[comp.sys.amiga] Getting started in programming

dfrancis@tronsbox.UUCP (Dennis Francis Heffernan) (03/24/90)

	I seem to be cursed.

	I'd really like to take a crack at programming this beast in something
other than rexx (or CanDo, which I just got).  Thing is, I only have a one
meg/three floppy system (with an 030 card- don't ask).  And I can't really
afford to go out and buy a packaged like Lattice or whatnot.  I've seen
CAPE at a price I could handle, but...

	...I've also seen assemblers and C compilers out there in PD-Land.
I understand that you may not be able to do EVERYthing with these, but I was
sort of hoping that I could use these to fiddle around with for a while,
before sinking any cash into something I can't do or won't enjoy.

	I've got a small army of books, but I haven't touched them yet
for lack of a compiler to practice with.  (For the record, I've got 
AMIGA ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING by Jake Commander, Abacus' AMIGA C
FOR BEGINNERS, Waite's INSIDE THE AMIGA WITH C, and Addison-Wesley's 68000
ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE and 68030 ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE REFERENCE.  Oh, and I've got
the RKM's.)

	Now, here's the problem, and it might just be my imagination.  
I've got PDC.  It makes reference to some developer's disks available from
Commodore, but also says that a library provided by them will do in a pinch.
But there's no documentation for the library!  I've also got A68K.  Someone
recommended I get something called "small.lib" to use with that, so I did.
It ALSO has no docs.  (Not even a little read.me saying "Here it is, fool!".
I imagine whoever UL'ed it to the system I got it from repacked it without
whatever notices the designer put on it.)

	How essential are these libraries?  I really don't want to get 
started on the thousands of pages of reading material here to find out that
I'm not going to get anywhere.  And if there's any good books out there I
missed, don't hesitate to suggest...  I expect that everything I need to 
know is somewhere in the Leaning Tower of Babel on my desk- I just want to
know before I start if I'm going about this in completely the wrong way,
and hoped some charitable soul who's already Done It would let me know if I
am.

	Email is fine; thanks in advance.


Dennis Francis Heffernan	|  "Great spirits have always 
dfrancis@tronsbox		|   encountered violent opposition
...uunet!tronsbox!dfrancis	|   from mediocre minds"
Killer GM- Reasonable fees	|   --Albert Einstein