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Windows game developer about porting to and using OS X

shiningrocksoftware.com

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Re: Windows game developer about porting to and using OS X

#81

Post by rpc_was_taken »

andystanton wrote: post #68
stinos wrote: post #2

Xcode isn’t too bad. I wish the author told me more about it than just this. Can somebody comment on how it compares to recent VS editions these days? About 5 years ago I also looked into using OSX as main OS. As I've always been using non-commandline graphic text editors and IDEs for most coding that made XCode the go-to environment but I just couldn't deal with it even though I tried. I don't remember all details b…

Adding in a third option to the mix - JetBrains recently added a C++ editor to their catalogue called CLion[1]. While VS and XCode have quite a headstart over it, CLion is cross platform and comes with native support for CMake projects. JetBrains also make the (de-facto from my experience) Java IDE - IntelliJ which shares a core engine with CLion. A bugbear of mine for XCode is the absence of C++ refactoring tools, w…

If you do mainly Objective-C, JetBrains AppCode is pretty good. Refactoring tools are awesome, even though they are still working in Swift support. Code navigation et.al. are on par with other JetBrains products. Debugging works pretty fine.

You still have to revert to XCode for that crap that is Interface Builder. JetBrains tried to write an IB clone inside AppCode, but they abandoned it.

AppCode lets me code 80% of the time without having to use that horror that XCode is. Alcatraz helps a bit alleviating the other 20%, specially the XVim plugin for Xcode.

Re: Windows game developer about porting to and using OS X

#82

Post by picozeta »

SXX wrote: post #74

I’m not using SDL or any other library to hide those platform differences. Once start working on Linux port he'll regret about that. Every developer that start with own platform-specific code end up using SDL2 anyway. Don't do that mistake.

Furthermore SDL2 is absolutely fantastic and just works. You may say, you do not want to use it as it "just" abstracts away keyboard/mouse/controller input, window and GL context creation but these things are damn hard to get right.

Re: Windows game developer about porting to and using OS X

#83

Post by 0942v8653 »

yeureka wrote: post #64
stinos wrote: post #2

Xcode isn’t too bad. I wish the author told me more about it than just this. Can somebody comment on how it compares to recent VS editions these days? About 5 years ago I also looked into using OSX as main OS. As I've always been using non-commandline graphic text editors and IDEs for most coding that made XCode the go-to environment but I just couldn't deal with it even though I tried. I don't remember all details b…

I use both on a regular basis, VS for my job and XCode for hobby work. I prefer VS because it performs better when editing and navigating the code base ( it is actually faster to run in it inside VirtualBox than XCode natively ). Also VS has code navigation and editing features that XCode lacks. For instance if you want to do a find/replace in VS you can double click on a word do Ctrl+H and the word you selected popu…

In regards to the find and replace, you can actually rename a variable or function by placing your cursor in it and hitting Cmd+Ctrl+E (that may not be the right shortcut, but I know there is one). No danger of changing something you didn't want to change.

As far as the file stack goes, I'm not really sure what that does; but Xcode has other navigation options, like tabs, and files can be switched with the fuzzy finder.

You are absolutely right about the instability—that's the reason I switched away from Mac/iOS development. Too many weird bugs, in Xcode and in Swift. I haven't found it too slow on an SSD but when I used an HDD the speed was horrible.

> ( it is actually faster to run in it inside VirtualBox than XCode natively ).

Is there anything special you're doing with VBox? In a Windows VM, Eclipse is mostly usable, but disk accesses (or something) have incredible latency. It makes opening a new tab take a few seconds.

Re: Windows game developer about porting to and using OS X

#84

Post by maljx »

We develop our game on Mac OS X and port to Win32 and Linux. Using CMake, SDL2 and C++11 there is very little code that actually needs to be rewritten. The windows build process is just a python script that pulls, cmake configure, compiles and zips the latest build.

The code that is completely different on the platforms is stuff like HTTPS requests, open file dialog, create/delete folders.

Re: Windows game developer about porting to and using OS X

#85

Post by interpol_p »

yeureka wrote: post #64
stinos wrote: post #2

Xcode isn’t too bad. I wish the author told me more about it than just this. Can somebody comment on how it compares to recent VS editions these days? About 5 years ago I also looked into using OSX as main OS. As I've always been using non-commandline graphic text editors and IDEs for most coding that made XCode the go-to environment but I just couldn't deal with it even though I tried. I don't remember all details b…

I use both on a regular basis, VS for my job and XCode for hobby work. I prefer VS because it performs better when editing and navigating the code base ( it is actually faster to run in it inside VirtualBox than XCode natively ). Also VS has code navigation and editing features that XCode lacks. For instance if you want to do a find/replace in VS you can double click on a word do Ctrl+H and the word you selected popu…

I haven't used VS in many years, but I like what you describe. I don't know if this will be helpful, but these are my alternatives in Xcode:

> For instance if you want to do a find/replace in VS you can double click on a word do Ctrl+H and the word you selected populates the search box.

Your workflow sounds nicer than Xcode's here. While I don't often use find+replace, I do use project level find constantly. My muscle memory shortcut for this is:

Cmd+C, Cmd+Shift+F, Cmd+V, Return

I'm pretty sure I use this hundreds of times a day. Especially when analysing unfamiliar code to trace its execution paths.

