Week 2
Entry posted by Josh ·
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What an interesting first week. I compiled a C++ program for Android, made a programming language, learned about iPhone development, and figured out a lot of C++ stuff I did not know.
It's nice to see that a port to Android will work pretty much like I was hoping. I just write an abstract driver for every system, and have specific drivers that extends that class:
class GraphicsDriver {}
class GL4GraphicsDriver : public GraphicsDriver {}
Then when you have something like a surface that is dependent on the graphics driver, you do this:
surface = GetGraphicsDriver().CreateSurface()
And a GL4Surface object is returned. Of course, this is just the internal workings, and you will only have to call CreateSurface(). The GL4Surface is an extension of the Surface class, the same way the GL4 graphics driver extends the base graphics driver class.
I would like to get something running on my HTC Evo, but the details of an Android, XBox, or PS3 version aren't too important right now. What is important is to get the C++ core done, in a way that makes it easy to add support for more platforms in the future. So as planned, you'll get a .lib file for C++, a .dll you can use with any language, and multiple Lua scripts can be attached to any entity.
A roadmap of the development plan can be viewed here. I hope to accomplish most of stages 1 and 2 myself, and then recruit additional coders for the last leg. I don't intend to write the networking code myself, either. I figure it will be easier to develop streamed terrain from the beginning, instead of trying to tack it on two years from now, so I will see what I can do about that. I've never seen an infinite streamed world with the density and complexity I want, but Leadwerks seems to do best when we do really aggressive development:
http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/page/roadmap
What I like best about this process is the code I write now is ForeverCode: It's good for any platform, and it will last for the life of the engine, which will be a very long time. I really can't imagine ever writing a version 4, because version 3 is being designed to be perfect.
At this point I would like to thank Roland Stralberg, Mika Heinonen, and Ed Upton for their feedback and wisdom.
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