State of the FE devs?

[screaming]

Have any of you Windows FE devs opened up your FE source yet?

[youki]

I think ArcadeEpic is open.

The Author proposed sources here few time ago.

[SirPoonga]

If I ever make my own FE again I will make it open.  Now that XNA was released I am thinking of making a 2.5D mame FE.  But htat probably won't be for awhile.

[Havok]

Ultrastyle is open source - the author didn't have time to work on it, so he released it to the public...

Here's the source:

http://www.mameworld.net/ultrastyle/DL/source.zip

Here's his page:

http://www.mameworld.net/ultrastyle/

[screaming]

Does anyone use ultrastyle?  I've seen it advertised here before for its 3d capabilities, but that's all I know about it.

[loadman]

Have any of you Windows FE devs opened up your FE source yet?

EmuLoader is open. Not really a cab FE though

http://www.mameworld.net/emuloader/

[Buddabing]

Kymaera is open source.

I have been playing with the code for a while now. The more I work with the program, the more I realize what a terrific programmer PacManFan is.

[screaming]

Oh right!  I forgot about Kymea-- Kymar --  Kymaera..  At one point I tried getting everything together to compile it but I never managed to.  Then, wasn't he working on a big update?

[Howard_Casto]

I'm willing to share any code with any devs that want it, but my stuff is closed source. 


When it becomes inactive I'll go ahead and open it up, but for now I don't see the point on someone else modifying code to a fe I am still maintaining.

[Buddabing]

Why not open Lazarus? It could help out someone just starting a Visual Basic FE with things such as data structures, list buidling, font rendering, that kind of stuff. Just learning how to output stuff to a screen would be a big help for a programmer not used to Windows.

[Banacek]

Why not open Lazarus? It could help out someone just starting a Visual Basic FE with things such as data structures, list buidling, font rendering, that kind of stuff. Just learning how to output stuff to a screen would be a big help for a programmer not used to Windows.

Shouldn't people be getting away from using VB? I'd much rather use C# nowadays. I just started trying to learn the language, and I'm loving it. Not meant to be argumentive, I just like to hear why different programmers use different languages...

[youki]

I can be wrong  (so please correct) but  i think :

Mamewah uses Visual Basic 6
Dragon King uses Visual basic 6
Mala uses Delphi
GameEX uses  C# or VB.NET
AtomicFE uses C++ (for the FE itself)   and Delphi for Configuration tools.

Some other FE , uses Dark Basic i think.

The choice of the language is determined by the range of machine and performance you are targetting.

A choice of .NET (C# , VB.NET etc..) involves that the .NET framework is installed on your machine. Involves you have a more powered machine , more memory , more disk space...    It means that your FE will target modern machine and don't care of old hardware.

And of course, if you master a language , you tend to choose the one your master , not necessary the more appropriate.

For instance, for my FE , i targetted the wider range i can.  It can run from a Pentium I 233Mhx with 64Mega of RAM  with a old video card  to the most modern PC.    But to accomplish that i have to choose C++  and  DirectDraw 7  (and not Direct3D 9 or . Of course on lowest machine, you have to carefully make your skin to fit the performance on the machine.

But that's clear if you don't care of old configuration and look to the future ,  C# seems to be a good choice.

[Minwah]

Shouldn't people be getting away from using VB? I'd much rather use C# nowadays. I just started trying to learn the language, and I'm loving it. Not meant to be argumentive, I just like to hear why different programmers use different languages...

I use VB6 because:

a) I have it
b) I know it
c) It does the job satisfactorily
d) I like it
e) I have no reason to use anything else

[Howard_Casto]

Shouldn't people be getting away from using VB? I'd much rather use C# nowadays. I just started trying to learn the language, and I'm loving it. Not meant to be argumentive, I just like to hear why different programmers use different languages...

I use VB6 because:

a) I have it
b) I know it
c) It does the job satisfactorily
d) I like it
e) I have no reason to use anything else

Agreed. 

C isn't "better" by any means.  The developers that use C just are most comfortable using C.  Aside from minor differences, all visual studio languages do the same thing.  Now if we are talking about a "real langauge" vs one of the more "out-there" ones (python, various game maker programs, flash, ect) then I would agree, not because those languages aren't good, but because it isn't easy to migrate to a new one when the time comes because they do things so differently. 

