Just a quick update. As you can see the blog now has new looks. This is part of a larger configuration regarding our web services. There’s now a new domain, coolbasic.fi that currently redirects to coolbasic.com. We now have a virtual web server instead of a standard web hotel, meaning that we can execute whatever we want on it. We recently migrated the forums to this new server, and everyone’s DNS should be up to date by now. There’s still some setting up to do such as a custom user account database and a complete CMS solution for the future website; the plan is that everything under coolbasic.fi will feature Finnish content only, and coolbasic.com will contain the international site. There will also be different discussion forums based on localization.

As a bonus note, we were 11 people from the Finnish CoolBasic community who participated in a summer cabin holiday just now. Back there, they managed to forge some motivation in me: An interesting community-driven project exists that basically implements a custom runtime & game engine for the old CoolBasic. It’s called “CB enchanted“, a very cool name I might add, and is a reverse-engineered CoolBasic byte code interpreter packed together with a fully hardware accelerated graphics system. Quite impressive! The real WTF is that these people managed to reverse-engineer the entire byte code structure, inject the engine as part of standard CoolBasic compilation process, and deliver overall better performance compared to the good old CB – and all this before CoolBasic Classic 😀

Yeah, I opened the compiler solution a few times and thought: “It’s time to finish this.”

We’ve got some real talent.

Before we begin, I’d like to say that the feature demonstrated herein will NOT be part of the first release of Cool Developer and CoolBasic Classic, but I’m merely playing with a cool idea instead.

I’ve been interested in versioning and Source Control technologies in general lately. One part of version controlling is the ability to handle conflicts when two or more developers check out a file for editing, do their changes and then check them back in. Two simultanous check-outs will often result in a conflict within the source file, and these conflicts have to be resolved through merging. Merging means that both developers’ modifications and fixes are applied to the source file, without the other’s changes getting lost in the process. Merging is one thing, but analyzing the differences is another. I decided to try out some difference tracking techniques.

First of all, there are number of algorithms available. Some are easier to understand than others, and some support more features (such as the ability to detect moved lines and code blocks). The most popular method I found was the Longest common subsequence problem, and it is, in fact, used in most Version Control software. It’s a good method of producing a script that can be used to “patch” the destination file with tiny changes so that it’ll transform to that of the source file. Basically you get a set of “add this to place X” and “remove this from place Y“. Unfortunately, while this technique indeed gets the job done nicely, visualizing these kinds of changes can be confusing. When a conflict occurs, for example, determining whether the merge would break something, can be tricky.

In addition, due to how LCS works, comparing two very big files (10,000 lines or more) quickly starts to eat giant chunks of memory because the algorithm operates with a matrix of n*m, where n is the number of code lines within the first file, and m is the number of code lines within the second one. There are a number of ways how to optimize memory consuption and matrix size, but that is out of scope of this blog bost.

Ideally, when a developer encounters a conflict (and a merge needs to be done), he or she will be provided with two source files side-by-side; one from the server and the other is the local file. This view should visually present those parts that differ between the two versions. If the developer spots a problem that would break the code upon auto-merge, there should be a way to edit the file before committing. LCS cannot by itself provide good enough visual presentation because it can only tell insertions and deletions, but not modifications. For example, editing a single line would produce both “delete” and “addition” changesets.

Then I came across with this Patience Diff algorithm. All in all, it would seem to fit to the purpose perfectly – it offers a very nice and clear presentation of changesets between two files and doesn’t take an awfully lot of memory either. I spent hours and hours trying to find a .NET implementation of it, but as of yet there apparently just aren’t any (the number of “good” C# implementations of the other algorithms is substantially small aswell). So I started working with a proof-of-concept. I spent a little less than 2 days on this challenge, and finally came up with a working solution. When I’m writing this, my work is the only C# implementation of the Patience Diff algorithm that I know of 🙂 . As a side note, there’s seemingly only one Version Control product that uses Patience Diff as its main tool, Bazaar, but apparently one can optionally enable it for Git aswell.

Here’s a sample of two slightly different files: the left side represents the original document, whereas the edited version is on the right:

The following difference graph can be generated from them (green = insert, red = delete, yellow = modify):

So what does this mean for CoolBasic? I don’t really know yet, but I have some ideas 🙂

Okay… where to start. The year changed. Gosh, that went fast. I can remember me writing tons of stuff and assembling the DevTeam 12 months back like it was yesterday. Obviously we didn’t make it in 2010 like originally planned, but the CoolBasic Classic project continues still. Actually, I just went ahead and changed the year from 2010 to 2011 on coolbasic.com (…and yes, it’s a common joke amongst project managers that deadlines should indicate month, but intentionally leave the year unspecified 🙂 ). I’ve been a little slacky the past few weeks, I admit, but it’s been hectic at work and other members of the Team have had all kinds of stuff going on in their lives (who wouldn’t). It being a year now, the DevTeam members’ contracts are closing to an end soon, naturally. This means it’s time for a round of renewals! That being said, few people are leaving their duties due to a number of things, but the majority has expressed their interest of continuing in the Team. And that’s great! For now, we have decided not to open new positions, and will recruit more only when needed – who knows, perhaps some of the original members will make a come-back. The organization structure is going to change a little bit, and details will be published later.

