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Re: The gory Xconq kernel
- From: Hans Ronne <hronne at comhem dot se>
- To: "Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery at indiegamedesign dot com>
- Cc: xconq7 at sources dot redhat dot com
- Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2003 12:38:15 +0100
- Subject: Re: The gory Xconq kernel
- References: <l03130300bbd1db5845f2@[212.181.162.155]>
>I have no interest in rewriting the entire Xconq kernel. That kind of
>project is what I call a Complete Waste Of Time. If you can't
>incrementally modify it, better to write a new game from scratch!
Sure you can incrementally modify it. That's what we do all the time. But
it's written in C, like it or not. Did I take your statement about never
touching C too literally?
>That last sentence is rather disturbing. Are you saying that no matter
>what one's skill level, the Xconq kernel is such spaghetti that modules
>of it simply cannot be untangled? I can see myself doing Python in
>kernel, for bits and pieces here and there, as I think of a feature I
>want / need. Particularly for AI stuff. Are you saying this ain't
>likely to be feasible in practice?
Not at all. All I'm saying it's hard work. You won't do it in a weekend,
irrespective of your skill level.
That being said, I think the Xconq kernel could benefit from a rewrite in
an object oriented language and I encourage any such attempts. But so far
they have remained attempts :-/.
>Caveat: I have yet to attempt to understand the Xconq source code or
>read any docs about it. Getting it to even build on Windoze was the 1st
>priority, and I still don't have a working build.
I don't understand this problem. As Juergen Ruehle said, it's pretty
straightforward to build it under MSVC (or CodeWarrior). Didn't take me
many minutes to get a working Windows build, though I am not a Windows
developer. All you need in addition to the runtime C stuff are five
libraries: tcl84.lib, tk84.lib, kernel32.lib, user32.lib and wsock32.lib.
Replace tcl84.lib and tk84.lib with SDL.lib and SDLMain.x86.lib to build
the SDL interface.
Hans