My problem with going AMD is always the motherboard chipsets. All of the ones I have ever used have had weird, random issues. Like the one I had that would randomly have USB stop working and the only way to get it working again was to pop the CMOS battery out.

Though to be fair, the Opteron system that I had worked great for many years.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: slaapliedjeThat said, at my previous job, the developers there were always told that if their code was too complex that people couldn't just look at it and it needed a comment to say what the code did, then they were doing it wrong, and they were chastised for using comments at all.

I think that's idiotic, because some complex functions need to be... well complex enough that a comment should be used. What are your thoughts on that?

I can bet any money that policy was made by some fucking moronic manager, who has never written a line of code in his life, but has read all the books on Scrum and Agile, and all these other bullshit methodologies.

If he'd said that to me, I'd have punched him in the face, and then promptly handed in my notice.

Ha! Even as someone not on his team and having to deal with him, I wanted to punch him in the face and hand in my notice.

True Story: Same guy, always complained there was an echo and the sound cutting out on his VOIP phone. I told him to turn down the volume on his speaker phone a couple of notches, because the placement of the speaker and the microphone would cause the sound to reverb off the desk and with SIP being the way it is, it would try to auto-correct the noise, causing drops in audio and an echo. Finally Aastra released a firmware update that literally maxed out the volume at a firmware level. Every time I'd lower the volume, he'd raise it back up, causing the problem.

His comment when Aastra released the firmware, "About time you fixed it." I about stabbed him. Here's the fun part. Who in their right mind talks to clients on a speaker phone!? All the managers did that, they'd leave their office door open and talk to clients on speaker phones... drove me nuts.

I should write a blog for how much crazy shit went on there...

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Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: slaapliedjeWhat are your thoughts on that?

Whether your code is readable or not, comments are a must. What you consider readable might be total gibberish to someone else. Readability of a function or other code structure is also often dependent on context.

I'm sure anyone who's ever had to work on someone else's code would agree.

Ha, thank you, because that's exactly what I've said as well as all other programmers I've talked to. The manager of that team was... well special. One of the many things he'd done was modify the xml for a tomcat machine on a production server to create a new instance, and he copied one part, and left the port number the same as the default instance, so it took down the production system.

Also didn't understand how patch files work and just copy/pasted the patch file directly into the code, + / - and all!

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Quoting: stretch611Its development... it happens.

As any developer can tell you, making code changes can be a pain even if it is your own code. (Good developers do what they can through documentation and coding standards to minimize future pain.) When it is someone else's code, it is harder because you have to think like the other developer sometimes to understand how and why they wrote the code as it is. The fact that it is a different company with different coding standards makes it even harder.

In addition, this is a port... which means that functions and libraries used on the original may not be available on the other platform and need to be replaced or in a worse case scenario, written new from scratch. (Engines like Unity and/or Unreal minimize this by having the same functions and libraries available on all platforms, but 1) you have to use the middleware, 2) you would need to limit yourself to only use functions within that middleware, and 3) any bug in that middleware between platforms is a pain to fix.) Porting can be a pain, especially if the original developers don't make any attempt to keep the code friendly to porting.

TL;DR... Rewriting someone else's code can really be a pain in the ***.

I will preface this by saying that I'm not a full-time coder, or even that good by any stretch of the imagination, but I can usually look at and understand what code is supposed to do after a time, and must say that comments that say something as simple as 'this function does blah' is nice.

That said, at my previous job, the developers there were always told that if their code was too complex that people couldn't just look at it and it needed a comment to say what the code did, then they were doing it wrong, and they were chastised for using comments at all.

I think that's idiotic, because some complex functions need to be... well complex enough that a comment should be used. What are your thoughts on that?

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Quoting: TheRiddickI think TekSyndicate now sell the device without any software and just point to links on their forum on howto install it. Yeah they stuffed up by installing it for people who bought the device first time around, not sure if they mentioned that stuff up or not (on YT).

