Mirlix

My framework is far away from being usable by non-programmers and there is only a basic function set. But I think it is time to start developing some basic tools to make it easier to use. Right now this tools wont be used to create games, but it always looks good when your engine offers some tools. The more important part is that I can check if the design of my framework allows tools to be easly integrated, which I hope it the case .

Im trying Qt as a Gui library, simply because I have a university project next semester which will focus on Qt and learning one library is easier then two. I dont like the idea behind moc, but I can live with it and Qt seems a like a really good choice for Gui developing. The first tool I plan to develop is a simple package inspector, which shows you the components of a package. Nothing fancy, but useful and it is the foundation for a component editor, enabling the user to build a game without the need to code.

Im not sure which is the right buildtool for me. I know I want a tool which doesnt build the project directly, but generates the needed makefiles or visual studio files. This makes developing for me a lot easier, I use visual studio and I dont want to maintain two build systems, visual studio and my buildtool.

The only buildtools which can do this, as far as I know, are premake and cmake. I like premake, its easy to use, very well documented, but it has some problemes with my project structure. So I tried cmake which works fine with my project and also comes with a nice gui and a lot of features. The downside is that the documentation is crap if you dont buy their book. I needed a lot of experimenting before if worked the way I wanted it, but know it works and I think I will play with cmake a bit longer until I decide which buildtool I will use. But right know cmake has the lead.

In six days the first round of the “Jugend Forscht” research competition is to start and Im busy preparing everything for this, so today just a link.
I totally agree with the statements. There are no rules for programming their is a set of best practices and experiences which one should know and have in mind while developing but they are not mandatory. When you start to do something just because it was always done or because someone says you have to do it this way otherwise it will be wrong, just stop programming and think first.

Every line of code you write is different and therefore different rules apply. Of course there are rules which are almost always true and should be followed. But these rules are subject to change and not god-given. Sometimes a old rule doesnt work anymore and then we just abandon it and search for a better rule. When you stop to question your doing and stop searching for better ways to do something you gave up becoming a better developer. Always thing about what are you doing and why are you doing it.

I dont like setting up servers,I dont have enough practice to do it fast and there are so much little things that get in your way when you dont know exactly what are you doing, much like when you want write a small program and dont know how to program. So now Im starting to learn a bit about setting up server and so on which takes way to much time I would rather spend developing, but it must be done.

So it was a nice surprise that installing and running Hudson is extremely easy. Just download the war file and start the Java VM with the war file, thats all, its a one liner after downloading. Of course you can embedded it as a java applet in apache, but I dont need it right now. The configuration is done using the webinterface and setting up a new project is even easier then installing hudson. Right now my buildserver downloads the code from the mercurial repository and creates the documentation using doxygen. When Im finished switching my buildsystem from premake3 to premake4 Im going to let the buildserver compile my framework.

Yesterday I got my eeeBox after waiting almost 2 month. After playing a bit with it I removed the preinstalled linux and installed the newest Ubuntu server version. Im planing to use the eeeBox as a build and test server. Im trying out Hudson for this task which sounds promising. I will post a detailed first impression when I used it enough to give a proper review.
When the buildserver is completely set up it should build my framework each time a commit to the repository happens. After building it should run the unit tests, static code analysis, generate statistics about compiler errors, duplicate code, code metrics and other stuff to ensure code quality. I also think nightly build, uploading new documentation from doxygen and building SDKs can be done using the server. It will take some time until everything is running, so Im planning to do it step by step until all these little annoying, time consuming task are done automatically.