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MS kills Xbox 360/PC cross-platform development

extremetech.com

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Re: MS kills Xbox 360/PC cross-platform development

#31

Post by jawngee »

FireBeyond wrote: post #18
xradionut wrote: post #7

When you work with the Microsoft stack, except for a few core technologies, you have no idea if the "hot" API or current solution Redmond is pushing will be supported or abandoned in a couple of years. Combine that with stapling Metro, a tablet/phone API to the side of the desktop in Windows 8, many developers I know are tired of being thrashed and burned. As a developer/analyst/admin that works primary in the MS app…

What are your alternatives? OSX, where Apple has no qualms about abandoning technology, hardware or software, within a matter of years (the iPad 1 was EOL'ed just shy of two years old, I believe). XCode and (Snow) Leopard? No such luck. Now, you do mention the Linux alternatives, which seem to be the most stable... if you can get around any infighting of QT... Gnome/KDE... etc et al. But it doesn't seem particularly…

    XCode and (Snow) Leopard? No such luck.
You can compile for Leopard and Snow Leopard by dragging the appropriate SDKs into /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/

Re: MS kills Xbox 360/PC cross-platform development

#32

Post by chc »

Argorak wrote: post #9
kvb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "abandoned"? Isn't pretty much everything Microsoft releases supported on its original platform for at least 10 years? With OSS software and OSes, do you get better support guarantees?

Thats a bonus for existing applications, but not when choosing a technology for a new one. If your technology gets shelved, you won't be able to grow with underlying framework. Now new interesting stuff for you, except if you rebuild. Apple for example takes a different route: they have shorter support spans, but rarely invalidate whole technology stacks. Cocoa is still alive and kicking after all those years.

> Apple for example takes a different route: they have shorter support spans, but rarely invalidate whole technology stacks.

Carbon programmers beg to differ.

(Full disclosure: I was always a Cocoa guy, so this isn't sour grapes. But if you were paying attention to the OS X development scene as a whole, it was really shocking how fast Carbon went from being more actively developed and having support for more things than Cocoa to being thrown straight into the dumpster.)

Re: MS kills Xbox 360/PC cross-platform development

#34

Post by gamblor956 »

jarjoura wrote: post #26

XNA was a POS and honestly, DOA. Microsoft tried to simplify game development on top of C# but even indie-developers opt'd to go the C++ route with a 3rd party cross-platform engine. Plus as a game developer, if your game is successful enough to need to build a bigger engine, wouldn't it make sense to just rewrite it on top of C++/Direct3D anyway? Otherwise a few fixes here and there to a game you've written in XNA w…

Many popular games have been built on XNA.

The Dishwasher, Elysium [EDIT: actually called Dust: An Elysian Tale], Eufloria (the first version), Terraria, Magicka, Skulls of the Shogun, Bastion, Breath of Death VII, Weapon of Choice, Fez, Sol Survivor, and The Harvest, to name ones that I can remember off the top of my head.

This doesn't include games in the pipeline that are being built in XNA.

EDIT: Forgot Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 and 4 (forthcoming).

Re: MS kills Xbox 360/PC cross-platform development

#36

Post by FireBeyond »

jawngee wrote: post #31
FireBeyond wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your alternatives? OSX, where Apple has no qualms about abandoning technology, hardware or software, within a matter of years (the iPad 1 was EOL'ed just shy of two years old, I believe). XCode and (Snow) Leopard? No such luck. Now, you do mention the Linux alternatives, which seem to be the most stable... if you can get around any infighting of QT... Gnome/KDE... etc et al. But it doesn't seem particularly…

XCode and (Snow) Leopard? No such luck. You can compile for Leopard and Snow Leopard by dragging the appropriate SDKs into /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/

But you can't run Xcode on Snow Leopard any more (well, the current version). Admittedly not as much of an issue, as it seems Mountain Lion solves at least some of Lion's pain points.

Re: MS kills Xbox 360/PC cross-platform development

#38

Post by vor_ »

FireBeyond wrote: post #18
xradionut wrote: post #7

When you work with the Microsoft stack, except for a few core technologies, you have no idea if the "hot" API or current solution Redmond is pushing will be supported or abandoned in a couple of years. Combine that with stapling Metro, a tablet/phone API to the side of the desktop in Windows 8, many developers I know are tired of being thrashed and burned. As a developer/analyst/admin that works primary in the MS app…

What are your alternatives? OSX, where Apple has no qualms about abandoning technology, hardware or software, within a matter of years (the iPad 1 was EOL'ed just shy of two years old, I believe). XCode and (Snow) Leopard? No such luck. Now, you do mention the Linux alternatives, which seem to be the most stable... if you can get around any infighting of QT... Gnome/KDE... etc et al. But it doesn't seem particularly…

Apple obsoletes older technology, but it doesn't introduce dozens of redundant technologies only to drop them. There's a difference between keeping up with a linear path of progress and jumping from API to API without any clue as to which one is the "right" one.

Re: MS kills Xbox 360/PC cross-platform development

#39

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jarjoura wrote: post #26

XNA was a POS and honestly, DOA. Microsoft tried to simplify game development on top of C# but even indie-developers opt'd to go the C++ route with a 3rd party cross-platform engine. Plus as a game developer, if your game is successful enough to need to build a bigger engine, wouldn't it make sense to just rewrite it on top of C++/Direct3D anyway? Otherwise a few fixes here and there to a game you've written in XNA w…

What? XNA attracted many new developers to the Microsoft stack. Many of them graduated to C++/DirectX, but many nice games were also built in XNA. Now, what does Microsoft have? Convoluted C++ code and super low-level API? Thankfuly we have great OSS projects out there like SharpDX [1] (for C# lovers) and ANX [2]/MonoGame [3] (for higher-level API lovers)!

[1] http://www.sharpdx.org/

[2] http://anxframework.codeplex.com/

[3] http://monogame.codeplex.com/

Re: MS kills Xbox 360/PC cross-platform development

#40

Post by Osiris »

vor_ wrote: post #38
FireBeyond wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your alternatives? OSX, where Apple has no qualms about abandoning technology, hardware or software, within a matter of years (the iPad 1 was EOL'ed just shy of two years old, I believe). XCode and (Snow) Leopard? No such luck. Now, you do mention the Linux alternatives, which seem to be the most stable... if you can get around any infighting of QT... Gnome/KDE... etc et al. But it doesn't seem particularly…

Apple obsoletes older technology, but it doesn't introduce dozens of redundant technologies only to drop them. There's a difference between keeping up with a linear path of progress and jumping from API to API without any clue as to which one is the "right" one.

For example?
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