At one point or another most programmers will have a dream... a dream to code the most complex application type known... a dream... to write GAMES!!
In about 2 more days, that dream will be closer to reach with the release of Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express a combination of both Visual C# Express, a framework to make game developement easier, and a bunch of tools (I think!) to make the job easier as well.
I'm looking forward to the release for 2 things, one is the obvious fact that I have the dream too! The 2nd is... anything that makes it easier to write snazzier display graphics (such as with WPF and DirectX) is always usable in real world applications! I just hope I can still compile something as a user control in the XNA:GSE!
The easiest way to tell a current game developer how XNA will change the way he developes games for Windows is to show him the skeleton of a simple game, and here's one courtesy of the XNA Team Blog
public class SampleGame : Game
{
private GraphicsComponent graphics;
public SampleGame()
{
this.graphics = new GraphicsComponent();
this.GameComponents.Add(graphics);
}
protected override void Update()
{
}
protected override void Draw()
{
this.graphics.GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Blue);
this.graphics.GraphicsDevice.Present();
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
using (SampleGame game = new SampleGame())
{
game.Run();
}
}
}
You'll only really appreciate the simplicity of this loop if you have written any sort of game initialization and draw loop before.
Of course.. I am a bit peeved that they're using C# instead of VB for the first release, but I'll let it slide this time!