What's the point of JASS?

[Squishinator]

I have asked this question before, but i didn't get a good answer.

What is the overall point of JASS, besides fixing memory leaks? Is it just for a challenge or what?

Also: What are the advantages and disadvantages of JASS? GUI?

 

[the_ideal]

There are tons of things you can do with JASS that you can't do with GUI.

 

[Romek]

Jass is faster to use than GUI, as typing is generally faster than clicking, especially if you can touch-type. And if you can't, using Jass will help with that.
Jass is also much more efficient than GUI. GUI uses a lot of 'BJs', which are just functions that call another function.
You can declare your own functions in Jass. You can't in GUI.

And, Jass is overall, more flexible. You can do many more things in Jass than you can in GUI.

 

[Squishinator]

can you or someone give me an example? And... sorry for noobness but "declare functions"?

 

[Romek]

An example of what? Jass?

Hmm... Try making This or This in GUI. (See by the description).

They should give you a good understanding of how flexible Jass is.

 

[rover2341]

Like he said, Jass is script that the gui uses.

In other words its a lower level language. The lower level you go the more flexibility you have with more basic tools, also its potential to go faster is there.

Many users prefer jass over gui as you can type and its easier to port things to it. With more tools for you to use, it can make projects easier to do.
I Find though that jass is harder to learn, and that the gui has plenty of speed and power for most things, and for me doesn't take much longer to make the game with.

If you stick with the GUI your befits are that you don't have to spend time learning jass, and to me thats a large plus as i don't enjoy learning syntax. But it is really wise to learn a little jass to use when there is a function you need that the GUI doesn't have.

Personally i use the gui. And i have made a serverl projects that don't have noticeable lag that are fairly complex. But then again there arnt any spells in them.

 

[Romek]

Ahh, thanks for bringing up spells in GUI.
Spells in GUI generally aren't MUI, and aren't very configurable at all.

The select spells that are GUIMUI have the ugliest code ever, and I utterly hate every single GUIMUI spell out there.

Also, learning vJass is well worth it; Not only to create maps, but it's a very good step before learning any 'real' programming language. Most of the basics are in vJass.

I don't think people understand how relatively awesome vJass is unless they learn it.

 

[CaptDeath]

yes cause people dont understand the GUI is jass just that GUI to be more flexiable sucks in every possible way

like a person with 3 years GUI can be surpassed by someone with 1 years Jass/vJass

 

[Romek]

> yes cause people dont understand the GUI is jass just that GUI to be more flexiable sucks in every possible way
Would you mind translating that to English?

 

[bessomi]

MUI spells are much easier to trigger with JASS and some cant even be triggered in GUI

 

[DrEvil]

All GUI spells can be MUI , just it takes long and looks ugly as hell .
( Agree'ing with Romek on #7 )

 

[chovynz]

I have asked this question before, but i didn't get a good answer.

What is the overall point of JASS, besides fixing memory leaks? Is it just for a challenge or what?

Also: What are the advantages and disadvantages of JASS? GUI?

Besides what the other people have said, Jass is the language that Blizzard/Warcraft uses in EVERY map. What you do in Gui, gets written to Jass, so the Warcraft can understand it. When you move a unit with your mouse from the centre of the map, the GUI interface (what you use to choose your unit, terrain etc etc, player colour) all gets translated into Jass.

Warcraft then runs the map using the commands that you have told it to use; these commands are called functions.

The point of Jass, is so that Warcraft can do what you told it to do. The point of learning Jass is so that you can more quickly tell Warcraft what you want done.

I like to clarify it like this. Gui is for the artist type of person. Making maps in Jass is for the programmer type. Neither way is wrong, although you can certainly do MUCH more in Jass than Gui. Although Jass can be difficult to learn, it also can be very rewarding. When you start and experiment for a little, then you realise that you can just use the native functions, instead of the middle-man BJ functions, (What did I just say? I said "when you realise you can use a Unit X and Unit Y instead of Locations that cause memory leaks") You get excited about what else you can do.

One Jass vs One Gui function isnt going to save you much time. But look at the following example.

