Slashdot Mirror
Competitive Cross-Platform Development?
Avalonia asks: "I work for a software company in the oil and gas exploration industry with a software development team of seven. Our software and development environment is cross-platform on Solaris, Irix, Linux and Windows. Most of our customers are on Solaris and Irix 64-bit systems, but Linux and Windows are increasingly important. Our environment is based around an elaborate command-line system of Makefiles controlling four different compilers (gcc 3.1, Sun Forte, Irix MIPSpro and Visual C++ 7). Needless to say, maintaining this system and producing modern multi-threaded C++ that will go through the four build systems is time-consuming in the extreme. A large proportion of our time is spent finding C++ code that just works rather than being creative and competitive with new functionality. What tools and strategies can we use to increase our productivity and regain our competitive advantage, without going for Windows only?"
"Our recent single-platform competitors (Windows only) can seriously outrun us in terms of productivity by using a single modern IDE development environment - such as C++ builder or Visual Studio - although we can scale onto larger multiprocessor Unix systems. With Windows 64-bit imminent we may lose our 'big-iron' scalability advantage. Java is not currently an option for the high-performance numerical and immersive graphical aspect of our applications."
why all the different compilers?
.. but can't gcc cross compile? At least then you could dump alot of the compiler-specific scripting in your build procedures.
Hrm, this seems too simple an answer, there must be something wrong with it
"Old man yells at systemd"
Why not just use gcc for all four platforms? The sticking point would likely be Windows, but even if you elect to stay with MFC++ for Windows, you've reduced the incompatibilities from four to two different compilers.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Are you kidding me? They are building a real application that performs and does multi-threaded as only C++ can do. If you can't use java, what makes you think that perl, especially interpretted, would do the trick? Yeah, fine for prototyping, but how is this going to help?
...begins in wonder
Why not do what a great many other people do (though I have a feeling that you may be doing this already), and target a specific platform for initial release, and then release on the others afterward? This allows you to focus on the platform that gives you the most bang for the buck, but still keep your scaling advantage. If you already have an established product/development environment, then you should already know enough to keep from doing any of the "big mistakes" when it comes to writing portable code. Plus this allows you to divvie up your engineers into functionality vs porting.
Another thing would be to standardize on say, gcc. since the source is available, you can do whatever tweaks you need to to get around any performance issues (I know, easier said than done). Then standardize on things like configure.
...why you think you can't use Java.For all the bad press Java gets about being "slow", it is mostly old, outdated FUD. Newer virtual machines are often faster than C/C++ applications, especially in the number crunching arena. Intensive graphics are no big issue since Java now has a fullscreen API (page flipping, double buffering, and all that), a very fast implementation of Java3D, and (if you prefer) OpenGL wrappers.
Even if you feel that Java doesn't cut it for everything, apply the 80/20 rule. 80% of your non-performance critical code in Java, and the later 10& in C/C++. This solution would at least *reduce* your multi-platform woes. You might try posting this on JavaGaming. The guys over there are wizards at making Java perform with intensive graphics. (No surprise considering that some of the industries greatest performance experts hang out there.) They can also help you find the APIs you need. I'd really take a second look before you toss Java out as an option.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Java isn't an all or nothing deal. You could write your app in Java and then convert the parts that really need performance into C and call it via JNI. Then you only have to deal with keeping a much smaller C library portable.
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If you are under Linux, I'm afraid the games probably won't perform well. (Little issue with getting X to be configured to handle high speed direct-framebuffer graphics). However, DataDino should work, although you may need to get the installer instead of using the super-cool WebStart link (Mozilla problem only!). If you don't have a database to use, visit the "Supported Databases" page and download the test HSQLDB database.
The plain and simple fact is that Java is fighting two issues:
1. Poorly written apps that give all Java apps a bad name. (For example, "genius" A decides to load a table before releasing the event thread. Table takes 5 minutes to load and user gets annoyed. The solution would have been to load the table in a separate thread so that the user can see and interact with the table items as they are being loaded.)
2. Perceived performance vs. actual performance. People see Swing and the default look and feel and instantly "feel" that the app is slower than windows. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In all reality, it is probably running faster than the Windows app, it just doesn't seem right. This is caused by the Java L&F being way too "flat". Your brain doesn't quite connect the buttons and other objects as being solid objects to be manipulated.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade