RE: [GD-General] dev environments

[Philip H. <ph...@me...>]

> Well, ideally the game is written in a cross platform fashion 
> so you could run it on Mac or PC.  Even so, obviously the ROI 
> depends on the number of team members.  With a 100 person 
> team, then the cost of Macs per person might be larger than 
> the incremental cost of suffering through C++ and MFC.  With 
> a 10 person team, the Macs gotta be cheaper.

Does working on the Mac solve all the C++/MFC problems then? Or just
interface building issues? 
 
> > Personally, I'd rather build the tools into the game using a
> > GUI library. It saves all that messing around with stand 
> > alone tools :)
> 
> This is fine, when it works, but there are many types of 
> tools where it just doesn't fit within the game.  

Similarly there's many types of game where it's inefficient to run cross
platform on the Mac. 

> Tools that 
> need lots of forms entry, database manipulation, large 
> surface area (e.g. multiple monitors, lots of open windows, 
> 1600x1024 resolution, etc.).

That depends entirely on your GUI library, if the desktop can give you
lots of windows or high resolution then what's to stop the game doing
the same?

Several of those examples you mentioned I wouldn't build a standalone
app for anyway, a straightforward spreadsheet can sometimes be far more
efficient than a custom tool, no matter how easy it was to write the
tool.

Don't get me wrong, I've not used the system you're proposing so I'm not
saying you can't be right :) 

Given that we're considering porting a couple of titles to the Mac I may
have the opportunity to try out your suggestions in the future.

Phil