What Needs Fixed In Huc?

OldRover · 10/17/2011, 01:03 PM

I have obeybrew.com... erm... brewing... it could be hosted there too.

Arkhan Asylum · 10/17/2011, 01:09 PM

lol, I demand credit for the term obeybrew.

Is it going to be that one-stop-shop PCEDev information hub we talked about like 5 months ago?

OldMan · 10/17/2011, 01:11 PM

It's not the actual hosting I'm wondering about...Like arkhan says, we could do that at aetherbyte.

But what's the best form for distributing changes? Do we really want to put up a new zip everytime anyone changes things? Or would a base zip and diff files work better? How would we manage it when multiple people make changes?

An svn, for devs only? Any other ideas?

OldRover · 10/17/2011, 01:20 PM

Yeah Ark, that's the plan.

And you get due credit for the name.

Oldman, that's not a problem really. HuC isn't very big. A single maintainer works as long as they're not a slacker.

I don't think it's a good idea to make it all stupified like a lot of projects are. The way it is right now is simple and effective... just download, unzip, and use. Screw messing around with svn.

Besides, I doubt too many people are gonna wanna mess with HuC directly anyway... more people are interested in using it than working on it.

Arkhan Asylum · 10/17/2011, 01:29 PM

I vote against SVN for something of the magnitude of HuC. It ain't big enough. If it is hosted at Aetherbyte, Oldman or Myself are more than able to ftp the latest and greatest build for everyone, while keeping track of the old builds as well.

how does this sound:

a page at Aetherbyte (aetherbyte.com/HuC.php) that has a link for the download of the latest and greatest stuff...

and the rest of the page will be a changelog so you can always see whats been done.

and, obeybrew.com can just link to that page so everything is coming from a central location.

I doubt many people will be modifying HuC's source aside from OldMan, Myself and Rover... so having a dev-only access to the source for screwing with seems like more trouble than it is worth.

OldRover · 10/17/2011, 02:09 PM

That sounds good to me. It might be wise to mirror it though, just in case. But you guys are doing most of the work, so it's up to you.

Arkhan Asylum · 10/17/2011, 02:16 PM

Mirroring could work. I don't know how crucial that would be once the 4 people who want HuC get the latest build... lol

OldRover · 10/17/2011, 02:26 PM

It's not terribly crucial, but meh... you never know how things might go.

Arkhan Asylum · 10/17/2011, 02:28 PM

yeah.

the changes will probably not be rapid enough to warrant diff/svn . I see this happening slowly and steadily. basically, "Denki" will be put to rest, and a new version name and number will be made. Take it or leave it.

OldRover · 10/17/2011, 02:33 PM

HuC 4.0 Sushi.

Arkhan Asylum · 10/17/2011, 03:01 PM

screw that HuC 4.0 YourMom. lol

OldRover · 10/17/2011, 03:37 PM

HuC 4.0 OnlyRoverWillUseThis

Arkhan Asylum · 10/17/2011, 03:41 PM

Quote from: The Old Rover on 10/17/2011, 03:37 PMHuC 4.0 OnlyRoverWillUseThisAndAetherbyte,Obviously

lol.

I hope more people will.. but even with a great C compiler, the learning curve for the turbob is kind of steep.

OldRover · 10/17/2011, 03:54 PM

Yeah, it's kind of steep. I think it'll be easier for newcomers though... stepping down from the nearly unlimited "modern" C/C++ on the advanced systems of today can be a nightmare for people who have to adapt to the terribly limited system of the PC Engine. On the other hand... things like sprites are way easier here than on the PC since everything is handled by the hardware and you don't have to worry about blitting pixels like you do in a framebuffer environment.

Arkhan Asylum · 10/17/2011, 03:55 PM

but, blitting is the least of your worries really. lol.

thats trivial business.

OldRover · 10/17/2011, 04:00 PM

True, but that was actually the biggest hurdle for me after being so used to direct access to the entire pixel array. Then again, experience with the Commodore 64 and its similar video hardware helped a ton. I feel sorry for anyone who has only ever used software blitting... and even worse for scrubs who've only ever used Direct3D. I was already very schooled in C by the time I got to coding the PC Engine, so adapting to the slightly different paradigm wasn't all that hard. Working without structs and having to use the old-style function prototypes wasn't that big a deal in the long run. C++ scrubs are gonna have a hard time though... no inheritance = "OH NOES WAT DO I DO NOW WAAH"

Arkhan Asylum · 10/17/2011, 04:08 PM

I like blitting but only for certain things. There are times where I would kill for blitting on the PCE.

mrhaboobi · 10/17/2011, 04:25 PM

sounds like there is deffinately some scope for you old timers to write some how to docs and make life for us newbs a bit easier ;)

Arkhan Asylum · 10/17/2011, 05:13 PM

I plan on writing docs. I have been for awhile. I liked writing the doc for Squirrel, and tried to keep it clear and simple.

I wouldn't mind writing more documents like that. I think I am pretty good at it, but I may be wrong.

OldRover · 10/17/2011, 05:55 PM

Documentation has always been the real Achilles heel of PCE homebrew. Even the docs for HuC, which are some of the best ever done for PCE homebrew, are lacking and contain errors, not to mention entire functions left completely out (such as cd_fade(), which was such a critical function for MSR's presentation).

spenoza · 10/17/2011, 06:26 PM

I started with Apple Basic, did a little Pascal in high school, and Java in college, and I never did enough of any of them to do squat short of data organization. I would be less worried about graphics and program structure and tracking variables than I would enemy behavior. For me AI, even the most simple routines, is quite scary.

Arkhan Asylum · 10/17/2011, 08:07 PM

Quote from: The Old Rover on 10/17/2011, 05:55 PMDocumentation has always been the real Achilles heel of PCE homebrew. Even the docs for HuC, which are some of the best ever done for PCE homebrew, are lacking and contain errors, not to mention entire functions left completely out (such as cd_fade(), which was such a critical function for MSR's presentation).

Yeah I like how some parts of the doc say "Im too lazy to do this", or something, lol.

Not to toot my own horny horn, but Squirrel is probably the best document related to PCE. lol.

some of the other hardware related ones are nice too, but not entirely helpful to someone trying to do basic C programming (AKA: Get a sprite to move on the screen)

BigusSchmuck · 11/28/2011, 01:43 AM

Ok gentlemen, where can I get the latest version of HuC and not the old one on Zeograd's Lair?
Also, is there Arcade Card support on this program or are we just limited system card 3.0 stuff?

Arkhan Asylum · 11/28/2011, 08:27 AM

Quote from: BigusSchmuck on 11/28/2011, 01:43 AMOk gentlemen, where can I get the latest version of HuC and not the old one on Zeograd's Lair?
Also, is there Arcade Card support on this program or are we just limited system card 3.0 stuff?

Just stick to the Zeograd one (3.21) for now.

The fixes won't matter to you until you get balls deep into a project.