Ahem, speaking as a commercial developer (and you don't get much more commercial than console games), virtually all of our code is developed using command line compilers, and tools. Although it's amusing to note that CodeWarrior is currently the only IDE based development system to support console development (unless you count SN systems hooks into VC6).
Currently we maintain cross platform builds of the non-console specific portions of our engine and all of our tools, allowing us to build and test code in VC6, which has by far the better debugger. It's also usefull to compare the warnings raised by the different compilers, as ee-gcc catches some things VC6 misses, and vice-versa.
Many other PS2 developers use Linux based systems and the command line environment exclusively, as they were initially the only tools available. Or because the team chose to.
But I digress, the important thing is the language, not the environment. Indeed, you should never depend on the availability of a particular development environment, it may not be available for the next platform you develop for...
> How much of this stuff have you actually used, man?
WFC (which was truly appalling), MacApp (Photoshop is/was written almost entirely in MacApp), Pascal, and Java, although none of them anymore, exclusively C++, C, and EE/MIPS now.
> I use delphi as an example only because it's the only one of the above that I've used.
So that's 4/6 to me and 1/6 to you, not that I'm keeping score.
> By your ridiculous argument, java itself is only a hack of C++,
Java the language is. It's C++ with training wheels. Java the bytecode interpreter is something else. A knock off of p-code, ergo, another Pascal knock off.
> and therefore Sun=microsoft.
What? I dunno how you came to that conclusion. Nor what relevance it has to anything. Mind you, they're both peddling their own proprietary languages...
> I know I'm being extreme here, but I'm merely presenting to you the logical end of your argument.
Reductio ad absurdum, try and come up with a real argument rather than chasing your own tail. Or maybe you just have in inferiority complex regarding your use of a noddy language...;)
> Try to think your posts through more fully next time.
Patronising wanker. Go back to your grammar flames.
Jesus, it's getting so you can't even crack a joke round here anymore.
> Then again maybe this is just a strange neurosis of mine.
Nope, me too. Currently avoiding writing the rotational elements of a rigid body system as I can't bring myself to actually choose between quaternions and rotation matrices, as I'm not sure which will be more efficient...
> That means that all the distributed.net machines are going to have to work non-stop for a year to crack A SINGLE SONG. End of game.
...or, they can hack the code, and rip the unencrypted stream right out of the bleeding heart of the playback software.
Re:None, because Napster fucked it up for everyone
on
Helping Artists Online
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· Score: 1
> Why would anyone go to a website and go through the trouble of registering and/or entering credit card information simply to buy a song for a $1 that they can download for free off Napster in a shorter time? Remember all it takes is 1 person to buy it for it to get on Napster
You use kick ass servers that are more reliable than Napster users flaky connections, and are guaranteed to have the song you want, rather than half a million copies of the same Britney track.
> Why would anyone use a client that charged money per download when a free alternative exists?
Because it's (potentially) 1000% more reliable than Napster / Gnutella / Scour?
> Every encryption scheme can be broken given time.
Which is why you don't bother encrypting.
Unfortunately Napster has now perpetuated the idea that music over the internet sounds like shit, and is missing the last three minutes.
Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm a zen-athiest, not some bible thumping redneck.
However, I think that particular "commandment of our lord (ahhh, likkle baby) jesus" is a pretty good rule of thumb. It's not an exclusively xian sentiment either, dates back to the greeks y'know.
As Bill and Ted put it, "Be excellent to each other".
> What do they mean by real time content generation?
As in the content is generated (mixed, blended, rendered, animated, modified) in real time. Rather than played straight off of a video tape, or digital equivalent.
Think interactive IMAX (House of the Dead on an IMAX, with an army of demon hunters;). Or interactive amusement park rides. Or possibly the last word in client based game cheat defeats.
Oh, and real-time raytracing is still a red herring, the EE/GS combo still works best with good old triangles. Well, actually, it works best with 2d sprites, but I didn't say that...;)
All buttons? Have you seen the standadrd controllers for the N64, and Dreamcast, both have an analogue stick. The Dualshock for the PSX has two. The Dualshock 2 for the PS2 goes the whole hog, and has analogue buttons.
It's not how many languages you know, it's what you do with them that counts...
Re:Could someone explain the benefits of WAP?!?
on
WAP Under Fire
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· Score: 1
> white van man (not translatable outside UK:_)
UPS guy is the closest I figure...
Oh, and americans may not get mobiles, but thier local calls are free, and they've had (A)DSL for a while now.
Six of one...
Been there, done that, failed horribly too...
on
Paul Steed Interview
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· Score: 1
Daikatana smacked of a game designed without the input of a programmer. Anyone with any experience of game logic/ai could have told him just how much of a nightmare the 'intelligent assistants' were going to be.
Bizarrely enough one of my earlier games had to be redesigned for precisely this reason. We ended up having your 'Alien Ally' (as the game was originally called) kidnapped at the start of the adventure section, rewriting all the puzzles, and renaming the game 'Alien Odyssey' (currently residing at the bottom of a landfill near you;). Believe me, it was a damn sight easier than writing a billion scripts to handle all the horrible special cases.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahem, speaking as a commercial developer (and you don't get much more commercial than console games), virtually all of our code is developed using command line compilers, and tools. Although it's amusing to note that CodeWarrior is currently the only IDE based development system to support console development (unless you count SN systems hooks into VC6).
Currently we maintain cross platform builds of the non-console specific portions of our engine and all of our tools, allowing us to build and test code in VC6, which has by far the better debugger. It's also usefull to compare the warnings raised by the different compilers, as ee-gcc catches some things VC6 misses, and vice-versa.
Many other PS2 developers use Linux based systems and the command line environment exclusively, as they were initially the only tools available. Or because the team chose to.
