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Source Code, Hex Editing, & File Hacking Explained
By Raul “Datajack” Rodriguez

Source Code. To the average person these two words mean nothing. To a computer programmer, however, they mean everything. So what is source code anyway? Source code, in a nutshell, is the DNA of all software. Whether it’s a game or an enterprise business solution, it all begins as source code.

Writing software is like programming your VCR, except first you write down all of the instructions you want the VCR to perform, use a tool to change your instructions into a language the VCR can understand, and then loading these instructions into the VCR and telling it to execute these instructions. Of course no VCR exists that is programmed in this way, but I think you get the point.

The set of instructions you write down is source code. These instructions are a set of command words and a set of rules that detail how these commands are issued. This entity is known as a programming language. There are a number of programming languages in existence today.

The two most popular are basic (Microsoft Visual Basic) and C (Microsoft Visual C). Visual Basic is a language designed to produce business applications. It specializes in database applications and you can write very robust applications rather quickly. C is a more complete language. Programs written in C perform much faster, but are more difficult to create. In fact, Visual Basic was written with C! And yes, the language of choice for writing games is C.

In a world where frame rates are so important, you need a language that will run the code you write as fast as possible. This makes C the language of choice for writing games.

A look at the Microsoft Visual C environment

Once the code is written, it needs to be converted into a language the computer understands. A computer is an electronic device after all, and in the end can only understand the two states of electricity: on and off. On and off is represented as 1 (on) and 0 (off) in a computer. The work of converting the source code into a gigantic string of zeros and ones is the job of the compiler.

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