[youki]

In C or C++, if you have lot of more control on what you do and you won't be limited by the language.

Some will arg that for quick development C++ (i don't talk about C here) is not good , and you will go faster with language like VB.   That's true ,  but only on Short Project.  On long term project the C++ become really faster.
(speaking about guys who master both languages , For a novice,  VB is surely more accessible).

From my experience , i have worked with and mastered lot of different languages (Windev, Java, VB6, C , C++, Delphi (Object pascal) ,powerbuilder , Assembler and few experience with .NET) , the best compromise i found , is DELPHI.  (easy as VB  ,  Far more flexible , almost powerfull like C++ ).

Anyway, the best language is the one you like!   

And you can do really good thing in any language like you can do very bad thing  too.

[Banacek]

Good info all around. I just wondered why VB has a bad rep. You mention it to some programmers and they shoot you dirty looks. Never understood why, since I've never used it.

The point about older machines is a good one that I didn't think about. My school is still focused on Java, but I believe we're making the switch to C#. 3 years already and I still don't feel like I learned anything

[loadman]

the best compromise i found , is DELPHI.

A bit off topic.

 But I am just starting to learn Delphi with the goal of building simple arcade utils down the track.

I can say that my initial thoughts is the learning curve appears steeper that VB6 but I'm gonna hang in there.   

PS The last thing I learned (3 years ago) was 'Lisp' Heard of that anyone?

[Howard_Casto]

Good info all around. I just wondered why VB has a bad rep. You mention it to some programmers and they shoot you dirty looks. Never understood why, since I've never used it.

The point about older machines is a good one that I didn't think about. My school is still focused on Java, but I believe we're making the switch to C#. 3 years already and I still don't feel like I learned anything

You won't.  I aced all of my programming classes but didn't learn anything until I started writing stuff for this community. 

Maybe it's just me, but even in the advanced programming classes these days, the example projects they make you do are retardedly easy.  They seldom ever go into stuff you'll actually need to know, like interfacing the api, advanced registry calls, ect....  They just want to teach you database stuff, which is only useful if you are going to be an in house programmer for a small business that just needs a glorified access interface. 

[youki]

Code: [Select]

3 years already and I still don't feel like I learned anything

In fact you have the feeling to not learn but you do.

Of course after your classes you won't be a programmer expert or something.  But you will have already a good overview and know more or less what you can do or not. You have the Bases , it is very important.

I was like you , i started in 1992-93  a one year university classe dedicated to Multimedia and Windows programming under C++.  I mastered allready DOS programming for years (Assembler, C and Basic) but i wanted to learn the "emerging" windows NT.  The course covered a large range of domain . Object Oriented method and programing,  GDI programing, Multimedia , real time programming and multithreading as well Device Driver Programming.  We worked on BETA version of Windows NT 3.1 . 
 At the end of the year, i add the feeling to know absolutly nothing. I didn't event understand why we have to use OBject.,Why it is better than a classic programming..etc..  at the end of the scholl we had 6month in a company to work. And suddenly by doing thing by myself  on a real project , all become clear little by little.   
And finally the company hired me and in the same time , the following year i was teaching at that school some modules , and i had my MCP (Microsoft Certified Professionnel) for Visual C++ .

Good info all around. I just wondered why VB has a bad rep. You mention it to some programmers and they shoot you dirty looks. Never understood why, since I've never used it.

VB is considered as a Toy by most of professionnal i know. (version <= VB6) .  I think it is a toy too. At the end of 90's  , i have lot of worked with VB  ,  Projects manager was thinking it will be more fast to develop with VB.   We had so much problem and limitation at all the level with it , that a big parts of project has been migrated to other technology.
But VB stay a good way to learn programmation, and we can do lot of good thing as soon as you avoid heavy professional use.

For a Front End  and tool it is good.  Look MameWah or DK .

I can say that my initial thoughts is the learning curve appears steeper that VB6 but I'm gonna hang in there.   