So what’s been done since last time… well, most of it has been management oriented. I feel it’s most convinient for you if I just list the things:

• We have explored alternatives to SVN version control, like Mercurial
• We actually purchased a Virtual Server for web hosting
• We now have domain coolbasic.fi (and it’s already operational on the Virtual Server)
• We have configured PHP and MySQL databases
• We have explored ways to use LDAP authentication services
• We have explored ways to improve forum experience through measures in order to shut down spam
• The PureBasic accounts have been terminated since we now use other tools

The web host isn’t fully configured yet, but we’re working on it. When that’s done, we can set up a true testing environment for web developing (full copy of the portal, forums, everything).

I saved some money for not having to purchase a new set of PureBasic one-year licenses, but then again… I did purchase the Virtual Server, and it costs roughly the same. No gain there. In addition, I just recently purchased a license of Resharper which was around 200 €. I use it together with StyleCop at work, so I’m quite used to it. Coding without these essential tools feels somehow awfully wrong nowadays. Resharper is an extension for Visual Studio that provides advanced code analysis and refactoring tools that will help you write better code that is styled and constructed according to “best practises”. It helps to improve code readability and maintainability, and overall I think the gain is notable. I’ll be spending at least a few days refactoring my existing code now…

Fortunate me, I’ve had a chance to experiment some of my compiler specific ideas at work as well (I’m working on a project where I am able to use this expertise of mine), so even though not much code have been added to the CBC compiler project for the past 2 months, I, in fact, have done something useful that will help me achieve my goal in the CoolBasic project (I proved some techniques and theories work in practise).

Until next time…

One of the to-be-implemented-next features of the Cool Developer editor is to get it perform an actual “Build & Run” action using the CoolBasic Classic compiler and the Cool VES linker. Once this is done it’s obviously possible to start coding in CoolBasic (although the runtime and compiler aren’t fully working yet). Anyways, to get this wheel rolling I prepared a dummy compiler and a dummy linker executables that can be used for to simulate a Build process. To hook ’em up I also prepared a CoolBasic Classic Cool VES game project template that Cool Developer consumes. The project template consists of a set of XML files that describe the allowed project items and how they’re presented in the editor. They also define how this project type needs to be built. Currently, the CoolBasic Cool VES project has two build steps: 1) compilation, and 2) linking. If one fails, the entire chain fails, and is also terminated immediately.

I mentioned “dummy executables”. In actuality, they’re the real CoolBasic Classic compiler and the real Cool VES linker, but they aren’t feature-complete yet. For example, the compiler only has lexical analysis and the linker only creates an empty (yet valid and runnable) executable. Both can be tested by intentionally providing invalid source (such as CB source with invalid parentheses or mismatched string quotation). This enables us to test error reporting and build step chaining properly back in Cool Developer.

I uploaded this package for the DevTeam a few days ago, however, it was only for Windows. I decided the sooner I can verify that it works on Linux as well the better. Finding out that you have to change half of your code when it’s time to deliver would such big-time. So I installed Linux on a VMWare virtual machine this weekend. I then went ahead and fetched Mono and set up the CoolBasic Classic compiler and Cool VES linker projects in MonoDevelop. They both compile out-of-the-box and seem to work properly. I was a bit surprised how easy it was. I have zero Linux experience. None, whatsoever. Now I just need to figure out how to share a folder (or something) so that my Windows 7 host and my Ubuntu can share stuff… or just link them both to SVN somehow. Lots of research work to do.

I haven’t yet gotten started with the Parsers, but let’s see what the forthcoming week produces.

We recently had a discussion at our regular DevTeam meeting about exploring other possibilities for a proper development platform (and for the record, that meeting was one of the longest so far). There is a number of reasons why we think we should migrate away from a certain programming language, and base our code upon a “more supported” platform. For example, when the Chipmunk physics library updated not so long ago, several problems emerged regarding cross-compiler generated code, and ultimately broke some compatibility. Now, one would expect that since it’s C it was standard enough to “just work” every time. In reality, however, our developers have had hard time with importing and invoking (consider SSE2 and dozens of compiler flags in the equation) the 3rd party libraries. We’ve got Chipmunk working in the current build, but there’s a high probability that it’ll break again in future coming library updates. All in all, fighting these kinds of problems is indeed quite frustrating (and uncalled for), especially when debugging these things is very difficult – if not impossible.

