[Xenocide-programming] Questions about build environment(s) and devpack(s)

[Mefford, N. <nme...@mi...>]

I posted this in the forums, but I think it's important enough to make my
first post here with it as well.  Sorry to duplicate the information.  What
is a better place to make a post like this?


Hi, I don't want to beat a dead horse here, since this topic has generated a
fairly large amount of discussion already, but what is the current official
stance on the supported build environments?

I downloaded the VCNetdevpack a few days ago, and got the entire game and
all examples building and running. However, I had to make 3 or 4 changes to
the code from CVS (I actually used .NET 2003, which has significantly better
ANSI compliance than .NET and, as I understand it, BCB6) for the compile to
work.

I also had to get a new version of nvparse and build and link to that lib,
which caused a slew of link errors that required that I make one final
correction to the code.

All in all, it took around 4 hours (it would have taken WAY longer if
somebody hadn't already done a lot of the groundwork first).

So I have it all up and running now, but I don't want to have to spend an
hour every time I get latest code from CVS reconfiguring project settings,
creating new projects, finding libs compatible with .NET, etc.


So here are my actual questions/points
1) Please clarify unambiguosly what the officially supported build
environment(s) and devpack(s) are. Where can I get the devpacks?

2) What is the level of interest in a VC6 / .NET / .NET 2003 devpack,
however official that may be? Please note that .NET project files are
incompatible with VC6, and .NET 2003 project files are incompatible with
.NET 2002. Not sure about lib files generated with each one.

3) Why are the devpack(s) not in CVS? They could each be in, for example
/xenocide/devpack_bcb6, /xenocide/devpack_NET, etc. Then to build, you
simply rename that directory to /devpack and build away. I personally think
it's VERY important that the build files exist in CVS since they are
necessarily tightly coupled to the source in CVS. It also helps to have
history on these files as sometimes things go haywire with them. It also
would be nice to get everything required to build the project from one
location. Finally, I _know_ I duplicated some of your work in getting .NET
2003 up and running. As well, it would be hard to share that work if the
files were not in some version control repository somewhere.


Well, I guess that's my first contribution to the programming discussion
board. I just really want to help make the barrier to contribution on this
project as low as possible.