> Ctrl+F2 code bookmarks

These sound really cool. A bit like numbered unit groups in Starcraft.

The only similar mechanism in Xcode is quick open. Cmd+Shift+O then start fuzzy-typing the name of a file, method or declaration and hit return to jump to it in the editor (option+return for assistant editor). I have actually changed my quick open shortcut to Cmd+Shift+D because it's easier to trigger one-handed.

> In VS you have a stack of source code windows that you can easily move about via Ctrl+W+n

Unfortunately, while a stack of source locations is maintained in Xcode, you can't jump to a direct location within the stack.

What I do here is use Ctrl+Cmd+Left and Ctrl+Cmd+Right to navigate back and forward in the history stack for an editor window. So, for example, if you Cmd+Click a symbol to jump to its declaration, you can press Ctrl+Cmd+Left to go back.

The one thing I like about Xcode's version of this is that it keeps track of source locations rather than files or windows. So you actually navigate back/forward within the same file (if you were jumping around within the file) as well as between files.

Re: Windows game developer about porting to and using OS X

#86

Post by interpol_p »

lhecker wrote: post #32
stinos wrote: post #2

Xcode isn’t too bad. I wish the author told me more about it than just this. Can somebody comment on how it compares to recent VS editions these days? About 5 years ago I also looked into using OSX as main OS. As I've always been using non-commandline graphic text editors and IDEs for most coding that made XCode the go-to environment but I just couldn't deal with it even though I tried. I don't remember all details b…

My personal experience: Visual Studio feels a lot more "enterprise-y" than Xcode and offers a lot more advanced features and tools on pretty much all fronts, especially in the UI (e.g.: Xcode doesn't even have file tabs, but sth. I'd describe as big "whole-UI-tabs"). But... Xcode has llvm. This compiler and it's tools (i.e. the analyzer, debugger, etc.) just make VS' compiler look like it's from the 90s. Really. -> H…

> Xcode doesn't even have file tabs, but sth. I'd describe as big "whole-UI-tabs"

I think this is an intentional interaction design. When you are always working with hundreds or thousands of source files, tabs kind of lose their meaning. The fuzzy-search quick open panel and project-wide find become your main dependency for quickly jumping around your codebase (with the benefit that you don't need to touch the mouse).

Re: Windows game developer about porting to and using OS X

#87

Post by maljx »

stinos wrote: post #2

Xcode isn’t too bad. I wish the author told me more about it than just this. Can somebody comment on how it compares to recent VS editions these days? About 5 years ago I also looked into using OSX as main OS. As I've always been using non-commandline graphic text editors and IDEs for most coding that made XCode the go-to environment but I just couldn't deal with it even though I tried. I don't remember all details b…

I'm way more productive in Xcode. I've also used it more in the last years so that obviously influences my statement.

I find the UI in VS2013 very "unstable" - I constantly manage to drag stuff away and hide windows I need to use. I miss the .h/.cpp side by side view when I'm in VS.

It's very easy to setup a color scheme in Xcode that looks nice. I've used hours in VS to get something that is ok. And then it resets to the default about once a week randomly.

Debugging C++ template code actually works in Xcode. Running debug build of stl under win32 is extremely slow in my experience.

I almost never have crashes in Xcode, but I think this probably depends on your code base and project setup a lot.

LLVM compiler errors are much easier to understand. That said, VS have found bugs that LLVM don't see. So, compiling on both help keep code base in good state.

Our game code compiles in half the time on Xcode/LLVM compared to VS2013.

Re: Windows game developer about porting to and using OS X

#88

Post by farresito »

lucozade wrote: post #80

> Apparently my vi command muscle memory hasn't faded. Back in the day I did most of my dev work on Solaris. I then spent 4 years as CTO as a startup that was pretty much only Windows. When I subsequently went back to working at a unix shop I was initially struggling with vi as I tried to read some of the C++ code. I couldn't remember commands, was having to refer to the man pages every few mins. It was torture. A co…

This always happens to me with passwords. I have trouble remembering some passwords. Yet, when I'm in front of the page and I actually need to get in, either I lose some focus and let my unconsciousness do the work or I won't get it right.

Re: Windows game developer about porting to and using OS X

#89

Post by gazsp »

DeveloperExtras wrote: post #67

I do it this way, but it's based on my particular skill set: First make the iOS version. Then, port it over to Java. Then, port it over to C# or maybe ActionScript3/Flash. This way, I can recursively update previous versions as the 'best solution' to interesting problems become most clear by the end of the 2nd or 3rd port. This gives the Objective-C/iOS version the attention it needs, and I can use the rapid applicat…

That sounds like a lot of work.

Re: Windows game developer about porting to and using OS X

#90

Post by pjmlp »

ahoka wrote: post #54
collyw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this atually mean (when compared to Linux, which is a UNIX clone)? That they have paid someone for a certificate? Is it more than that?

Yes, it means that someone payed money for a useless certificate. Nothing more, nothing less. BTW, Linux is UNIX too! http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/brand3596.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspur_K-UX

So all APIs provided by all Linux distributions fully support the POSIX specification to the smallest detail?
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