Supporting Multiple Platforms

[DarkGod]

Yes as long as you do not willfully make your code unportable by using bad libs (win32/directx mainly) you are fine, even if you cannot support it yourself, if your game is good people will help you. (And if it's bad you have other problems anyway ;> )

I'll take that occasion to do a shameless advertising for T-Engine4 (http://te4.org), you make a game with I while I care about the cross platform compat

[EdR]

bad libs (win32/directx mainly)

"Bad"? Really? The DirectX libraries are vastly easier to use and often result in considerably more productive development--the time you spend reinventing the wheel using an Open?L solution is then spent actually doing what you want to do (and SDL/SFML are poor substitutes on their best day). The Sharplike team sorta-kinda cares about cross-platform capability (which is why we're using OpenTK), but I know that I personally would be a hell of a lot happier taking the DirectX route because it is considerably simpler to work with and use.

Our look on cross-platform development is "if it doesn't work on Mac/Linux, file a bug and we'll look into it when we can." It is not on my personal radar at all.

[stu]

"Bad"? Really? The DirectX libraries are vastly easier to use and often result in considerably more productive development--the time you spend reinventing the wheel using an Open?L solution is then spent actually doing what you want to do (and SDL/SFML are poor substitutes on their best day).

since we are talking about portability, yes, DirectX = FAIL. Its not portable. 

Please tell me which of the following devices DirectX works on, since its oh so superior.
GP32, GP2X, Wiz, Dingoo, PSP, PS2, Pandora, Zodiac, Amiga, Mac, SGI box, sparc boxes, alpha boxes. None. SDL at least works on all, but its a bit unfair to compare DirectX to SDL. SDL is about giving you a video framebuffer to futz about with, its nothing to do with 3D ala DirectX.

I think its funny you piss on OpenGL yet one of sharplikes bullet points is "OpenGL audio and video system, using OpenTK."

I guess it will be interesting to see how long it takes (1, 2, 4 more releases?) before the mono side of things is abandoned in sharplike.

[ido]

I think there is no reason to be snarky.

EdR has a legitimate opinion that directx is easier for him to use and it's his decision to make, even tho I'd prefer more people to use platform independent libs since I personally use mac os x and ubuntu at home (and normally don't play roguelikes at work, where I use windows).

Also, I personally don't bother supporting all of the platforms you've mentioned either, I'm ok with windows/mac/linux and hoping the source code compiles for any other unix out there.

But if someone on an amiga has problems getting it to work I would honestly not invest a huge amount of effort trying to support it.

[ido]

PS: "easier" often depends on subjective things such as familiarity and experience, but either way I'd personally prefer to use higher level libs that abstract opengl/directx away.

[Etinarg]

In the past, platforms were changing more often and more drastic, so portability was an issue - at least for me, when I wanted to move from my Amiga to a DOS based PC, and the question was how to get my programs run under DOS/Windows again.

Nowadays 90% of people can run Windows programs, and they could for like 10 years, and it seems very likely that they can for another 10, so portability is not that much of an issue anymore.

It became even so little of an issue that many people understand portable software as "something I can carry with me on an USB stick" instead of "Code that can be ported easily from one system to another".

DirectX is a heavy lock to the windows platform though. Can be, but doesn't have to be a problem. It depends. Personally, I think supporting multiple platforms is a good idea, though.

If Java dies some day, I'll have lost a lot of work, too ... unless there are cross-compilers and such tools which will help me to rescue my code.

[ido]

Nowadays 90% of people can run Windows programs, and they could for like 10 years, and it seems very likely that they can for another 10, so portability is not that much of an issue anymore.

That's basically a spit in the face to every mac and linux developer that invests an effort into supporting windows (which is often a lot harder to support than linux, mac or any unix).

It's one thing to say you don't think it's worth expanding the effort to support 30% of your user base (see previous posts about that figure) and a whole other thing to state that portability is not that much of an issue.

Macs and linux today have a much higher market-share than amigas ever had, the only difference is that now it's someone else's problem because it's not you that is on the non-mainstream platfrom.

Amigas were only really popular in a couple of european markets, I've never even seen one until a few years ago. World-wide it was never more popular than contemporary macs.

[Etinarg]

Nowadays 90% of people can run Windows programs, and they could for like 10 years, and it seems very likely that they can for another 10, so portability is not that much of an issue anymore.