But I digress, the important thing is the language, not the environment. Indeed, you should never depend on the availability of a particular development environment, it may not be available for the next platform you develop for...
> Just about anyone can throw together a "news" web page. Why should I believe what I read on it?
But if only uncle Rupert can print the news, why should you trust what he has to say?
Rather a million news sources/commentaries, with a core of truth, than one with none.
It was also the best pre-win95 compiler for PC games development, largely thanks to the free DOS extender. Many fond memories.
You mean the next Bulky Drive...;)
So how come you can edit Quake levels with it?
Next time I'm getting a big ass flag with 'JOKE' written on it...
Runtime type checking is only an issue if you have polymorphism. P-code based pascal's weren't polymorphic IIRC...
Jesus, now it's the Java coders. It must be fun playing in the sandbox, and having your shit cleaned up for you.
> How much of this stuff have you actually used, man?
WFC (which was truly appalling), MacApp (Photoshop is/was written almost entirely in MacApp), Pascal, and Java, although none of them anymore, exclusively C++, C, and EE/MIPS now.
> I use delphi as an example only because it's the only one of the above that I've used.
So that's 4/6 to me and 1/6 to you, not that I'm keeping score.
> By your ridiculous argument, java itself is only a hack of C++,
Java the language is. It's C++ with training wheels. Java the bytecode interpreter is something else. A knock off of p-code, ergo, another Pascal knock off.
> and therefore Sun=microsoft.
What? I dunno how you came to that conclusion. Nor what relevance it has to anything. Mind you, they're both peddling their own proprietary languages...
> I know I'm being extreme here, but I'm merely presenting to you the logical end of your argument.
Reductio ad absurdum, try and come up with a real argument rather than chasing your own tail. Or maybe you just have in inferiority complex regarding your use of a noddy language...;)
> Try to think your posts through more fully next time.
Patronising wanker. Go back to your grammar flames.
Jesus, it's getting so you can't even crack a joke round here anymore.
Help help, I'm being hassled by Delphi coders.
It's a bit like being nibbled to death by an Okapi...
Common practice too...
...hey, dominant player integrates two technologies in an attempt to squeeze out the competition. Will Worldcraft run to the feds?
So this is his third knock off of someone else's work?
Pascal -> Delphi, MacApp -> WFC, Java -> C#
I see a pattern forming, no wonder he works for M$.
Damn, wish I hadn't posted now, so I could mod this guy up.
Merzbow
> Then again maybe this is just a strange neurosis of mine.
Nope, me too. Currently avoiding writing the rotational elements of a rigid body system as I can't bring myself to actually choose between quaternions and rotation matrices, as I'm not sure which will be more efficient...
> That means that all the distributed.net machines are going to have to work non-stop for a year to crack A SINGLE SONG. End of game.
...or, they can hack the code, and rip the unencrypted stream right out of the bleeding heart of the playback software.
> Why would anyone go to a website and go through the trouble of registering and/or entering credit card information simply to buy a song for a $1 that they can download for free off Napster in a shorter time? Remember all it takes is 1 person to buy it for it to get on Napster
You use kick ass servers that are more reliable than Napster users flaky connections, and are guaranteed to have the song you want, rather than half a million copies of the same Britney track.
> Why would anyone use a client that charged money per download when a free alternative exists?
Because it's (potentially) 1000% more reliable than Napster / Gnutella / Scour?
> Every encryption scheme can be broken given time.
Which is why you don't bother encrypting.
Unfortunately Napster has now perpetuated the idea that music over the internet sounds like shit, and is missing the last three minutes.
Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm a zen-athiest, not some bible thumping redneck.
However, I think that particular "commandment of our lord (ahhh, likkle baby) jesus" is a pretty good rule of thumb. It's not an exclusively xian sentiment either, dates back to the greeks y'know.
As Bill and Ted put it, "Be excellent to each other".
l8r
pHile
Nope.
> What do they mean by real time content generation?
As in the content is generated (mixed, blended, rendered, animated, modified) in real time. Rather than played straight off of a video tape, or digital equivalent.
Think interactive IMAX (House of the Dead on an IMAX, with an army of demon hunters;). Or interactive amusement park rides. Or possibly the last word in client based game cheat defeats.
Oh, and real-time raytracing is still a red herring, the EE/GS combo still works best with good old triangles. Well, actually, it works best with 2d sprites, but I didn't say that...;)
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
> Working at a company with their own take on selling music online...
Hmm, locally stored key, local player, whip out the debugger... bingo, auto unlocker.
The Gnutella guy gets it.
Nah, it's actually funnier on a modem, as you get to read all the text before the pictures finally appear...
All buttons? Have you seen the standadrd controllers for the N64, and Dreamcast, both have an analogue stick. The Dualshock for the PSX has two. The Dualshock 2 for the PS2 goes the whole hog, and has analogue buttons.
It's not how many languages you know, it's what you do with them that counts...
> white van man (not translatable outside UK :_)
UPS guy is the closest I figure...
Oh, and americans may not get mobiles, but thier local calls are free, and they've had (A)DSL for a while now.
Six of one...
Daikatana smacked of a game designed without the input of a programmer. Anyone with any experience of game logic/ai could have told him just how much of a nightmare the 'intelligent assistants' were going to be.
;). Believe me, it was a damn sight easier than writing a billion scripts to handle all the horrible special cases.
Bizarrely enough one of my earlier games had to be redesigned for precisely this reason. We ended up having your 'Alien Ally' (as the game was originally called) kidnapped at the start of the adventure section, rewriting all the puzzles, and renaming the game 'Alien Odyssey' (currently residing at the bottom of a landfill near you
Romero's also a lot shorter than I expected...