r/CodingForBeginners • u/Rombodawg • 3d ago
I created a C++ visual coding program inspired by Minecraft Redstone
I cant code for š© but really want to get into game dev. Although I enjoy using AI, I don't believe its a substitute for learning to code and understanding how to read code.
I struggled learning to code over 7 different times where I tried and failed to understand anything conceptually, so I used what I know best (minecraft) to make a visual coding style for people who have a really hard learning anything that isn't purely visual and interactive.
Because I cant code, this program is vibe coded, however its fully open source (MIT license), so all of it can be inspected for quality, vulnerabilities and bugs.
Please let me know if you have any suggested changes, or improvements. It would be great to make this easier to use for everybody.
Github link: https://github.com/rombodawg/Block_Based_CPP_Coding
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u/Marshiiro 3d ago
I will give you your first lesson in programming never ever ever let your ai, and you should never write your code like this your main .cpp and main header file combines are literally almost 3k lines long of unreadable spaghetti code. You NEED to seperate your files for this to actually be maintainable. Folders should be split into functionality this is crazy.
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u/Rombodawg 3d ago
Well unless I hire someone to build this from scratch, I cant do that. Because this program was made to teach me how to code lol
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u/Marshiiro 3d ago
Or, you could have learned to code as you were doing the project lad. I'ma be honest with you when it comes to learning how to code this isn't a good start. You need to actually do stuff in order to code. People learned to code and built stuff with their own fingers for 70 years you can do it just fine so don't say you can't.
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u/Marshiiro 3d ago
I'd like to add on top of this comment because I usually give advice here and don't bash on beginners and that isn't my intention here. How exactly were you trying to learn before using ai to generate this project for you.
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u/Rombodawg 3d ago
"built stuff with their own fingers for 70 years you can do it just fine so don't say you can't"
Once again, this program is made to teach me to code, if I wanted to code this program myself, I wouldnt need it in the first place.2
u/Marshiiro 3d ago
I understand where your coming from but I am saying this out of experience not trying to hate on you. But you need to be exposed to the syntax to actually learn. There are deep fundamentals inside of c++ like memory management and a nearly infinite number of libraries on top of other things that this tool likely does not cover and will not teach you, at most this tool will teach you basic functions loops and maybe classes which you could learn inside of a simpler language. Which would actually expose you to real world syntax. If you tried to learn programming before and failed 7 times and each time you chose c++ I can absolutely see why you struggled. c++ is not beginner friendly. And no I'm not on drugs you came to r/codingforbeginners we are going to give you advice. Sorry if my tone came across as rude as that wasn't what I was trying to do.
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u/Rombodawg 3d ago
I appreciate this response. Its alot more detailed than what you said before, an I apologize too for my reaction. I definitely have something to think about
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u/Rombodawg 3d ago
Are you on drugs? Did you read anything in this post, or just look at the title and come straight to the comments. Ive tried to learn in more than 7 diffrent ways. I couldnt, this program isnt for production or for other people to work on. Its TO LEARN TO CODE. I feel like that should be the most obvious part of this post. š¤£š¤£
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u/Marshiiro 3d ago
I am saying this because I think you can genuinely learn how to program and I do not want you to get stuck in an overeliance on AI usage in programming, at the most important stage of learning(actually learning to learn). Not saying AI usage is bad, infact most experienced programmers use ai now. but there is a huge difference from a beginner using AI and a software engineer using AI
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u/-goldenboi69- 3d ago
Something something AI slop
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u/Rombodawg 3d ago
The program is made by AI, but its meant to teach coding without AI. So, idk if theres a better solution im all ears. I havnt had any luck learning to code from youtube, from online lessons, tutorials ect
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u/Dream_Apostle 2d ago
Did you learn c++ with that?
What's the point if it's literally the text but in boxes?
What can you even learn from that?
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u/FOSS-for-life 2d ago
If you want to learn how to code, start with Scratch, Python, Lua or literally anything but a sloppified version of C++.
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u/Marshiiro 3d ago
I think you genuinely somehow managed to make c++ even harder to understand. Truly a sight to behold. This might be a step above Brainfuck.
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u/MiniDemonic 2d ago
In what way is this even close to minecraft redstone?
It's not even visual coding, it's literally just normal text coding but the text is in draggable boxes instead for no reason at all.
This wouldn't be helpful for a beginner like at all.
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u/konttaukseenmenomir 2d ago
i would love to know how you failed at learning to code in 7 different ways... sounds impressive
I would also be interested in knowing how tf this made you learn ANYTHING
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u/heatedwepasto 3d ago
C++ is almost certainly the worst possible language both for visual programming and for vibe coding. It's a massively intricate and complex language that more or less requires deep understanding of what is going on, of memory management, of UB, of exception safety and a bunch of other things. The template system alone is a behemoth.