Yes, i agree, that's true if you are already familiar with Microsoft Language. Because some concept are different.  I had some difficulty at the begining too.  But after i understood the philosophy , the learning curve was exponential!.

PS The last thing I learned (3 years ago) was 'Lisp' Heard of that anyone?

I know it (never praticed it) .  That language is more  AI  oriented i think?

[unclet]

LISP ..... yes .... learned that a long time ago ..... it is an artificial intelligence language.    I have not worked with it in years though ....   I remember making a Connect-4 game (kind of like tic-tac-toe game but you need 4 in a row) with that language which allowed the computer to play against a human being.

[jjd]

Does anyone use ultrastyle?  I've seen it advertised here before for its 3d capabilities, but that's all I know about it.

I used to use it and loved it.  The problem, however, is that it does not support emulators other than MAME. 

If someone could add support for other emulators and nested menus (wheels) it could be a very good FE. 

[loadman]

LISP ..... yes .... learned that a long time ago ..... it is an artificial intelligence language.    I have not worked with it in years though ....   I remember making a Connect-4 game (kind of like tic-tac-toe game but you need 4 in a row) with that language which allowed the computer to play against a human being.

I had to learn this the hard way. No documentation, just trail and error and sifting through other examples. It is used where I work at an Australian TV station to convert on air schedules (comma seperated data) on a UNIX based automation system

Sorry if I have hijacked this thread 

[Minwah]

VB is considered as a Toy by most of professionnal i know. (version <= VB6) .  I think it is a toy too. At the end of 90's  , i have lot of worked with VB  ,  Projects manager was thinking it will be more fast to develop with VB.   We had so much problem and limitation at all the level with it , that a big parts of project has been migrated to other technology.

I don't deny people think this way, nor do I believe VB6 is the 'best' language.  However I will stick my neck out and say you can do practically *anything* in VB.  I mean one guy wrote a working C64 emulator for example.  And with access to DirectX and limitless controls etc., you can do whatever you like.

The real issue is speed....in programs where speed is vital.  In something like a FE though, particularly on modern PC's, VB6 still cuts the mustard.  As an example, the backend of Mamewah is essentially 5 years old, and certainly not the most optimised thing in the world...but (the last time I checked) things like list generation and filtering are still quicker than some of the newer FE's (not coded in VB6)

[Howard_Casto]

Agreed.  Since we are talking smack about oses the only real difference between vb and visual c is to do something in vb it takes one line and to do the same thing in c it takes 5 lines and at least three lines of declarations.  There is literally nothing you can't do in vb that you can do in C.  Mind you every once in a while you have to do something a little crazy to get access to a certain library, but other than that it basically is c++ minus the redundant syntax. 

I think you guys think I don't know other langauges, I've actually taken courses (and aced courses) in everything from quick basic to java.  There is a reason I use vb for almost everything.  It's like minwah said, it's really good for rapid development as long as speed isn't a major concern.  Speed really isn't a concern anyway, unless you are making some kind of high-end direct-x fps in vb or something crazy like that.


I say use what you want, but vb is a toy like a computer is a toy to your grandparents.  They only say that because they've never used it to it's fullest potential. 

[Buddabing]

Well, there's the cross-platform and cross-OS considerations.

I don't know if there are Visual Basic compilers for Linux or Macintosh, but there certainly are for C, C++, and Java.

I would not want to attempt a cross-platform project in VB, or any other kind of basic for that matter.

[screaming]

back in the day, something coded in VB was much slower than an equally-functioning program compiled in straight C.  It's the computers that have gotten faster and cheaper that have taken that out of thew equation.

someone who's codes professionally in C/C++ will be able to code the same thing just as fast as someone who codes in VB professionally.  This is for a couple reasons which are more auxiliary properties of the language than the language itself:

1) anyone who codes professionally in C/C++ will have libraries and blocks of code at thier disposal that are tailored to thier programming style.  Using these will reduce the humdrum rampup time considerably.  VB programmers do too, but to a lesser extent. See #2.

2) Someone who codes VB professionally typically hasn't been doing so for very long, especially compared with the professional C coders.  It's a lot harder to code fluent C than it is VB, and has a longer/steeper learning curve.  This takes long term dedication - something typical VB'ers don't have.