I can create a mass of doodads - lets say 500 crates - hanging in space with one combined function call in Jass. In every single game in warcraft, they will be in random places each time. I can define the limits of where they appear, I can say what model to use, I can even make different doodads appear with the same combined function. I can make them random heights every game. I can change this at anytime (in the editor) so that the next time I save; the limits vertex coloring, or select-ability, or individual size of each doodad is different.

I can do the same amount of crates (500) in the GUI editor. It would take me 30 times as long (under-estimate, I think - it should probably be more like...2-10 minutes in Jass if you know what your doing, versus 2 weeks in Gui) since I need to click and place each doodad. Then I need to select each one. Then I need to CtrlPgUp, CtrlPgUp, CtrlPgUp, PgUp, PgUp, until its where I want it. And at the same time Ctrl+ Ctrl+ Ctrl+ + to change the size. These placed doodads will not change every game. They will be there in the same place, no matter how many times I restart the map.

Both of these methods are valid and acceptable. But I know which one I would rather be doing. If you work visually I can almost guarantee that you would prefer Gui. However, when an artist understands how to speak the language of paint, it becomes much easier to paint the picture in your mind. When an artist further understand the language of the texture on which he is painting, the picture can be much more powerful.

It's like this in Gui/Jass. You might know how to do something in Gui, like adding a unit somewhere by adding him via your mouse. Or you can use the Gui function. Then you have to remove the location leak.

(Create [COLOR="Blue"]1[/COLOR] [COLOR="Blue"]Footman[/COLOR] at [COLOR="Blue"]Somelocation[/COLOR] for Player [COLOR="Blue"]1[/COLOR]  facing [COLOR="Blue"]180[/COLOR] degrees).

But when you understand what you are doing, and what is happening when you do so, you can use a leakless native.

(call CreateUnit(0,hf00,50,50,180)

native CreateUnit takes player id, integer unitid, real x, real y, real face returns unit

Some further reading for you.
http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showthread.php?t=102322
http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showthread.php?t=41495
http://www.wc3jass.com/index.php?scripts=1

The BEST way of learning Jass is to jump in and try things. When I was a regular here we had Jass schools, but I think those might have died out awhile ago. So... Jump in. Ask questions! Experiment. Make something in Gui then convert it to Jass to see what it does and what functions it uses! Then try to make it efficient (i.e. leakless without deleting leaks-using Custom scripts). Or better yet, learn what natives your most common GUI is using and write your own functions!

K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple Squishinator)

"You can do eet!"

 

[D.V.D]

Jass has many different functions in it that help around in coding like hide item and stuff like that. Jass codes work quicker and better. Jass is easier to make MUI and MPI(using just locals). Jass can make its own functions and variable types. Jass is just better. Only disadvantage is learning it once you know GUI. Its a pain.

 

[Chewbalka]

After you learn about jass you would be thinking, whats the point of gui?

 

[D.V.D]

So true. GUI is actually just the first step to coding and GUI is actually not bad. The coolest spells were made from GUI. Heres the link to the vids, the owners didn't release the code because they were used in their maps. Links:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6mI_Z29iBo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeZr2MROmjg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ0eivKTJWI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_iqcLDKtMs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH-ap16tj3w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5njK_tEQPI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7i5Z3C5ZOk&feature=related

The last link is a game were you press the up arrow key until your laser beam hits the target.

 

[Darthfett]

GUI is about making things simple, and to get things done. Blizzard made it so new people could easily begin creating their own maps, without having to learn an entire new language. It is in plain English, and has descriptions to teach you what you need to know about the functions.

However, GUI is also very restrictive. There aren't any real ways to get faster, compared with JASS. If you want a trigger that does one thing, there's one way to do it in GUI. There's a hundred in JASS.

JASS is much more complicated. It is very freeform, which means you have to know the language to really be efficient. However, that also means you can save hours of time by reusing code, and in the process making a faster running map.

In a way, JASS is more creative, as you can write the same code a hundred different ways. You can create your own functions, and create systems that no one ever thought of.

I haven't heard of anyone preferring GUI over JASS, once they've learned it. Once you get used to JASS, you realize just how restricting GUI is.

JASS is fun, because you get to test your code, and see a foolproof, clean, MUI code in action. GUI is fun, because you get to make a game for friends to play.