VOS development (specifically the next generation s5) is officially back on track. I am now able to devote at least half of my working hours to VOS.
My time so far has been spent primarily on infrastructure issues. I'm
using the SCons ("Software Construction") tool to develop a
cross-platform build system. A lot of things that in s4 are done with
shell scripts and Unix commands can be done much more portably with the
Python standard library. The most useful feature for new developers
will be automated downloading and compiling of dependencies, allowing
one to start from scratch with only a few standard tools (Python, C++
compiler, make/nmake/vcbuild/xcodebuild as appropriate) and build VOS
and all its dependencies with a single command.
Most importantly, this means that there is only one set of files
describing the build, so there is no need to synchronize changes across
makefiles, vcproj files, xcodeproj files and so forth. However, since
Visual Studio and XCode support "makefile projects" (which are easily
configured to run SCons), you will still be able to use the IDE for
development and debugging.
In order to ensure cross-platform compatability I will be testing and
developing constantly on several platforms. With the hardware sitting
on my desk right now, I will be able to directly support Debian Linux
(amd64), Windows XP (x86) and OS X 10.4 (x86).
On Windows XP I am using Visual C++ Express, which is a free-beer
download from Microsoft. Compiling on Windows requires only Visual
Studio 8.0 and Python 2.4 -- no Unix tools required. I haven't played
around much with Cygwin and Mingw yet, but adding support should be
relatively easy.
I intend to eventually implement a "staged" check-in system, where
changes are run against a unit/regression test suite before being merged
into the "official" branch. That won't catch all issues (particularly
those affecting specific OSs, since the branch will be hosted on
interreality.org, which is amd64 Linux), but should still provide a
firewall against dumb mistakes and help ensure that the public
development branch is relatively stable.
It's been my experience with software development that the time invested
in the software engineering process is paid back many times in time
saved later, as many problems are caught before they are disruptive or
can be avoided entirely. I'm planning for the hopefully not-too-distant
future when we have several developers hacking on VOS and need to avoid
stepping on each other's toes.
--
[ Peter Amstutz ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ]
[Lead Programmer][Interreality Project][Virtual Reality for the Internet]
[ VOS: Next Generation Internet Communication][ http://interreality.org ]
[ http://interreality.org/~tetron ][ pgpkey: pgpkeys.mit.edu 18C21DF7 ]
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