The stated advantage to VB is true - you have a smaller development window and its easier to learn - which are the same reasons why one might go with .NET.  In the near future (now?) the speed difference has become negligible on affordable hardware between a JIT compiled language and a lower level hard compiled program, like C.

VB is generally harder to maintain though because of all the hoops you have to jump through to do anything complicated. The more crap you have to code around, the more intricate and less elegant your code becomes.  How many times ahve you VB'ers coded something and then change something else a year later and spend a week staright trying to figure out why it doesn't work (or broke somethign else) only to find it's because you had to code around some inefficiency in your language?

The .NET languages fix this sort of thing since you kind of get the best of both worlds... with an added resource requirement though :/

[AllisterFiend]

I would like to start learning a programming language.  I was thinking about learning VB6 but I have noticed people around mentioning .NET.  Are VB6 and .NET the same? and if not, what is the difference between the two? and if there is a difference, which one would be best to tackle first?

Allister Fiend


P.S.  can anyone recommend a beginner book for VB6 or .NET that a newcomer to programming can understand?

(I have not programmed anything since the Commodore 64, and that was in basic  )


edit: okay, I've noticed there is a difference, something about helping different programs work seamlessly or something like that.  I still would like to know if I should start learning with .NET or VB6? also, is there any reason that some of the programmers who are working with VB6 have not started working with .net as of yet?

[loadman]

edit: okay, I've noticed there is a difference, something about helping different programs work seamlessly or something like that.  I still would like to know if I should start learning with .NET or VB6? also, is there any reason that some of the programmers who are working with VB6 have not started working with .net as of yet?

My understanding is .net is the future but is more resource hungry. Not really needed for a FE I guess as you want to cater to older machines that are commonly used in CABS.

[screaming]

edit: okay, I've noticed there is a difference, something about helping different programs work seamlessly or something like that.  I still would like to know if I should start learning with .NET or VB6? also, is there any reason that some of the programmers who are working with VB6 have not started working with .net as of yet?

My understanding is .net is the future but is more resource hungry. Not really needed for a FE I guess as you want to cater to older machines that are commonly used in CABS.

  Exactly!  VB6 has been around a looooong time so you can find a ton of stuff out there on the innernits to help you out.

  .NET is actually just the name for Microsoft's Just In Time compiler. The Just In Time compiler knows about the languages VB.NET and C#.  Just to clarify some terminology - you don't "learn .NET". You learn VB.NET, C#, Java.NET, and/or ASP.NET.  They're all different languages.

  The one critical difference between any .NET language and VB6 is that .NET is "object oriented" and you have to learn about objects and classes with methods and properties.  There are a lot of foreign terms here for the newb so it's a little heavy on the brain when you're just figureing it all out, but the payoff is that object orientated languages are not going away. It's cleaner, easier to maintain and share than non OO languages, and makes switching to a more "serious" language, like C++ SO much easier.

  Another big difference is the ease of integrating other technologies to make a more dynamic program. Connecting your program to the internet is a breeze in .NET, for example, because the .NET JIT compiler (i.e. the ".NET" package that your end users will download) comes with all the libraries to do pretty much anything you want.  VB6 is older - you need 3rd party stuff (if you've ever used MAMEWAH, you know that extra setup batch file Minwah has? Yeah, that's third party stuff).

VB6 on the other hand has it's benefits - it's easy. No new language terminology to learn once you know what a function (err Sub) is. Despite the popularity of VB6 here, it is on its way out because it's so old.  It's being replaced with ".NET".  There is an advantage of VB6 though - if you're rusty and are looking to get back into it, MS has some rudimentary (i mean rudementary)converters to convert VB6 to VB.NET.  You can start off with VB6 and "upgrade" your program later if you feel like you want to switch.

[screaming]

The other thing is that the C# compiler is free.  I think you have to pay for the VB6 compiler, assuming you can find it.

[screaming]

This community just seems to have an overabundance of FE developers, more than enough software development hobbists, and even more people that seem willing to help but unable to afford the time it takes to do it alone (like me).

