That is a fair point Bam. I can see it from both ends. A professional wouldn't run with a default network library (AFAIK) unless they were trying to rapidly churn out a prototype. But newbies might benefit from it.

But lets be honest... newbies don't often do network applications because they're the same problem as parallel code (which we know 99% of coders never do). Syncing two separate systems.

Everyone cool down. I think one person mistook a sarcastic comment for serious, and then it's just escalating. Nobody is actually trying to trash anyone. We're just miscommunicating. Use whatever library/IDE/language you want, I'm still gonna call you a friend.

Most newbies don't write event driven code either, at least not in C, but they're "forced" to with Allegro 5. Once they get over the hurdle of figuring out what that means, responding to events in the queue from a networking addon would be no different.

The addon could either define a simple delimited protocol so that it only ever supplied the programmer with a full "command" or "message", or else it could continue to build the message until the programmer acknowledged a certain length of data to "consume", and then flush that amount and start assembling the rest into a new message.

Or maybe define a standard structure to transmit data back and forth, with its own "Allegro networking protocol", and fill that structure with dynamic data based on how the addon is initialized.

There are plenty of things an addon could do, depending on what is useful for a beginner's game to communicate over the network. I've never actually attempted a networked game so I haven't given much thought to what the network messages would look like either, but others out there have and have.

.. though it didn't start with a particularly controversial post, did it? I love the way the OP popped up after 6 years and promptly disappeared. See you in 2025, BC.

Neil,
If you haven't tried it, I thoroughly recommend the NuGet packages for Visual Studio. By far the easiest way to do Allegro on Windows.

Let's all be excellent to each other,
Pete

I don't use Visual Studio. I have it, but not a fan. I prefer MinGW with the Code::Blocks IDE. Mainly because GNU compilers have better support for newer versions of C. I compile with the 2011 version of C (the GNU version of that standard which is better). What can I say, I like C.

IF I do program something with Allegro again (which is looking doubtful at this time) than I will grab a build from here if one is available. Otherwise I will work on making the transition over to SDL2, for better or worse. I hate to do it as I have always loved Allegro but lets face it. Its days are numbered unless something changes.

Allegro is viewed as a niche library even though it compares fairly equal to SDL. There were several Allegro users that made great games, but most of them have abandoned Allegro a long time ago. I talked to Peitz on Twitter and he said "I dropped Allegro long time ago and switched to Flash/AS3. Then we moved over to unity like everybody else". I talked to Ultio via email and asked about Loomsoft and his current projects where he replied that he too had stopped using Allegro. Neil is looking into SDL2. I don't know if Sirocco is still using Allegro or not nor do I know if Trent is still using it. Those are the main ones that spring to mind right off hand.

Last I heard, Trent was using SDL. I think his reasoning was that he wanted to use a library instead of having to also maintain one, or so I gathered from some tweets he made a while back.

I understand why so many think this site and the library are dead. Depot has come to a halt, news hasn't been updated in almost a year. Image of the Day hasn't been updated since April 24, 2014 and even then that was the only IotD for the entire year of 2014.

It definitely feels like the site is dying when you take into account that many of the users that made amazing games with Allegro have left. I remember having my eyes glued to the forums awaiting Sirocco's update on the next Fenix Blade playable demo, and after the second demo the updates came less and less. Didn't he say FB was basically dead with no plans to go back to it in the near future (a year or more ago now)?

I remember SOG and Owet Software. I think the most comical time was when I teamed up with Franky (can't remember his exact username) because he wanted to "mentor me in programming" and make some games. Then the first 'program' he sent me to "show" he was a good programmer was nothing more than a blue sky and cloud sprite background with a ripped Nintendo logo scrolling onto the screen, disappearing and looping with ripped music that turned out to not even be his. Also remember how Inphernic and X-G seemed to go out of their way to knock down every ambitious person that came to the site.

I remember a lot of developers being actually sad when Allegro did away with the Grabber.

I actually have a lot of good memories here and on IRC, but I agree, if the time comes where A.cc or Allegro itself has to end there is no reason to be sad about it.

You don't need a library or really any programming experience it appears. Look at how many games are on Steam that are nothing more than slightly modified Unity/Unreal tutorials. Then there are studio pages who made one game and then just change the assets and republished as new games.

Never played WoW, to this day I still play FFXI and thinking about getting FFXIV.

I too just dabble now. Most of my time, until recently, was on Cplusplus.com or GameDev.net answering beginner questions. I'm going through LazyFoo's tutorials, but outside of that I write my game ideas down in a tablet like always with no plan to make any of them. I've joked with my wife that I'll have her bury the tablets with me when I die.

There are several companies using the name "Allegro", too, yet here we are.

Indeed. There was a furniture store in town here called 'Allegro Furniture' ... I also found some 'Allegro Cheese'.

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Well I couldn't access my old account because I lost access to the email address associated* with it but I thought I'd drop in anyway considering the significant amount of time I spent on this place... I'm glad to see all the usual faces sticking around as well!

I've actually restarted my studies back in 2014 thanks to a new software engineering career opening up (was previously stuck in electronics which I hated) and I've dabbled in professional software development for a desktop application for about 2 years now. Juggling work and studies has left me with a lot less time than before, but I hope my effort is rewarded in a couple of years.

While I may not developing 2D applications for the time being, I've seen a pretty similar problem that all libraries like Allegro have suffered from in the past years. I'm pretty dedicated to the usage of Ogre 3D because I enjoy the type of flexibility it provides, but it's hard to deny that ready-made engines like Unreal or Unity are just far more popular solutions for people who're just looking to make a game.

However, messing with Allegro 4 and 5 was a great learning experience for getting into programming that I do not feel any ready-made solution would have provided. I feel it's a necessary niche to fill for any programmers who're looking to build stuff from scratch but don't want to deal with the platform specifics. I think 4 might've filled this niche better on its time and 5's overall design was hampered by the demands of more modern rendering APIs.

I have very fond memories of this place, but I'm not surprised to see it has suffered from the same problem all small forums have. Either they've started consolidating into sort of mega forums (like NeoGAF) or dedicated communities to content rather than discussion like Reddit.

On another note: This place still has the best forum markup and emoticons.

EDIT: Some of you goofs are still using the xmas hat avatars I made.

*: Dunno if ML's still around, but I wouldn't mind a merge or an email/password change for the other account if possible.

Around these parts, it's December all year long. That's what I choose to believe anyway.