QMB Engine goes crossplatform via SDL

[revelator]

If you are interrested i just implemented ARB texture shaders to your engine so now peeps with non Nvidia cards can enjoy the water stuff to
I did test it and it runs fine.

[goldenboy]

Personally the need to install Codeblocks would put me off. The cleanest way to compile stuff on Linux is with Makefiles.

[mh]

Personally, compiling is one thing, debugging is another. Unless evidence exists that (a) a debug build of an engine has been made, (b) the engine has been actually tested using that debug build (normally if the debug build actually compiles and runs it's a reasonable enough starting point - even that much is rare enough, unfortunately), and (c) the debug build uses a reasonably civilized debugger, I get heebeejeebies about an engine.

Makefiles are cutesy for hardcore command-line purists. Makefiles are fine enough for after the real hard work has already been done. A real debug build that works and is testable with a good debugger (i.e. NOT gdb - gdb is like saying that using stone tools and hunting wooly mammoth is still a viable way to live) - that's what's most important.

[goldenboy]

Debugging is one thing, but someone who just wants to install a Quake engine might prefer to not have to use an IDE he's never seen in his life

Typing "make" in a console seems more user friendly. Depends who you're targetting.

[mh]

So is a source code release targetted at a player or a programmer?

[goldenboy]

In the Linux world, it might well be targetted at the end user, actually. And the end user might actually be a little of both, at least more frequently than in the Windows world.

The compiling might also actually be done by the package manager (eg. Gentoo's Portage), which is another reason to have makefiles.

[Spike]

codeblocks generates/uses a makefile itself anyway, just make sure thats included with the source release.

with things like the gpl, you want to convert your end users into developers anyway, or at least ensure that they have the tools required to contribute back. And yes, gentoo/bsd/arm/powerpc/etc users all prefer source. With linux, its either in the distro's package manager, or you're compiling it yourself from source, because otherwise its built for ubuntu or something with various unsatisfied libc dependancies.

[Baker]

good debugger (i.e. NOT gdb - gdb is like saying that using stone tools and hunting wooly mammoth is still a viable way to live) - that's what's most important.

gdb is bit frustrating to use compared to Microsoft's debuggers or the LLVM/Clang debugger. I had a C99 project I was working on and made the code all multi-platform-like and opted for CodeBlocks + gcc because I knew it would largely accept C99 code as-is with the right compile flag. Something small was wrong somewhere, and it was a bit more aggravating than it should have been to find out where.

I don't claim to be a gdb expert, but it doesn't "intelligently" determine what variables I care about based on breakpoints and such and when you have 10-12 possible "leads" as to what the problem is, the extra effort can consume a fair amount of time.

Which is a shame because although MS makes the best IDEs, CodeBlocks does have some things about that are nice as hell and 70MB for the whole deal (on Windows) means it is a 3 minute download or fits on a USB flash drive without taking up much space. Downloading free MSVC Express is a several hour ordeal.

[revelator]

active work is going into codeblocks atm to make it just as easy to use gdb as msvc's debugger
while you might prefer makefiles they are a pain in the proverbial behind to write by hand, so codeblocks might come in handy doing that work (if nothing else).
gdb can actually do most of what the msvc debugger does but its a console app so if you dont know gnuish console commands then things are going to come down hard with integration into codeblocks things should get much smoother. If you want a look at what they allready done i just uploaded the latest svn version to my site (no its not fully done yet but allready a lot closer).
unfortunatly insight seems to be dead and that is kinda sad it actually worked very well on windows after some patching. but took some to get used to.

if you like codeblocks but want to avoid gdb it works with msvc also (both the free and non free version) besides that it supports open watcom and several other compilers.

[Baker]

active work is going into codeblocks atm to make it just as easy to use gdb as msvc's debugger

if you like codeblocks but want to avoid gdb it works with msvc also (both the free and non free version) besides that it supports open watcom and several other compilers.

CodeBlocks is so well designed there are actually some features in it that I wish MSVC had. I'm glad to hear they are working on the debugger integration.

MSVC does everything I need, but I can't really "take it with me" or install it on some other machine conveniently so CodeBlocks is close to a portable "compile it anywhere environment".

[revelator]

Agree its definatly well done (lots of credit to the plugin interface) the version i uploaded is the first to natively support the mingw64 compilers allthough the make i use is named winmake (to keep things neat).
As for portability i also agree it works allmost anywhere (so far all the linux distros i seen have it in some form or another in there package databases, mac im not sure but i seem to remember someone made an effort in that regard also. Myself im also excited to start using the new debugger interface, i hope they get to iron out the few remaining buggers.