Curious, what about a bootstrap? So let's say I want to sell a device that uses libretro. Upon first boot up it connects to the internet, shows the libretro license page and then once agreed to, it downloads and installs all the bits?

I would thonk that would be the best way to do it, right? (If I were a company making such a decive.) Also.. assholes should contribute code so the devices all get better.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: slaapliedjeI was always curious about this. Let's say something like retroArch is turned into using FPGA cores. Is that still using software? Or is that written out to the hardware, effectively making it not under any license?

As with everything else, the creator chooses the license under which to release their creation. If they borrow from other projects, then they must abide by those projects licences. But if they come up with something completely their own, they are free to do with it as they please.

'Software' for an FPGA is typically written in some hardware description language (HDL), typically Verilog or the like. To come up with the design, the author would typically analyze the circuitry of the device and write code to simulate it. They likely wouldn't borrow from other emulators, since most emulators 'emulate' at a higher level than raw circuit components (for reasons of speed, lack of domain knowledge, etc).

However, if someone releases a hardware core and stipulates that it cannot be used commercially, then technically one couldn't just convert this to software and make the license disappear. The work would be a derived work, and could still be affected by the licencing of the original product.

It's all a fine line, really. There's an axiom in Computer Science that says hardware and software are essentially the same. Hardware is software committed to silicon, and software is virtualized hardware.

For example, there is a developer I know that is creating an FPGA core for the 2600. They have chosen not to release their 'source code' (HDL) so far, but they did want to help with Stella. So they converted the sound hardware circuitry simulation code to 'C', and allowed Stella to use that. I must say that this was greatly appreciated, since it will improve the sound code in Stella to surpass all current emulators. The point being, the HDL stayed closed, but the creator was still able to create and open-source block of code and release it freely.

That is pretty much what I figured, I was more curious about how one would disciver if their VHDL was taken, since with software there are always ways to poke arround the binaries and see if it is using a particular emulator. I would thing FPGA would be harder to tell once the code was written to the gate arrays.

By the way, IS there anither 2600 emulator? I mean that is worth using outside of Stella. I mean Stella is like the cream of the crop, is properly multiplatform, and simply awesome. Thank you for working on it, from all of us nerds! I wish Altirra (for the Atari 8bits) was multiplatform instead of having to run it in wine, since it currently is the best in it's league.

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I was always curious about this. Let's say something like retroArch is turned into using FPGA cores. Is that still using software? Or is that written out to the hardware, effectively making it not under any license?

Obviously this isn't the case with the typical hardwae running emulation software, but what about something like the MiST, where people have released a whole crapload of FPGA cores for?

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Quoting: MichaelDN

QuoteIf it starts working in VR, a bit of advice; set up a table and chair in the approximate positions in game. A few too many times someone gets up after being exploded and tries to set down the controls on the VR table, and there isn't one, they've just dropped your expensive controllers on the ground!

I almost did it myself twice!

lol, very sound advice. I'm just not convinced that VR is better for a game like this, I like to switch out people so every one has a go and putting on a headset, fitting it for everyone ( adjusting, focal distance, etc ) its got to be just right or the experience isn't the best.

I have the 'Deluxe Audio Strap' which makes it dead simple to adjust for different people. Most people don't have all that different of IPD, and the graphics in this game are simple enough for the most part it doesn't need hard core focusing. Generally we would switch it out after someone beats three rounds or fails to beat one three times to cut down on the swap out time.

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If it starts working in VR, a bit of advice; set up a table and chair in the approximate positions in game. A few too many times someone gets up after being exploded and tries to set down the controls on the VR table, and there isn't one, they've just dropped your expensive controllers on the ground!

I almost did it myself twice!

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: erlaanYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Time to get a VR for this game!

I don't want to provoke a NOOOOOOO, but the Linux version doesn't support VR...

It REALLY needs to support VR. This game is a blast with some friends/family. We played it for hours at my Sister's.

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