 I would love to have some influence in an FE by giving up some ideas, helping out with the development and/or project management.  I can't afford the time to do it all on my own though. It's a lot of work, even for just a config program like MAMEWAH Config!

  Speaking of which, writing a config program is all well and good, and I had fun with it mostly because I learned just about everything possible about MAMEWAH - my FE of choice then.  MAMEWAH ended up going a different direction than I had hoped, which caused my interest in maintaining the config program slim to none (okay, more like none). I gave up the source to the interested parties.

  My point is, I do not want to end up in this situation again - If I'm going to invest just as much time as the primary FE dev in just the config program, then I want a stake in where the FE goes and the features available to me in my cabinet.  I don't think you FE devs understand this, but I can't understand why anyone else would feel any different.

  If you made it this far... thanks for listening to my rant party on!   

[Howard_Casto]

edit: okay, I've noticed there is a difference, something about helping different programs work seamlessly or something like that.  I still would like to know if I should start learning with .NET or VB6? also, is there any reason that some of the programmers who are working with VB6 have not started working with .net as of yet?

My understanding is .net is the future but is more resource hungry. Not really needed for a FE I guess as you want to cater to older machines that are commonly used in CABS.

.net (at least vb.net) is utter crap.  They tried to "improve" it by making it more standardized with the rest of the visual stuido family but what they ended up doing is adding in all the redundaancy that I was talking about.  It's a very nice language mind you, but you no longer have the rapid development advantage of vb and you have the more cumbersome declarations of c.  Basically what they did is killed vb.  You are better off running c# or c if you are moving to .net. 

Again, there is a reason I use vb6 and not vb.net

[headkaze]

I have to agree alot with what youki has said here. I started coding a long time ago in C64 BASIC. I programmed C on the Amiga and then DOS. I learned COBOL at Tafe which was a waste of time for anyone not jumping on the Y2k porting scare. I learned OOP with Java at Uni, did alot of VB6 stuff, then did a bit of VB.NET and then realised C# was nicer to code in (especially having a C background). I also know perl/php & actionscript because I am a web designer. With the C foundation you can learn pretty much any language easily.

As a hobby I write code for the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS using C++. C++ creates the leanest compiled code (aside from asm). But like assembly it's not very good for rapid development. The result is faster code if your good at it but I wouldn't recommend going this way if your new to programming now - there is no point in making your life difficult by doing everything the long way. I also believe it's easier to create hard to detect bugs that will crash a large program. You have to write alot of custom code to do simple things, for example, string handling (Eg. Extract a filename from a string) which is a pain. C++ is definately the way to go for wrappers (Eg. chankast_launch) and small memory resident applications so that is what I use for those sort of things. It's also good for low level stuff Eg. CoinDrop was written in C++ as it uses a DirectInput wrapper dll to inject keystrokes into Mame as well as a global keyboard hook dll to detect coin drops outside Mame.

I have coded alot of stuff in VB6 and now I won't go near it. After using C#/VB.NET you realise how much better it is. Simple stuff like threading is not stable in VB6. And you often have to do crazy things in VB6 to achieve something that is simple to do in C++. On the upside it's easier to code in VB6 than C++ because there is so much code and controls available on the Net and in the Visual Studio 6. VB6 was the way to go to learn coding a long time ago, but now it's VB.NET/C#. VB6 is no longer supported by Microsoft so it is infact a dead or dying language. A program crashing in C++ & VB6 can bring the whole system down, but in .NET your pretty much protected from that unless you use P/Invoke to access the old API or use unmanaged code.

If I was to code a FE today I would use C# and MDX 3D. It has garbage collection, automatic memory managment, great error handling and a ton of useful namespaces for anything you could imagine. And once you get to know the namespaces it's very easy to do rapid development. For example, you can download a file from a server with 2 lines of code!

Code: [Select]

WebClient Client = new WebClient ();
Client.DownloadFile("http://www.myspace.com/myfile.zip", " myfile.zip");
That is the sort of thing that makes development in C# so nice. It saves you time and you get more done in a shorter amount of time. Also having C# experience will mean your ready to code for Vista. It's no secret that Microsoft is giving managed code and .NET development a big thrust of support for this OS. Although for whatever reason if the Windows OS happens to get killed by something like Linux (unlikely), then all your experience in .NET will probably become useless.