I think that procedural coding in general, an inadequate editor, a bit too simple tools, and a somewhat limited debugger will not serve our best interests in the long run. To me personally, it’s not too encouraging to open up our current development environment and start writing productive code anymore. I’m a professional C# developer, and this procedural coding (I once preferred) is becoming a mental burden for me. It has definitely affected my motivation in a negative way. I know I said a year ago that in order to create a fast and compact compiler, a procedural approach would be ideal. But I consider pleasant and powerful tools equally important because it enhances productivity of the programmer and maintainability of the project. I’m referring to Visual Studio (which in my opinion is the best IDE out there) as well as to Intellisense, refactoring, code analysis, unit testing, and other very powerful tools provided by it. After all, I think that if the compiler required a tad more memory and it took 2 seconds longer to build a game, it wouldn’t hurt too much (in a year the computers running the compiler are probably multiple times faster anyways).

So we’ve come to a point where we’re going to port our existing code over to C++ and C#. This will make a whole lot of new possibilities available to us: We can now harness the power of modern development environments, get more productive, and we no longer have to worry about the import files. We can trust that the generated ASM is correct and that using external libraries won’t conflict (that much, at least). There are pros and cons in object oriented design, but overall I’m confident that the marginal speed gain provided by procedural coding style isn’t going to outweigh anything. One of the most important things is that the developers are happy and get to work on something they enjoy.

The Cool VES game engine is going to be re-written in C++. This still enables us to inject ASM to where speed is critical. We’re also experimenting with a new multimedia library that ought to ease our job when implementing certain command sets in the future. We also continue developing Cool VES for both Windows and Linux.

I also mentioned C#. That’s for the CoolBasic Classic compiler! Now, this is quite interesting because there has been one project (that has nothing to do with us) I’m aware of, that attempted to write a compiler in C# about a year ago. It didn’t turn out that well, and currently the project in question is apparently frozen. One would think that this should be considered a warning example, but yet I’m willing to try doing the same thing because I really think it’s possible and quite doable. Yes, there are some serious challenges, and the architecture plays an exceptionally big role here. C# makes it possible to create a very high-level and sophisticated core for the compiler, and I’m very excited about it. Only a day after the meeting, I already had an initial architecture plan and a Visual Studio solution in place. Given that procedural model is seriously impacting my motivation, I actually believe I’ll get the job done faster now that I have good tools – even when it means I basically have to start over.

Many people associate C# to the Windows operating system. While it is true that C# is largely used to write software for the Microsoft .NET Framework, not everyone is aware that you can target programs written in C# to other platforms as well, like Linux. Just as Cool VES is intended to have both Windows and Linux versions, CoolBasic Classic compiler should also be available on Linux. I’ll be using Mono for that, but more information about that will be published at a later time.

If this becomes an epic fail, I can always revert back to the old compiler, although I highly doubt that. “I want to believe” 🙂 . In fact, I should have known better when I made the decision of the development environment almost a year ago. I hope I get it right this time…

TLDR; We decided to start using more powerful development tools, and we’re all now more productive and happy.

Can’t believe it’s been a year already as I vividly remember writing the ASM 2009 raport. This year’s Assembly demo party was, similarly to last year, 4 days in length, but this time I actually slept better so overall it was even cooler :). Every year it feels like gaming is taking more major part in the party. Besides lots of people there are playing and enjoying the lightning fast party network, there are also seminars and career opportunities related to game industry. Every Finnish university that offers courses for game development are strongly visible at the party booths. I myself attended an interesting seminar of XNA and Windows Phone 7 game development.

We had a group ordering for the CoolBasic community, which once again, gave us a geat opportunity to get known with each other also in real life in addition to good old forum posting. Having pizza, playing games, and discussing together was just splendid again. Below is a group picture taken outside the Arena; we had to look against the sun, and that’s the reson to grins and wet eyes.

Last year I presented details about CoolBasic V3, and this year I had presentation about CoolBasic Classic and Cool Developer (the code editor). This presentation had lots of info that was revealed for the first time in public! This time we actually went to some place more quiet than the Arena, so hopefully people would hear what I had to say more clearly. The mass of people followed me to the dark and shady parking hall for some demoing from my laptop. Needless to say, having the presentation in such a place felt a bit akward, so maybe I just book a room with a video projector next time :). Two major topics were without a doubt the game engine and the editor, and as it’s now basically public, I will post official overviews of them shortly in this blog.

I planned to write some code and do some HC development for CoolBasic Classic at the party, but due to constant competitions and other events on the big screen (forcing everyone to stop whatever they’re doing and close their monitors), I got interrupted all the time. Oh well, it’s a demo party after all – gaming and coding can be done in small doses, but in the end of the day, I achieved close to nothing of productive work. Good party!

I learned just recently that one of our beloved forum moderators, Bagard, is no longer with us. Bagard was nowhere to be found since last January; he didn’t answer to any emails nor private messages, and he disappeared from IRC. I feared for the worst, and we finally got a forum post confirmation (which judged by the tone of it, I believe strongly, isn’t a troll) about his condition from an anonymous friend of Bagard. Even though this may come “late”, I’m deeply sorry. Bagard attended the first CoolBasic summer cabin meeting back in 2009, and all of us who were there, I’m sure, will remember him as a great person.

R.I.P