensive... Well as an example, Graham seemed to be keen to have some people code graphics demos in it. Pixel blitting is definately slow and the files are spat out at around the 1mb mark (compressed!). When I played with it I found it was significantly slower than every other language I had used when blitting pixels to the screen, even slower than Blitz (in Blitz it is possible to do some fairly good things in 640*480, cobra was not capable). I asked Graham about the possibility of using inline assembly language to speed things up and in fairness he implimented asm tags, but to give an example, assembling a small program using repstosd to fast fill a screen in fasm spat out a tiny tiny file, freebasic did the same inline asm example using tinyptc and crunched to 6kb with kkrunchy, the cobra version was still around 1mb, and for some reason the assembler commands executed slower than FB or fasm. Having said all that, it's probably not a fair comparison because most people who buy Cobra would not use it to write demos and as a language for writing games it's fine... It's just that I have not been impressed with anything I have seen from the Cobra community. And typically the free alternatives have more support/development. I would agree with that. Considering the expense of Cobra, well for the same amount of cash you could own purebasic or blitzmax, or coming to think of it, for no money you can download microsoft visual studio and the platform sdk for nothing. Programming languages are such a competitive area. Maybe the 3D module adds a lot to cobra? Has anyone used it? -=-=- https://www.dbfinteractive.com
Fri, 09 Jan 2009, 07:41
JL235	I don't think 1mb is an unreasonable size for a desktop application, regardless of how simple the application is. You also cannot produce commercial software with the express edition of Visual Studio. However if I am using it to sell software then the license fee is pretty small. But there are plenty of completely free alternatives. But I can't just help thinking what would be the point in using Cobra? Compared to the mainstream languages it's got a worse editor, very little support, very little development, costs money and I'd happily bet it's a lot less performant (although the speed of the language isn't everything).
Fri, 09 Jan 2009, 07:50
Jayenkai	I wonder how different Cobra would've been viewed had CW still been around? CW "died" on more or less the week that Cobra was launched, and the whole thing just caused a whole bunch of chaotic confusion. If everyone were still in the single community then it would've, at the very least, given Graham a lot more people to play about with his test engine. It's such a shame that his language was pretty much shafted by Idigicon closing CW. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Fri, 09 Jan 2009, 08:06
shockwave	Oh, undoubtedly Coders Workshop dissapearing must have really hurt Graham. I can't even imagine how annoyed I would be had I been in the same position as him and having invested so much time writing a language. I've been loosley involved with Idigicon twice (once George Bray offered to sponsor a competition of mine) and the second time as a beta tester for Ibasic. On both occasions the relationship between me and them broke down (a lot of it was down to me), but yeah, it looks like Graham was left unsupported by Idigicon. Back on topic, (sorry for wandering) application size is not a problem for games and such, true, but consider this.. Receptor by TBC: www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=51449 (You'll need a good PC to run it with an up to date gfx card with shader model 3); This entire intro, graphics, music, everything is created on the fly (there is a 40 second precalc time), but the file size is 4kb! How many MB would Cobra need? A 1mb file to clear the screen with a simple assembly language loop using rep stosd (compiles to about 60bytes maximum using fasm).. Thats way out of the ball park, I bought 4 copies of Cobra. I gave 3 of them away on my forum as competition prizes, the winners (all accomplished and highly competant coders) were all dissapointed with the language and sadly gave up on it. -=-=- https://www.dbfinteractive.com
Fri, 09 Jan 2009, 08:37
JL235	But that's presuming it adds nothing to the code. If it's a guanranteed 1mb minimum then I would expect there is some setup/runtime code being added to the .exe.
Fri, 09 Jan 2009, 08:40
shockwave	Yes, definately. It's adding all sorts of (not needed) stuff. -=-=- https://www.dbfinteractive.com
Fri, 09 Jan 2009, 08:47
JL235	Just to clarify, my point though is not that it's 1mb times 'x amount of code' but 1mb plus 'x amout of code'. But getting back to my point about the alterntives. Companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft have large full time teams working on compilers and compiler optimisations. These work with the full time teams at Intel and AMD who are experts about PC architectures. How can one guy compete with that?
