Too bad it wasn't open source, then someone would have fixed it for free.
It was licensed from MAXIS; I don't think EA will release the source any time soon.
Why was Pinball removed from Windows Vista?
61–70 of 149 posts
Re: Why was Pinball removed from Windows Vista?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that comments should not be the "go-to approach for explaining the entire codebase." I hope you didn't think I was insinuating that in my comment. I was only trying to illustrate that in the absence of clear code, which many developers are guilty of sometimes, comments can be very helpful.
Nah I didn't think that at all, it was clear from the way you said "minimal commenting". I just have an axe to grind when it comes to comments of the form // assign the integer value 10 to the variable x x = 10
At least it's better than:
// set the variable x to 10
x = 12;Re: Why was Pinball removed from Windows Vista?
#63To me, the lesson is: Do not duplicate code! and keep it simple stupid When implementing Unicode, MS said "hey let's copy all of our API functions to new names". Now they have two problems. When implementing 64-bit, MS said "hey let's have a completely different OS for 64-bit." Now they have four problems. Compare this to Unix/Linux/MacOS where Unicode is just implemented as a standard way (UTF-8) of encoding charact…
Windows unicode support predates the existence of UTF-8 -- so that's great API design for Windows if you possess a time machine.
The ANSI functions merely map to the unicode functions.
In addition, the Windows Kernel is probably similar in API size to the Linux kernel. Of course, that's not nearly enough API for a complete Windowing operating system in either case.
Re: Why was Pinball removed from Windows Vista?
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
MS implemented NT, which only worked in Unicode. They had to add a compatibility layer to run Ansi apps. Which is MS's separate OS for 64-bit? OS APIs are distinct from kernel APIs. You're comparing a kernel (Linux) with a distribution (Windows).
Which is MS's separate OS for 64-bit? I believe you'll find it to be Windows 64-bit Edition. A quick googling suggests that Windows 7 retail copies have both 32-bit and 64-bit editions, but I'm guessing you still have to pick the right edition when you go to install it. And if you don't have a retail disc, then you probably only got one of the two architectures. Compare this with Mac OS X, where there is no "32-bit e…
> but I'm guessing you still have to pick the right edition when you go to install it. And if you don't have a retail disc, then you probably only got one of the two architectures.
Good guess. They are separate versions, and only retail includes both.
Re: Why was Pinball removed from Windows Vista?
#65This is an excellent example of why comments in code are so very useful, helpful and in my opinion, necessary. ... nobody at Microsoft ever understood how the code worked (much less still understood it), and that most of the code was completely uncommented, we simply couldn't figure out why the collision detector was not working. Heck, we couldn't even find the collision detector! To all those folks out there who kee…
There are some readability problems that stem from a lack of comments, and there are other readability problems that stem from exceedingly poorly-written code. Heck, we couldn't even find the collision detector! This sentence tells me that the big problem here comes from the latter, much worse, source of of readability problems. The fact that they couldn't find the collision detector implies that the code had no clas…
The fact that they couldn't find the collision detector implies that the code had no class named CollisionDetector
The fact that it was written in assembly and then C makes a stronger implication that they had no class named CollisionDetector.
Re: Why was Pinball removed from Windows Vista?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's an argument for clear code that's readily understandable by other people. It's not an argument for any particular technique for achieving that goal. I've never seen any programmer seriously suggest that code should be deliberately made difficult to understand.
"I've never seen any programmer seriously suggest that code should be deliberately made difficult to understand." Then you've not worked with some of the people I've worked with. The clever "it was hard to write, it should be hard to read" mantra has been thrown out by a few ex-colleagues trying to be clever, and a couple of them really meant it. Whether it was a hatred for others, or a misguided attempt at "job secu…
"Often, however, the same effect is had under the guise of "clever hacks" - look how clever and awesome I am!"
Sometimes I write code like that. Then I delete it and write it the proper way.
Clever code is code you will not be able to understand in the morning.
There is Kernighan's adage
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
Indeed I fear I wrote code like that yesterday (a particular problem that, after talking to 3 other engineers, everyone agreed did not have a simple solution) that I am going to have to debug today. I am not looking forward to it!
Re: Why was Pinball removed from Windows Vista?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I've never seen any programmer seriously suggest that code should be deliberately made difficult to understand." Then you've not worked with some of the people I've worked with. The clever "it was hard to write, it should be hard to read" mantra has been thrown out by a few ex-colleagues trying to be clever, and a couple of them really meant it. Whether it was a hatred for others, or a misguided attempt at "job secu…
"Often, however, the same effect is had under the guise of "clever hacks" - look how clever and awesome I am!" Sometimes I write code like that. Then I delete it and write it the proper way. Clever code is code you will not be able to understand in the morning. There is Kernighan's adage "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you a…
useful thoughts. it reinforces my view that it's really the intent that bugs me. I've dealt with crap code, littered with comments like "I'm sorry, didn't know what I was doing, etc". The person/people knew they were in a tough spot. In other cases I've dealt with crap code with random comments like "Java sucks. Sun sucks. Everyone using Java sucks and is stupid - Ruby is the only true language, and it sucks that this is in Java" and "if you're too stupid to understand this, quit right now and tell so-and-so to go hire a real programmer".
Just... garbage attitude oozing through the code at every line - difficult to work with.
Re: Why was Pinball removed from Windows Vista?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah I didn't think that at all, it was clear from the way you said "minimal commenting". I just have an axe to grind when it comes to comments of the form // assign the integer value 10 to the variable x x = 10
At least it's better than: // set the variable x to 10 x = 12;
sFile = "filename.xml";
sFile = File.ReadAllText("filename.xml");Re: Why was Pinball removed from Windows Vista?
#69The best part of this article is in the comments. An original programmer on the game explains the reason that the bug was occurring and also why the code was unreadable (hint: they did it in assembly) Ah, the quantum tunneling pinball! We ran into this while writing the original code at Cinematronics in 1994. Since the ball motion, physics, and coordinates were all in floating point, and the ball is constantly being…
Maybe the reason the Brownian motion stopped working was a shift from 80-bit x87 intermediaries to 64-bit SSE in x64, and the removal of long double support from MSVC.
Re: Why was Pinball removed from Windows Vista?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's an argument for clear code that's readily understandable by other people. It's not an argument for any particular technique for achieving that goal. I've never seen any programmer seriously suggest that code should be deliberately made difficult to understand.
I can't agree with you emphatically enough about this. Cargo cult commenting is one of the easiest ways to damage the readability of a codebase. Comments should be an edge-case solution for explaining unusual quirks, not the go-to approach for explaining the entire codebase. Using comments to explain what the code is up to is like using exceptions for flow of control. A large proportion of the comments I see should a…
This point gets brought up a lot, but I'm not going to complain at all. In fact, just 5-6 months ago I used to be one of those programmers who would do
# gets the xml
def get_xml():