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Topic: Status 9 November 2003 (Read 1597 times) |
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fry
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Status 9 November 2003
« on: Nov 10th, 2003, 6:09am » |
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from the software end of things...
for the last few days, i've been overhauling large parts of processing to make room for some large changes that will happen for release 68.
since i'm not able to get as much time into p5 as i'd like, i've shifted my strategy to making it easier for other people to hook into the environment and expand it themselves. that is, i'm focussing on making it easier to attach libraries, like the way that amit has done with sonia, since i'm not able to keep pace with maintaining the sound/net/video/serial APIs within p5.
so for rev 68, sound/net/video/serial will become a set of 'extension' libraries that can be added to projects explicitly, but that won't be required. this will have two positive effects: first that the download size for applets will be smalller. second, that there will no longer be a requirement for quicktime for java on windows (that should be in all caps, since it's been a huge headache for some).
each of the external libraries needs a good whack, too. so that will likely coincide with them being broken out.
the environment is also going to gain some "advanced" features, like "export to library" so that something like sonia can be built inside p5 more easily.
in addition, sketchbook is getting a major reworking. it will be possible to put your sketchbook folder wherever you'd like, or you can even enable another mode that allows you just to put sketches wherever, rather than using the sketchbook at all. i'll probably also try to fix the speed issues with history as well.
if things go well, an option for multiple files (say up to 3 or 4, not for huge projects) might be included, though it's a bit early to tell how well things are going. it seems multiple files is needed at least as an optional necessity. i had thought people would just use a full IDE when they outgrew single-file p5, but instead people seem to be writing really really long single file programs (at least in some cases).
another happy side of rewriting all this code is that it will be much more usable once we make the source code available. the previous codebase was getting to be a mess. this should make it easier for people to improve things as they wish.
the big downside is that lots of new code == lots of new bugs. mkoser and arielm are gonna be busy. ouch.
farther (further?) on the horizon:
- a faster/fixed graphics engine (concave and convex polygons! woohoo!)
- and some sort of pluggability for renderers: i.e. an option to render out to postscript, or simong's dxf renderer.
- font work.. better bitmaps, different file format, and a wider range of character sets
and when all that is done, we're at beta! 
one other aside.. alpha is taking a while, but i think beta may actually be quite short, since we're fixing a lot of the bugs that would be saved for beta while we're still in alpha.
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| « Last Edit: Nov 10th, 2003, 6:10am by fry » |
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Jerronimo
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Re: Status 9 November 2003
« Reply #1 on: Nov 10th, 2003, 6:17pm » |
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This sounds really awesome. I can't wait to try it out.
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mflux
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Re: Status 9 November 2003
« Reply #2 on: Dec 19th, 2003, 3:16pm » |
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oooo I can't wait! >.<
Honestly though. I really really like the P5 environment... but I also like writing long complicated code too. Multiple source file is on my P5 christmas wishlist Ben!! Pwease
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