Sort A Vector Of Integers With The Quicksort Algorithm In C++

April 29, 2019 Nic Raboy

If you're studying computer science, at some point you're going to be exposed to the Quicksort algorithm. Even if you're not a computer science student, chances are this particular algorithm will come up at some point in time as part of an interview. I've been asked about it plenty of times in interview processes and never once used it again.

Whether or not you'll ever use the Quicksort algorithm, it is important to know and that is what we're going to review in this back to the basics tutorial.

In this tutorial we're going to sort a vector of integer values using the Quicksort algorithm. We're going to use a vector because it is a commonly used data structure in C++.

Building a Simple Web Application in Dart

April 24, 2019 Ewald Horn

Dart is a programming language developed by Google and made popular by Flutter, their mobile development framework for cross-platform application development.

The Dart language is a general-purpose language, built to be used for far more than just mobile development, and, in this short tutorial, I will show you how to build a basic web application, using Dart.

Getting Familiar With Arrays And Vectors In C++

April 22, 2019 Nic Raboy

When it comes to the fundamentals of computer programming, arrays will almost always make an appearance. Being able to store a collection of values could be beneficial to a near endless amount of use-cases.

To continue the back to the basics programming series, in this tutorial we'll explore standard arrays as well vectors which are a much more powerful alternative when it comes to C++.

Using Socket.io to Create a Multiplayer Game with Angular and Node.js

April 17, 2019 Nic Raboy

When it comes to client and server communication, there are quite a few approaches towards solving the problem. You could create a RESTful API or GraphQL API on your server and consume it on-demand with your client, or you can go the socket approach and interact in real-time through events. There isn't a wrong way to do things, but some ways are better than others given the task at hand.

Let's take for example gaming and online multiplayer games. While certain aspects of the game would make sense to use REST or GraphQL, not everything would feel responsive enough. Instead it makes sense to use sockets.

In this tutorial we're going to explore Socket.io for our client and server communication. We're going to create a Socket.io server with Node.js and that server will communicate with each of our games running as Angular applications.

Getting Familiar With Loops In C++

April 15, 2019 Nic Raboy

In this back to the basics tutorial, we're going to be exploring loops in C++, something that you'll take with you well into your software development career, regardless of programming language. The content in this tutorial is targeted at new developers or those that would like to start learning C++.

So when might you want to use a loop? If you need to perform a repetitive task of any kind, a loop is probably going to be want you want to use.

In this tutorial we're going to explore for loops, while loops, and do-while loops using the C++ programming language.

TPDP Episode #26: Game Development With Houdini

April 10, 2019 Nic Raboy

The latest episode of The Polyglot Developer Podcast has been published and it is the first one on the show to be on the topic of game development!

In episode twenty-six titled, Game Development with Houdini, I'm joined by Ben Mears from SideFX, the company that is responsible for Houdini.

In case this is your first time hearing of Houdini, it is a system that allows you to create procedural, node-based workflows, for generating game assets and terrains. Houdini is used in many of the top rated games and significantly reduces parts of the game development time.

Configure Visual Studio Code For C++ Development

April 1, 2019 Nic Raboy

I mentioned a few months ago that I was going to periodically go back to the basics when it comes to computer programming and application development. Building a Hello World Example C++ Application was a first example of what I was talking about. However, in this previous example, much of our work was done in a basic text editor, then compiled and ran with a Command Prompt or Terminal. It works, but it isn't the most elegant.

In this tutorial we're going to see how to configure a more modern IDE for C++ development. Visual Studio Code (VSC) actually has really nice support for C++, so we're going to see how to configure it.