http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/06/28/0253226/Porting-Lemmings-In-36-Hours
but seriously; these code-jamming sessions are cool and all but doing so typically means cutting corners and not really having enough time to do all the appropriate testing and validation.. i mean these are great for prototyping. it is like having 10 minute abs and then someone releases a new method for 9 minutes. w00t.
i am the type that leaves everything in the Inbox and search for what i need - but when i was issued a company laptop with Office 2007 installed; Outlook just sucked at searching the Inbox. upgrading to a Mac OSX laptop with Office 2011, everything just got a lot better - meaning searching the "Inbox" is now feasible again
any plans to ban it germany, file a motion in berlin? these patent wars are getting stupid - why not just share the knowledge and build an awesome product instead of all this crazy fighting over who has the biggest penis.
guru "unix" command line users know pretty much exactly what they are doing and mostly escape extend their commands and type like there is no tomorrow - you would have to play back these videos in slow motion to really learn from them, command typed, enter pressed, pages of stdout scroll by. nice reference point for learners. the only way to truly learn unix commands and get comfortable with command line tools is to avoid the UI completely. try doing stuff from your tty terminals and disable x11
CEO? where was that justification taken from?
the article specifically talks about 525 people - which are within the hardware area of the company (logical), when i see some developer relations guys and the OS developers get fired; then i'll believe where things are going. since they do not make hardware anymore; it is only natural these are the hardware guys being flushed out.
as a developer; it is going to be a royal pain in the rear to recompile our apps to support another processor architecture; unless of course they go down the emulation route; but using x86 and emulating ARM is going to require a lot of processing power. if intel was to build ARM chips; sure - but typically we associated x86 with intel. apple has experience with this with the transition from PPC to x86 for the mac osx environment; i am sure they'll keep that in mind for iOS developers as well. i would only see recompilation as feasible - emulating ARM wouldn't make sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
russia and china make up 21.5% of the worlds population - i am sure the 90% result will skew a lot more with these included.
yes - the issue with video tools is more the optimization and performance of the codecs, they are typically built for desktop environments and do not compile well for mobile platforms. just search slashdot for my 36 hour porting effort of lemmings to many platforms.. that was a complete game, not a mere codec.. the codec job is much easier. it is very trivial if you know what you are doing. google even made it easier recently:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html
>> Android NDK, Revision 4b (June 2010)
Adds support for Android 2.2, including a new stable API for accessing the pixel buffers of Bitmap objects from native code.
how about doing some RTFM and then bitching about how difficult things are.. it is typical people comment before doing any form of research - this stuff is really simple. it didn't even deserve a slashdot mention in the first place.
the NDK has been available for years - what has taken them so long to find this out? create a texture, pass a pointer to it and compile the codec natively. nit more than a one-day job if you know what you are doing. the issue is more about the optimizations of the codecs, not the language barrier.
they got 20 seats
http://www.val.se/val/val2010/valnatt/R/rike/index.html
It doesn't give you the right to basically rip them off.
it wasn't a rip off - i was so close to even open sourcing the whole thing, the reason why i did not is because it uses a common library which i own to cross-build on multiple platforms. in fact, we even have a linux version, i just never booted a VM with linux during this 36 hour period, otherwise, it would be FIVE platforms. we did this as a dedication to the game, not to profit from it we were going to release it for free, no adverts, no catches, 100% free, as in beer. it is a tribute because SCEE never seems to license content outside of their own hardware, as we have seen in the past - 10 years ago we chased down who owned it, with no avail. it has gotten complex. since then, the only versions have been for the PSP or PS3. nice to see them locking the IP to their own platforms, rather than even being open about discussing other platforms (which technically compete with their own). who's best interest do they have?
some commenters here simply blurt out comments without thinking at times, and it has made slashdot degrade a lot over the last 10 years - it is a sad pity actually.
every lemmings clone that has used the original files or name and left alone every clone that has not.
we have NOT used the original files, in fact - if you read the blog, you will see how we actually generated the levels using bitmaps and text files for configuration, all built without the original lemmings DAT files (yes, you can use them - but we did not). right now, it comes down to the Lemmings trademark with video games and the look for feel issue.
nice to get slashdotted twice in a week - the website still seems to be up this time around.
since i am on vacation (in egypt) for two weeks - i had to simply withdraw the submission and downloads from the application catalogs and own website, since sony gave a 48 hour window, i can deal with it in more detail when i am back from vacation. as for the intellectual property, no original code was uses (in fact, the palm os version was my own implementation) the only thing that is definitely "used" is the name (Lemmings) and the original EGA graphics from the game. even the levels are redesigned in the event that they are not workable with one player mode and the limitations of the palm os platform
IANAL - but since no original files are used, in fact everything is re-created without reference to the original source code, the only infringing rights here are the use of the name "Lemmings". there have been a number of copyright cases dealing with the look and feel - so it can go either way, intellectual property rights come down to if a jury believes there is confusion between the original and the remake.
i will try to open discussions with SCEE (Sony Entertainment) about getting an official license for the game, in fact, we were looking for the original license holders back in 2001 when we did the palm os versions - but it was in flux between Take Two Interactive, Sony and no-one knew their ass from a hole in the ground. the good news is now SCEE are claiming ownership, so we can now talk to them - and we have proof of concepts made, so if they play nice, this title will officially come to these platforms, if not - then you can start saying how evil they are.
lets see how the discussions go!
Then how do you target BlackBerry and Android, both of which use Java?
android - NDK (native development kit)
the library portion i provide is actually still Java; but with JNI calls to the real meat of the code.
Or how do you justify to your boss the lost sales from not targeting these platforms?
i support android - i have demo versions in place - so, thats not an issue. as for justifying it to my boss? i am my own boss - justified. but you do raise a valid point.
Always draw your curves, then plot your reading.
