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State of the FE devs?
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Minwah:

--- Quote from: screaming on September 11, 2006, 12:21:18 pm ---  Why can't they just WORK?  No display issues. No path issues. no artwork issues. No emulator issues. It can, and SHOULD, just work out of the box. 

--- End quote ---

Because everyone has completely different setups, making this very difficult to achieve, without having to assume some things or hard code things for certain emulators.  If everyone had just a Mame setup with the default paths, then I agree this is possible and would be easy.


--- Quote ---The developers manage thier product (yes Howard, it's a product) like a hobby (i.e. they don't manage it much at all). This is all well and good, and I respect that, I'm just calling for something more polished.

And i know I'm not alone.

--- End quote ---

You're are not alone in that you want everything for nothing.  If I thought making a highly professional polished frontend was worth it then I would give up my job and all my hobbies to do it.  But frankly the return for doing it is practically non-existant.  I purely work on my FE because I want to use it myself, and obviously I add other people's ideas to enhance other peoples enjoyment of it - and it is nice for me to know that other people want to use my FE.

With that said, I do not mean that I do not *want* my FE to be very polished etc., and hopefully it will eventually be, but as for development speed, well that is limited by time I have and whatever else I am doing.  Most crucially, IMHO, time is of absolutely no relevance in the emulation scene - emulators and fe's will come, develop and go, and the user will use whatever they want.  There is always more than enough choice to keep everybody happy.
Minwah:

--- Quote from: headkaze on September 12, 2006, 07:17:08 am ---VB6 is dead, it's time to get over it and move on (IMHO) :P

--- End quote ---

If I were a commercial programming company then I would agree.  But for our purposes VB6 is more than capable. 

Does the programming language used actually matters as long as the FE works??
screaming:
  Right, and that's kind of my point:   It could be polished if you weren't the only one programming it. You know, say you devote 5 hours a week to it (an hour after work each day, for example). If you had two people doing that, you'd have 10 man hours. 3 people, 15 man hours. 4 people and you have 20 man hours - or a good solid weekend of programming.

  All you put in was your hour after each workday.

  It's not just you, man, it's every developer out there with an existing maintained front end. With very few exceptions, they all have the same goals and are going the same direction! Why not collaborate instead of doing reinventing the wheel every time you update your FE?
screaming:

--- Quote from: Minwah on September 13, 2006, 08:49:20 am ---
--- Quote from: screaming on September 11, 2006, 12:21:18 pm ---  Why can't they just WORK?  No display issues. No path issues. no artwork issues. No emulator issues. It can, and SHOULD, just work out of the box. 

--- End quote ---

Because everyone has completely different setups, making this very difficult to achieve, without having to assume some things or hard code things for certain emulators.  If everyone had just a Mame setup with the default paths, then I agree this is possible and would be easy.

--- End quote ---

  Nah, it's not hard. Look at youki's modules! He has maintainers who have volunteered to maintain certain modules that apply to him.  Heck, you have jcrouse who posted his brazilian config files for his brazillian emulators.  What's there for you to maintain?

  If you programmed your FE in such a way that it provided a framework for a generic emulator, and implemented some kind of plugin, or "module" infrastructure, you could let someone else do the work of keeping up with the emulators leaving you to keep going with the backend and still provide your users a customized working and easy solution.

  I've said all this already about a year ago. It's nothing new.....
swindus:
But the MAME module of AtomicFE is nothing else like a default MAME installation with a default path on the same drive as the FE ...

I have to agree with Minwah here. It's not easy to create a framework that will work for all users out there. It works if the user will use exactly the given FE structure, but I know a lot of users which are not willing or can not use this structure for example when using more than one harddrive.

Correct me if I'm wrong.
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