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A cornucopia of topics!

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It's been a while since I've written anything here, but a few other posts today have gotten me to change that now.  First David Weller tries answering the question "Does Managed DirectX discriminate against VB.NET Developers"..  Since he put me on the spot to answer it, i'll do that first.

In short, no, of course not.  He hits the nail on the head that it's mainly about time, and given my busy schedule, it's quite difficult to get the stuff out that I do end up releasing.  It's also at least partially about maintenance.  Considering in the past when we had VB.NET and C# version of the samples, the VB.NET versions were simply mirrors of the C# version.  Which means not only do you need to 'write' two versions of the same code (3 if you count the original unmanaged version), whenever any one of them changes, all of them must be updated..  It can become quite a bit of work when the samples are changing daily.

I'd also disagree with David's assertion that you can't possibly master DX without knowing C++, but the fact is the *majority* of our customers (the game developers) do know c++, C# is a more logical language to use as the starting block for the managed samples.  We will have a VB.NET sample in this upcoming release though.  Oh, and the original post that David quotes is using a bug that shipped in the summer 2004 release as the reason for the discrimination question..  It is just that, a bug.  One that has now been fixed and will be released soon.  We would *never* intentionally 'break' something out of spite or whatever the case may be.

So, to summarize, we have no intentional 'discrimination' against vb developers in the least.  In a perfect world, where I had infinite time, we would have thousands of samples, in all the languages available, but the fact is, it's not a perfect world.  We're trying to add new stuff (including VB samples) as we're progressing.

David also mentioned Andy Dunn's new web site on Managed DirectX.  It includes an interview with the lead developer on the first retail MDX game i posted about last time.  In his 'disadvantages' section, he lists a few problems he had with MDX, which were all based on the Summer 2003 version.  I believe that I addressed all of those in the latest version, but by all means, if people are seeing bugs and/or issues in the assemblies, please let me know.

Since i'm on a writing roll, let's continue on to books..  The second book should be hitting store shelves 'soon' (it's definitely already been sent to printing, i'm just not exactly sure when it'll arrive on shelves).  However, the third book is a different story.  At this point in time, I simply do not have the time required to dedicate myself to writing that book.  I think it's an important book that is written though, so I'm glad that one of my coworkers has picked up the project.  While it may be not be me writing the book or the code directly, I will be at least tangentally involved (he's right down the hall from me after all).  The project has been left in good hands, and i'm excited to see the end result.

Oh, and unlike David, I haven't found Half Life 2 to be all that great.  Sure, the graphics engine is *amazing*, but in reality, I'm so burnt out on first person shooters, I just get annoyed with the gameplay half the time..  I fully expect to get flamed for those last two sentences. =)  It would be hard to disagree with the statement on World of Warcraft though.  I find myself playing that way too often..  (Even though I was sad when they deleted my level 60 warlock from the closed beta)

Comments

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2004
    Well, Tom, my point about C++ is that there are a LOT more samples to read in C++ at the moment, so if you're the "learn by example" type (like me), knowing C++ is a huge benefit.

    Oh, and Tom, don't let your tiredness of FPS games lead to dissing HL2 -- I mean, that's almost sacreligious ;-)

    Chili, Orc Rogue, "HATE" Guild.
  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2004
    My one and only complaint is the dependence on WindowsForms. If I call the constructor for Device that takes an IntPtr window handle ( instead of a Control ), WindowsForms is still loaded and the memory usage seems to baloon as WinForms is initialized. Is there not some way to put the interop code in another assembly in the same way that Avalon <-> WinForms interop is exposed, something that will not force ME to load WindowsForms? P/Invoke'ing to CreateWindow and running my own message loop is all the framework i need ;-)
  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2004
    Time, Mr. Miller? Thank the gods you are back!

    I think VB.net developers should consider moving to c# for their own benefit.

    About HL2, I don´t know how much time you took in playing it, but as I´m also very much fed up with fps games and rather looking for a good rpg to hit the shelves, I enjoyed playing hl2 a lot. The did some really cool graphics effects in the game, the artwork is very nice, the physics engine is amazing AND is put to good use and they put a lot of effort in making the game interesting and motivating over throughout the whole playing time. No repetetive and boring parts like the never ending alpha labs in doom3 for example.

    Good to see you´re back. As I already preordered it, I´m really looking forward to your book.

    Are there still plans for that managed directx contest?
  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2004
    Thanks for the link http://www.thezbuffer.com/articles/91.aspx
  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2004
    I made the original post and I NEVER wanted to presume that you intentionally discriminate VB developers. Read my full thoughts about it in my post : http://www.geekswithblogs.com/tpreuster/archive/2004/12/03/16721.aspx
  • Anonymous
    December 05, 2004
    FPS games are getting old! They're ok, but I really miss the rich adventure games (ex - Sierra adventure games of the early to mid-90s) and non-linear RPGs (Ultima, Fallout, etc). These games have truly immersive and interactive worlds where the main objective has a lot more to it than just shooting things up.
  • Anonymous
    December 15, 2004

    Will Tin Soldiers be the only game ever made in c#? Tim Sweeney said
    that c# had missed the chance
    to be the next generation language
    for games:
    http://www.gaminggroove.com/article.php?id=27