[coasternuts]

Ugh.  I hate programming language arguments.  They never end. 

Having said that I wrote an FE in Java using OpenGL.  I didn't write it for public consumption.  I have a P4 2.66MHz 640MB and it runs nicely.

I got tired of the idiosyncrasies and caveats of other FE's and wrote my own off and on over a couple of weeks.  I wanted Vader in the background and his sabre to select the games and the sabre sound to kick in when you move the sabre(sound get's annoying after a while.  Meh).  Marquee and screen shot come up on pic of actual cabinet.  Pretty simple but compex to code in "generic" form.  Certain keys will switch between other EMU's.

It was a fun project and rewarding in the end.  I highly recommend adding that personal touch to a cab.

[youki]

If I was to code a FE today I would use C# and MDX 3D. It has garbage collection, automatic memory managment,

That point could be a problem.  I don't know enough .NEt to judge his memory management.  But we had a very big problem with this kind of thing in JAVA that has too a garbage colletion and automatic memory managment.   We discover a memory leak in our project.  This memory leak was critical and we had no way to fix it!!! (believe we tried all we could).   It appeared to be a bug in Java (it has been fixed lot later by Sun) .
In C++ we could always find a way to fix that kind of problem because we have control. 

But i agree with Headkaze , if i was to code a FE today where the target will be only modern powerfull computer on Windows only  i will use C# or Delphi .NET and MDX 3d. 

[Minwah]

  Speaking of which, writing a config program is all well and good, and I had fun with it mostly because I learned just about everything possible about MAMEWAH - my FE of choice then.  MAMEWAH ended up going a different direction than I had hoped, which caused my interest in maintaining the config program slim to none (okay, more like none). I gave up the source to the interested parties.

Just out of interest, what 'direction' did Mamewah take not to your liking?  Really, little has changed since you made the config program...in fact no official releases yet since v1.61.

[headkaze]

In C++ we could always find a way to fix that kind of problem because we have control. 

Although a lot less likely you can still stumble upon bugs in the Windows APIs eg. TransparentBlt comes to mind.

There are limitations in .NET that I don't like, like some areas of controls and API support in the namespaces are missing. Like the Microsoft.DirectX.AudioVideoPlayback namespace was a lame attempt at wrapping the DirectShow API's.

I have to take my hat off to you though youki, you certainly have my respect for writing your FE in pure C++. It's by far the most difficult of the languages mentioned here to master and requires the most programming skill and discipline. You can afford to be alot more lazy on the newer languages although I try not to let it make me become a lazy coder

[Minwah]

There are limitations in .NET that I don't like, like some areas of controls and API support in the namespaces are missing. Like the Microsoft.DirectX.AudioVideoPlayback namespace was a lame attempt at wrapping the DirectShow API's.

JCrouse mentioned to me that control arrays are not possible in .net - that's put me off it for life

[headkaze]

There are limitations in .NET that I don't like, like some areas of controls and API support in the namespaces are missing. Like the Microsoft.DirectX.AudioVideoPlayback namespace was a lame attempt at wrapping the DirectShow API's.

JCrouse mentioned to me that control arrays are not possible in .net - that's put me off it for life

What do you mean no control arrays? For a start ArrayList is an array of any object you want, so say you have a Label and TextBox, you can add them to the same array.

Code: [Select]

ArrayList myArray = new ArrayList();

myArray.Add(myLabel);
myArray.Add(myTextBox);

foreach(Control myControl in myArray)
{
    MessageBox.Show(myControl.Name);
}
Or you can have any control as an array Label[] myLabels; or Control[] myControls. So I don't know what JCrouse means when he says that, do you mean something else by control array? I havn't found any limitation in .NET in regards to arrays.

[Howard_Casto]

That isn't the same thing. 

With the old vs6 stuff you can do an array of controls, and put controls in an array.  Now you can just put controls in an array. 

The first is very useful for click events. 

I can have an array of labels (label(0) to label(13)) and they share common events.  So the same function can be called if any of them are clicked without any special code or for/case statements. 

I haven't figured out how you can do that in .net, I think it's impossible.