Thread: cboard community project

  1. #16
    Woof, woof! zacs7's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by brewbuck
    I offer to be the keeper of the build system
    And which build system is that? . Something portable would probably be fantastic (*cough* bakefile).

    Quote Originally Posted by brewbuck
    I think it's a cool idea. The difficulty is the huge range of skill level and experience.

    On open source projects I've looked at, the skill level of the contributers seems mostly consistent. When somebody with less experience tries to contribute, what usually seems to happen is a big argument
    That's happened to me once or twice. But sort of vice-versa, you could put it down to the fact that if person A is a maths student and writes a compiler and interpreter over 5 years (say project P). Then a design for project P, or at least a language specification (yes, he was designing a language) is essential, but it didn't exist. Plus the code is full of
    Code:
    (void)foo((void *) NULL, (int) 5);
    Yes, that's what a typical function call looks like :\

    Now the answer is "perhaps" for this project, the question is what and how? Also who?
    Last edited by zacs7; 05-01-2009 at 04:54 PM.

  2. #17
    Officially An Architect brewbuck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zacs7 View Post
    And which build system is that? . Something portable would probably be fantastic (*cough* bakefile).
    As much as I *really* love cross-platform build systems (e.g. cmake, jam, bakefile), they suck for the end user who now has to install something just to do a build.

    It's awesome for a gang who is coding and releasing binary product, but for an open source project I really, really want to be able to build it with the build system that came with my environment. It sucks for the developer, it's easier for the user.

    What makes it somewhat easier to deal with is if the build system itself is included with the project. That's really only feasible if it's simple enough to fit into a single (or possibly a few) source files.

    While we're looking for project ideas... How about a simple, portable build system that can be compiled from a single source module?
    Code:
    //try
    //{
    	if (a) do { f( b); } while(1);
    	else   do { f(!b); } while(1);
    //}

  3. #18
    Woof, woof! zacs7's Avatar
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    Sounds like a great first idea, pretty sure nothing of that nature really exists?

    How would configuration work? ie, say the user wants to define "debug" would that be done at compile time of the build system or runtime?

    And this build system would be limited to C/C++?

  4. #19
    Hail to the king, baby. Akkernight's Avatar
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    awesome
    and yes C/C++ only and it's extension should be cbo or cboard ...
    Currently research OpenGL

  5. #20
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    I think this is a great idea! But I may be a "someone" with less experience brewbuck is talking about . I could take care of translation to dutch if necessary .
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  6. #21
    Woof, woof! zacs7's Avatar
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    perhaps a trendy name, or at least codename. "cbmake" (for C Binary make -- or cboard make). Or since make is overused, and it could conflict with cmake, "cbm".

  7. #22
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    free version of Flash?
    Flex is open source - unless you really want the GUI...

    A game maker actually is a really good idea. Lots of newer users would love that. I mean, it wouldn't teach them good programming, per se, but those kind of noobs don't really want to learn programming anyway - they just want to be l33t h4x0rs and make a game.

  8. #23
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    A game maker, something like this: Game Maker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ?
    That is a good idea (but as you see, not new).
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  9. #24
    Hail to the king, baby. Akkernight's Avatar
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    Ideswa, I used the Game Maker one some time ago... It had its own scripting language tho, which was annoying xP I hate learning new languages...
    Currently research OpenGL

  10. #25
    Woof, woof! zacs7's Avatar
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    > A game maker actually is a really good idea
    Sure, but it's a rather large one to start with.

    Perhaps some smaller projects that would ultimately lead to that, i.e. a build system, a small scripting language, etc.

  11. #26
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Akkernight View Post
    Or a new language...
    I presume you mean an interpreted scripting language, like perl or python and a whole bunch of others. (It seems to me a compiled language would be more of an asm project, but most interpreters are written in C or C++.)

    This might be a really good idea since really the "goal" is unlikely to be something someone really wants*, or at least I think that would be better since no one seems to have any serious requests (yet, I mean I would like a better email client for linux that is not part of a DE, but I am not suggesting that). Also, this keeps the project open to everyone (it would not depend on using a choice of other non standard libraries or API's) and very focussed in a theoretical way on computer programming concepts.

    Of course, there is already this:
    http://cboard.cprogramming.com/proje...tml#post854978

    However, I'd prefer a less serious, experiment and learn approach which might not be appropriate if someone is very serious about the product. Also, it would be nice to start from scratch.

    There's a lot of potential separate elements to this that could involve people with different skill levels, and various programming realms.
    • For example, Akkernight also mentioned a flash replacement, which could be one role for such a scripting language, but would require integrating an interpreter into web browsers (difficult C++ stuff methinks). Laying the browser aside, certainly a networked interpreter would be easy and perhaps interesting considering the nature of the collaboration (and would require platform specific work).
    • different interpreters for different OS's means more people could be involved, but would not be required
    • in fact, such a project can very easily be scaled to reflect the amount of time put into it. It could be a very small simple language, and on from there...
    • the language could have non-essential branches and extensions for doing specific things on specific platforms. Eg, along the "game maker" line, it should be possible to do an app building script language that can be implimented using DX or GL (meaning people would have to write parallel functions so the same script could be applied using either API; I don't think that will be as difficult as it might sound)


    Anyway, I would definitely want to contribute to something like that.

    * or better yet, it could easily adapt itself to satisfy a broad range of goals
    Last edited by MK27; 05-02-2009 at 09:18 AM.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  12. #27
    The superhaterodyne twomers's Avatar
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    An operating system. I've seen a load of single-post users talking about writing one.

  13. #28
    spurious conceit MK27's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by twomers View Post
    An operating system. I've seen a load of single-post users talking about writing one.
    Yeah, I like that idea even more (almost), if by OS you mean the kernel (since the OS might as well use standard C libraries).

    I've never tried so I might as well ask: can you use C to create an executable that will boot? There is the issue of using a boot loader vs. something with a custom boot sector, which would mean something that works off a floppy or flash drive, etc. In the latter case I would assume the boot process has to be written directly in asm.
    C programming resources:
    GNU C Function and Macro Index -- glibc reference manual
    The C Book -- nice online learner guide
    Current ISO draft standard
    CCAN -- new CPAN like open source library repository
    3 (different) GNU debugger tutorials: #1 -- #2 -- #3
    cpwiki -- our wiki on sourceforge

  14. #29
    30 Helens Agree neandrake's Avatar
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    On the other end of being low-level, it seems that a large trend is moving towards thin-clients using the browser as interface. It might be interesting to develop something to enhance that sort of experience -- Perhaps something like client-side compiled code, like a JavaScript byte-code of some sort.
    Environment: OS X, GCC / G++
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  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by MK27 View Post
    I've never tried so I might as well ask: can you use C to create an executable that will boot?
    Probably not. Something of that nature would most likely require access to internal registers, which means you'll need to write some parts in assembly.

    Anyway, I quite like this idea, and since everyone seems to be proposing stuff, I guess I'll do that too: I think an internationalization library would be great in my opinion since the C and C++ standard libraries don't offer much in this regard. Sure, we have ICU, but after using it for more than a year, I can't help but think it's somewhat bloated, while lacking in some crucial areas (I/O), and besides, relying on a single library for something so important doesn't sound quite right to me. It can start out relatively simple: Pick up a transformation format and implement basic string functionality, then incorporate more complex concepts like collation, normalization, codepage conversion, etc.

    Otherwise, I'm quite fond of the scripting language suggestion; it's something I've always wanted to make but never got around.

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