That's basically a spit in the face to every mac and linux developer that invests an effort into supporting windows (which is often a lot harder to support than linux, mac or any unix).

I'm not sure why my posting is felt to be offending. Statistics say that more than 90% of PC users have windows installed, and even more have access to windows. I just repeated that. It's not my opinion and not my invention.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows

As of October 2009, Windows had approximately 91% of the market share of the client operating systems for usage on the Internet.

My "10 year estimate" can easily be wrong, I don't see why it would be offending though, either. It's a common way to extrapolate things though, to look at the past and then assume some kind of linear development (I know that many of such prospects fail, still I think is is a valid way of doing extrapolations).

So I think it is allowed to say that the pressure on writing portable software has dropped, since a reach of 90% is good enough for many developers.

Mind you, I'm still pro portable software, and almost everything I made was/is available on several platforms, except minor projects or very old projects. At least after the experience of loosing a lot of my work in the transition from Amiga to DOS/Windows, which happend in 1993 or so, and is therefore really not relevant anymore, but for my own memories. I don't understand why you compare Amiga popularity with Macs now, since I only shared a personal experience of loosing work by not having cared enough about portability of my software. It was more or less meant as a warning for other developers that they might share this fate if they are not careful, but the rest of my message wanted to say that such fate is less likely these days.

[ido]

I'm not sure why my posting is felt to be offending. Statistics say that more than 90% of PC users have windows installed, and even more have access to windows. I just repeated that. It's not my opinion and not my invention.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows

As of October 2009, Windows had approximately 91% of the market share of the client operating systems for usage on the Internet.

That is pretty much the topic of this thread.  If we are talking about RLs your target audience is likely to be far less than 91% windows (I argue it is closer to 70%).

About the Amiga part - it bothered me because I read it as "it used to be important because it affected me, but since now it's just other people's problem feel free to ignore it".

[ido]

don't understand why you compare Amiga popularity with Macs now,

con·tem·po·rar·y
   /kənˈtɛmpəˌrɛri/ Show Spelled [kuhn-tem-puh-rer-ee] Show IPA adjective, noun, plural -rar·ies.
–adjective
1.
existing, occurring, or living at the same time; belonging to the same time: Newton's discovery of the calculus was contemporary with that of Leibniz.
2.
of about the same age or date: a Georgian table with a contemporary wig stand.
3.
of the present time; modern: a lecture on the contemporary novel.

I was using it with the intention of the first definition. I.e. at their heyday Amigas were still less popular than macs of that time (but additionally also less popular than macs are today).

But that's not the important part of the argument.

[Etinarg]

Obviously I said something bad, without intention though. I'm sorry if I have offended people.

[ido]

Don't worry too much about it...It's just a sensitive subject.

Anyway my problem is not with your tone but with your assumptions about the RL-players' "market-space", which I think is incorrect.

I also think your perspective is somewhat skewed, seeming to be that in the late 80s and early 90s alternative platforms roamed the earth while now it's practically all Windows:

So I think it is allowed to say that the pressure on writing portable software has dropped, since a reach of 90% is good enough for many developers.

I'm pretty sure that DOS by the early 90s had as high a market share as Windows does today.  Some European counties (notably the Germanic and Nordic countries) are the exception here. I am not pointing that in anger, I'm rather just trying to inform.

[Etinarg]

Anyway my problem is not with your tone but with your assumptions about the RL-players' "market-space", which I think is incorrect.

Agreed. I didn't think in "RL market space", but more or less reach of computer programs in general. I just saw that further above I had told that I have about 5% of Mac users for my Java projects, which are not RL projects ... so my statistics and scope just differed from yours.

So yes, for RL development your numbers might be more correct.

[DarkGod]

On my generic not RL sites I get 90% windows users and on my RL sites 75%, seems to correlate well with what others said :=)

[ido]

The crawl survey from late 2009 is a bit harder to compare, but seem to also support a similar conclusion:

   52.0%         130        windows
   18.0%          45        linux, windows
   13.2%          33        linux
    5.6%          14        osx
    4.8%          12        osx, windows
    2.8%           7        linux, osx
    2.0%           5        linux, osx, windows
    1.6%           4        other


If we divide the multiple-os choices equally we get:

52+18/2+4.8/2 +2/3 = 64% windows
18/2+13.2+2.8/2+2/3 = 24% linux
5.6+4.8/2+2.8/2+2/3= 10% mac os x

Also not far from my 70/15/15.