Quote: "I am kind of confused how the dollar symbol works."
It's dead easy when you get the hang of it. It's actually covered in the tutorials, but they are quite big and it's easy to skip vital info when you first start. We want you to read boring tutorials whereas you want to start making a fantastic 3D game...
There are 2 basic variable types in DB Classic - Numeric and String.
There are two sub-type numeric variables - one to hold whole numbers (integers) like 100, 573 and 21873 and the other to hold decimal numbers (or 'floats') like 3.142, 22.663 and 1.99.
As a variable name can be pretty much what you want it to be, DB has to have a way to distinguish which of these types you want your variable to be.
It does this by having you add symbols on the end of the variable's name - the hash symbol (#) and the dollar sign ($).
Take the variable name 'Fred':
Fred = 100
In this situation no trailing symbol is used so Fred is an integer variable and can hold
whole numbers.
Fred# = 100.0
In this situation, the # says Fred is a float variable and can hold
decimal numbers. Notice that even with 100, you still have to add the .0 on the end.
Fred$ = "This is a string"
In this situation, the $ says Fred is a string variable and can hold alphanumeric characters, words and sentences. The quotes show DB where the string starts and ends.
In your example above, it would result in an error because you missed out the closing quotes and semi-colon:
Input "please enter your name here: name$
should be:
Input "please enter your name here: ";name$
Precision is absolutely vital in programming. Miss out a single full stop, comma or space and you'll get what's called a syntax error which roughly translates into "you've not typed something in right dummy!"
As for the quiz at the end of tutorial 1, don't waste too much time on it - just look at the answer at the start of tutorial 2 and see how much you can follow...
TDK_Man
