Re: Tools

["Andrei de A. Formiga" <ktulu@free.elogica.com.br>]

On 6 Jan 00, at 1:04, Pierre Phaneuf wrote:

> Bert Peers wrote:
> 
> > Hey while I'm ranting anyway, I can explore the MFC/Qt
> > issue further if you don't mind :)
> 
> Boy, that is a *good* rant!
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTE: the following post could be offensive to people with too
> large an ego. I want to shake people to make them look around them and
> see the reality better.
> 
> Reality check:
> 
> <rant style="blunt declaration">
> Linux sucks for games!
> </rant>
> 
	
	I mostly agree with you two in the "Linux suited to games" 
department. I've been experimenting with game programming for 
windows and Linux in the last months, and although DirectX is 
really an ugly and bloated API it's incredibly fast compared to 
XWindows APIs. The XWindows system just wasn't designed for 
games, as windows95 wasn't when released (there was a WinG 
library for games but it was quite awful, performance-wise). But 
then Microsoft realized that in order to completely replace DOS it 
should support games, and the Game SDK (later to be called 
DirectX) was developed. 

	But, in the tools department, I have just to agree with Erik and 
Steve. I've had a similar experience to that of Eric: at first I just 
used Borland's DOS IDEs (mostly Turbo C and Turbo C++), then 
switched to Borland C++, and in the last two years ventured into 
linux programming. At first I had some difficulties without integrated 
tools and mainly without easy editors. Now I feel comfortable with 
the wealth of tools Linux provides me, and I understand that 
development under Linux follows a different philosophy than under 
windows. I think that your "this is the middle-ages" feeling is 
mostly explained by you not being used to linux development, not 
that the windows way is the best way. This is yet another instance 
of the classic GUI x command line interface debate, with the same 
ease x flexibility, speed x power arguments. I personally like 
graphical environments with many terminal windows open to get 
power and flexibility when I need. As for development tools, I use 
CodeCrusader only for editing, but it's a complete IDE that 
generates Makefiles for projects and all. For Makefiles I really 
prefer using automake/autoconf as these utilities can do a lot more 
for me than preparing a Makefile for my own machine. As for 
debuggers, gdb is great, it doesn't matter if I have to punch four 
keys in my keyboard to call it; I had to use MSVC++ for a while 
and I found it quite unstable, especially when using the integrated 
debugger. 
	I can think of good Linux replacements for almost anything 
that's available for windows developers, but the converse is not 
true. And the development tools, even the IDE click-a-button-your-
program-is-done types, are getting better. I really don't see the 
reality of linux development in general as "medieval", I'm very 
comfortable with it, more than with windows development. 
Someone in the list mentioned quake3test was released first for 
linux, and why is that ? As far as I know, John Carmack doesn't 
write his games using windows. 

	I think the main issue here is about performance of games. I 
would really like to see XWindows more friendly to game 
developers, the other complaints mentioned about tools don't affect 
my development at all. 

	
---
[]s, Andrei de A. Formiga         Sign the Linux Driver Petition
andrei@elogica.com.br             http://www.libranet.com/petition.html
andrei@dee.ufpb.br
ktulu@free.elogica.com.br