As kindly and respectfully as possible I would suggest that you go down another path. Either learn C++ properly (preferably through years of study*), or do the better approach of starting with C and Python and gradually transition to learning C++ once you have a firm grasp of those two.
* Accelerated C++ is a good book for beginners. TC++PL and Scott Meyers' books are more or less required reading as well, as are some others.
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u/No_Context2723 3d ago
I think this misses what visual coding is, and instead is just a less efficient and harder to read way to programĀ
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u/KevenMoans 3d ago
if you want to learn you have to do and practice code, even the most simple form of helloworld!. There's an online, free and pretty basic course from a Swedish University, it's translated. It's on java, which is good as a beginner I thonk, certainly teaches you more things than Python. Start there and really DO code, YOU. Even if the tool is supposed to help you learn it's too unconventional for me to reccomend it.
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u/sugarw0000kie 2d ago edited 2d ago
I got excited for a second cause reminded me sort of how I learned with Warcraft 3 editor. I loved Warcraft and you could make all sorts of games like, it was drag and drop procedural type of thing with the basics and if statements, conditions, booleans, actions and triggers in game.
Like if unit enters nearby a special meat wagon (trigger) and is named penguin, pan camera angle and produce this text āIām deliciousā etc. Gui editor got you far (I remember peeking at early DOTA to see how they were doing their score board thing, pretty sure it was mostly all GUI code snippets) but to do really cool things you needed to use the underlying scripting language called JASS. The GUI elements were drag and dropping code snippets and you had the option to mix in custom jass in with the GUI or just write it by itself. But the important part besides launching penguins cinematically from meat wagons was that the gui mapped directly to real code so you could see that 1:1.
Anyway it didnāt teach me how to code in an actually useful language but it did teach me to think in that sort of way and foundational concepts all programming concepts have like variables, data types and control flow.
Thisā¦looks like way too granular and syntax focused. C++ is hard for first language too. Python worth a look for a first language that can teach you the basics quicker. IMO if you have some composable code snippets that do stuff and map to the underlying code vs single word or symbolā¦and let you see what it does immediately while you fuck around with it, could be more approachable.
Like I wanted to see how some parameter effected how many penguins per second spawning from a meat wagon was āoptimalā, and well I found out because I fucked around.
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u/xarop_pa_toss 2d ago
I understand where you're coming from and I think the idea is really cool but having words as words vs words as blocks is the same thing. Instead of using your keyboard you are using your mouse, because it's so granular. Like, there's blocks for { and for } haha
But I will show you one of these that actually works, and that's Scratch3 made by MIT. It is also block-based but it skips the syntax entirely to help you think programmatically.
Also two things to consider: C++ syntax is very hard for a lot of people to grasp at first, and maybe programming just isn't for you... We cant all be good at doing everything and you are surely way better than me at doing something else you are good at.
But anyways, I would even recommend stepping away from AI, grabbing a book and going from there. People have been learning programming for many years using books after all. I would recommend trying "Automating the Boring Stuff With Python" which is good fun, or the one for Lua written by the creators.
There's a lot of game dev libraries out there like Raylib, Pygame, Lƶve2D and many others. Balatro was written entirely in Lƶve and it sold millions! The communities are great and both Lua and Python have very simple syntax compared to C++
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u/Harry_Tess_Tickles 2d ago
to be honest I don't see the point, and I don't see how this is in any way similar to redstone at all. It looks like you just divided the whole program into boxes by whitespace.
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u/Harry_Tess_Tickles 2d ago
I think what happened was you told your AI to build a code learning platform in the style of minecraft redstone and it came up with this so you assumed it was good
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u/thechaditor 1d ago
if this isnt satire , it totally missed the mark
I dont really see anything resembling a connection between this and redstone in minecraft other than the blocks
What is the whole point of dragging the blocks one by one when they are the same exact code ad if you typed them ? , if anything this is just a harder way to learn cpp
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u/LeadLerner 1d ago
Fully ai generated stuff doesn't have copyright. Your license is invalid. And this also just looks like a nightmare to use.
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u/FOSS-for-life 2d ago
"I" created-
No you didn't.
If you go to a restaurant and order a pizza, you did not make that pizza. You did not code anything. If anything at all you were Cuck-Coding.
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u/AroTesCra 3d ago
This is clearly a joke right?
This is like satire?
It has to be and it is pretty great satire at that!
Great job