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[Yautja]

i want to learn how to make my own homebrewn appz and games i want to learn how to read and write c++, dos, source codes, and whatever else i need to make my own homebrew app or simple game for ds...

and i need your help the ones who have learned on there own and found the neccisary things to do this.

i need everything you have on this subject of homebrew.

please either post here or send me an email (TealC_Master_taree@msn.com)(if this is against the rules i will edit out just tell me) with all the info you can give me guides programs EVERYTHING.
i hope to be able to "ride with the best of'em" one day.

Thanks


Yautja

[Koji]

i want to learn how to make my own homebrewn appz and games i want to learn how to read and write c++, dos, source codes, and whatever else i need to make my own homebrew app or simple game for ds...

and i need your help the ones who have learned on there own and found the neccisary things to do this.

i need everything you have on this subject of homebrew.

please either post here or send me an email (TealC_Master_taree@msn.com)(if this is against the rules i will edit out just tell me) with all the info you can give me guides programs EVERYTHING.
i hope to be able to "ride with the best of'em" one day.

Thanks


Yautja

You are a long long way before you make homebrew for GBA or DS. First step would probably to learn C/C++. For that you can do any number of searches for tutorials. They have some available at www.crogramming.com to get you started.

[karurosu]

The short way is:
Learn C
Learn PA_lib

With that you can start coding for NDS, but I have to tell you, it's shorter than using the NDs devkit, but it doesn't mean is going to be easy.

[WarGames]

some links posted here:
http://www.scdev.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2307

[bitblt]

Many well known programmers are self taught.  For example John Carmack (founder of ID Software) never attended a university. Ken Silverman published his first software title at age 15, and 3 years later signed a contract with Apogee software to create Duke Nukem 3D. Bill Gates started developing basic interpreters when he was in High School, and dropped out of college after he formed a company called Microsoft.  Microsoft sold variants of his BASIC interpreter to big corporations like Atari and Commodore, and later acquired ownership of a little home-brew application called (MS)DOS.

I live a comfortable life in Las Vegas working as a Game Software Engineer for a successful international Gaming company.  I am self taught.  I graduated BASIC and started developing software in C and 6502 asm at age 14, mostly game demos.  Presently in my spare time (i have two kids) I develop software for GBA and DS as a hobby.  I am currently trying to optimize (ARM asm) the inner loop of my first release for DS.

Let me tell you this:

The GBA and the DS are excellent platforms to learn how to program C and ASM.  They are embedded systems with well organized 32 bit flat memory models.  This means . . . they are much simpler to program than DOS or Windows, especially games.  When you program GBA/DS there is no DOS4GW, or Win32, or DirectX, or APIs, or OS or anything . . . just your code.

If you have zero programming experience then I recommend learning something like QBASIC as a first step.  Once you understand IF, GOSUB, FOR, WHILE, CASE, variable assignment, binary logic, and hexadecimal, you are well on your way.  Anyone with an IQ of 100 and a logical mind can learn how to program.  It just takes determination and practice.  It's fun!

If you have any previous experience, QBASIC, Visual Basic, Pascal, Java, C/C++, ASM, etc., the fundamental concepts of programming are all the same. The only real difference is syntax and environment.  If you are intelligent enough to install DevKitPro, load a sample project, build it, and run the result on your DS, you can program for DS.  Just tweak and hack a simple demo until you start to feel comfortable. Program silly little things. A full blown application is merely an organized collection of simple little things. If all else fails read the documentation.

If you have some experience with C/C++, and would just like to get started programming games for GBA/DS, I recommend HAM Ngine for GBA and "Programming The Nintendo Game Boy Advance by Jonathan S. Harbour" . . .
http://www.jharbour.com/gameboy/default.aspx

The DS documentation and the DevkitPro tool chain are works in progress . . . and therefore more challenging to get started with.  For DS, I highly recommend developing with WiFiMe, and also an emulator.  Perhapse I will find time to write a "ARM asm for DS newbies" tutorial, but don't hold your breath.

Edit:
I should have typed this in word first before posting so many edits  :oops:

[Kudaku]

^wow that was a lot of help thanks
(was looking into teaching myself coding as well)

[cory1492]

An overly excellent guide to C++ can be found here, although it is not necissaryily the best place to start for the beginner:
http://mindview.net/Books/TICPP/ThinkingInCPP2e.html