Fri, 09 Jan 2009, 09:08
shockwave	But getting back to my point about the alterntives. Companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft have large full time teams working on compilers and compiler optimisations. These work with the full time teams at Intel and AMD who are experts about PC architectures. How can one guy compete with that? Well, V1ctor competed with it with Freebasic and made something that is arguably better than many full price languages. Graham seems to be a really nice and genuine guy, this is sounding like I am slating him, I really am not, he's one of the best people you could deal with. I wish him every good fortune and I hope he finds somewhere good to work. -=-=- https://www.dbfinteractive.com
Sat, 10 Jan 2009, 02:37
HoboBen	Maybe the 3D module adds a lot to cobra? I've started using the 3D a bit more recently - realtime shadow volumes and GLSL shaders are really easy to implement and the engine is definitely capable once you've figured out what everything does (I will say the 3D docs are still lacking, but the forums are pretty good for working things out). Still a few bugs left, but all the bad ones are out of the way. I thought Cobra's 2D engine was fantastic though - it's really solid now, and sprites with full alpha + rotation are really fast. That's where the engine shines, really - you can happily throw hundreds of sprites at it. -=-=- blog \| work \| code \| more code
Sat, 10 Jan 2009, 07:12
squeakyduck	I don't normally post here (or anywhere much these days), but I though it was worth a few items of defense. 1. I don't talk about the idigicon thing, but yes, it did limit how much I could promote Cobra, with obvious consequences. 2. Speed, In some things it's slower than blitz, others it's faster. Generally if you try and do things the blitz way, it will be slower, do it the cobra way, and it's a lot faster. I know I can do any pixel based effect which may be done in b3d and it'll work faster in Cobra. In response to some of comments on shockwaves board, I build a special 'demoscene' module which was optimized for pixel bashing.. and brought exe size down to a couple of hundred k (ok not 4k, but Cobra works in a different way, same as b3d). But, no one used it, so it didn't get any additions. People talk about lack of development, which is truly saddening... People talk about being disappointed, but where is the post on my forum to allow me to address the disappointments, nope.. not there, and I'm afraid I am not psychic. 3. Price, it was pitched to be similar to the cost of b3d + features, the current offer (which will last until the end of Jan) brings it to about 75% of the b3d price, with more features, which personally I think isn't bad. 4. Bloated, well compared to some other languages, yes. I don't disagree.. But it's a different beast. A language plus a 2d/3d language, and one with a hell of a lot of features. For me as an indie, it was easier to develop as a single interacting module. This was as it was originally planned with Idigicon, after a couple of years development, it was a little difficult to change after the fact. When it comes down to it, these things live and die by the community, which is something I've not managed to generate in sufficient volume. If you have a team, and the funding to promote it, it's pretty easy to keep developing. If not, then you have to depend a lot on people reporting bugs, reporting difficulties, making suggestions. There are some key people who have continually done this, for which I am very greatful (and if people check out the forum, the suggested features are 'almost' always added). As for the future, well, it is still under development, the 2d and 3d engines will soon be released (finally) for use with other languages (Delphi/C/Bmax/B3D/Purebasic maybe Freebasic), and Cobra2 'may' well be along at some time which is designed for multiplatform, as well as smaller exe's, but who knows... Anyway, rant over.. I'm off back to my corner..
Sat, 10 Jan 2009, 08:16
Jayenkai	Like I've said before, I've not yet really given it a good test. It's something I should do, but with the whole AGameAWeek thing, I rarely have the time. Plus, the last time I did bother to try something, BlitzMax turned out to be a rotten horrible purchase.. As Graham says, perhaps that is due to me coding "In my way" as opposed to in BlitzMax's way.. But it's pixel drawing speed was frantically different on one system, than another. that's not me, that's Blitz's fault. So, sod it! And, apologies Graham.. I've not given yours a go yet. Maybe this year'll be Cobra year! Who knows!! And, no.. It's not really any more bloated than Blitz is.. I think it's just Shockwave's attempt at "Teensy Tiny exes" that's the issue, there -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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