Has Wiz Development Died?

[sam fisher]

Fenix and Bennu make it very simple to create very simple games. In my opinion there is a point of complexity at which a game would actually be better off implemented in C/++ but that is just my opinion.

 

[ZeroCorpse]

I see a lot of people "holding off" in anticipation of Pandora. I picked up the Wiz because I didn't want to wait to get a Pandora, and I want to play NOW.

Price-wise, the Pandora's also in a completely different ballpark. A lot of us will stick with the Wiz until Pandora is at the point where we can place an order and have one delivered soon after. I don't have the bucks to toss out there in anticipation of something that won't be in my hands for a while.

I'm no developer, but I sincerely appreciate all the work done by all the Wiz developers. You guys ARE the community, and we all owe you a debt of gratitude, and should be offering to buy you a beer when you visit our towns!

 

[aho]

[...] Aho, some people like languages that you don't, get over it. [...]

Oh boy.

Let's try a different angle.

If you compare Java to C/C++... you get things like memory management. You can run it in a browser. You can run it on mobile phones. Many people use it at work and there is great documentation available and there are also many awesome tools.

If you compare JavaScript to C/C++... you can see that it's managed. It runs in a browser. You might be able to use it on mobile phones. It's dynamic, weakly typed, prototype-based, and there are first-class functions. It's a functional programming language which is closer to Scheme than it is to Java or C/C++. So, this one is really very different.

If you compare Fenix/Bennu to C/C++... you get... uhm... different syntax (yay?), coroutines (*shrug*), and... xplatformness (without having to recompile). But there are very few resources available and it's also slower.

From my point of view it isn't a true alternative to C/C++, because it's basically the same thing. Same paradigm, low level, etc. Some things are build-in, but if you use SDL you pretty much get the same effect.

The problem with that is, that it won't attract other types of developers because there are no fundamental differences.

This doesn't mean it's a bad language nor does it mean that no one should use it. It just means that the demographic is virtually the same. If you want to attract other people, you have to offer other real alternatives, which are hopefully more appealing to them.

AS2/haXe for example is a real alternative. Unfortunately the Flash player on the Wiz is horribly crippled, which pretty much ruins everything.

 

[fishybawb]

As people have mentioned, I think the perceived slowdown is most likely to be down to the fact that most of the popular stuff was ported over pretty quickly, and as the Wiz isn't really a step up performance wise from the GP2X, new emulators might not be very likely. On the homebrew front, I guess it's just a bit of a lull and will probably pick up again. There does seem to be a lower dev/user ratio around these days - there are quite a few people who used to develop games that I haven't seen around for a while... Maybe they'll get onboard when the Pandora finally arrives

 

[zx-81]

I am not sure I buy that logic. Allot of new stuff is released and updated every day for the dingoo but you can go weeks with almost nothing on the Wiz. It is like 10:1 or so. Unless all Wiz devs live in the northern hemisphere where it is just starting to get cold now then there is something else wrong.

I think the big problem is the lack of USB networking that makes developing harder and the painfully slow boot times. Why the hell does it take almost a minute for the Wiz to boot while dingux takes 5 seconds? What the hell are they loading on the Wiz at startup, a whole PC linux environment or something? While these issues are bad they mostly can all be fixed by some firmware work. The problem is that they (GPH or the community, the source is out but no one has bothered with it) aren't fixing them and seem to have no interest in doing so. If there was something like open2X available on the Wiz then I think we would see improvement in activity.

The Wiz has some nice potential over the other cheapoo console such as a touchscreen, more RAM , better ARM CPU, 3D GPU, better contrast screen, the ability to use up to 32 gb cards instead of only 8 etc. It is a shame that much of this potential will never be used just because of some simple boneheaded software oversights that could be fixed but aren't.

I do agree 100%.

I've ported my stuff (more than 12 apps/emulators for now) to dingoo in about 2 weeks. Dingoo boots in a few second, i can upload my binaries using a standard USB cable in a second, and test on dingux in less than 5 seconds. It works exactly the same on my linux PC so i can test nearly 99% of the features on it, no need to worry about SDK issues or whatever. I only need to cross-compile my linux binary to a Dingoo mips clone architecture using dingux SDK and mips gcc.

On the Wiz ? It took me 2 months to do the same. I won't speak about SDK or toolchain (i'm not able to find the source code of latest SDL libs etc ...) Everytime i'm porting a new apps/emus it's a nightmare. I can't use the "proprietary" USB cable because the Wiz menu freeze. I'm obliged to plug/unplug my SD card to put the binary from my PC to the SD and the SD on my Wiz. It tooks no less than 30 sec only to boot and to get the Wiz menu. When it crashs i've no trace on the screen (on the dingoo you can display the console, no need to redirect stdout in a file and do a sync !).

What i will do now, is to first port my stuff to the dingoo and then when it will work properly i will backport it to the Wiz ... I'm not able to use the touch screen when i'm using overclocking functions, there is always tearing issues.

As you said the Wiz is a good console (missing wireless, it's a pity, i would have so many apps for this !) but OS and menu are too unstable, and it's not so easy to dev on it.

 

[Exophase]

Aho, you seriously don't get it. Fenix/Bennu's appeal is not in the language itself, but in the integration with the game engine. You don't have to setup libraries, you can just dive in to accessing the engine directly. For me and you this makes no difference but we're not the target audience. Obviously the people looking at it have looked at C/C++ and then looked at Fenix/Bennu and have made a decision based on immediate ease of use and appeal. Your analysis of the languages means nothing to them, nor are they "wrong" because of this.

You also so easily shrug off coroutines as if they're meaningless. For games they can be extremely useful, which is why Fenix/Bennu has them and it's why scripting languages like Lua that have them are used a lot in games. I've seen custom scripting languags that have them too.

We're talking about Wiz development here, so I think no one gives a crap about whether or not their stuff runs on mobile phones. Especially since most mobile phones don't have the control interfaces they want. Being managed may not be a big deal to them, especially when just starting out with the basics of development where they probably don't even end up having a lot of heap resources. I know in emulators I rarely have to use the heap meaning that I couldn't care less if the langauge was managed or not, but you act like it's the end all determining feature of a language all the time. Coroutines, on the other hand, could be very useful in things like emulators (byuu has proven this). Bottom line is, Java still sucks for GP2X and Wiz and Fenix/Bennu don't, so you can see what the viable option right now is. Javascript is even less of an option.

The platform deoesn't really have to attract other people because it already has attracted people who are using it. It was clearly done for platforms like GP2X and Wiz in mind, it doesn't need a big sales pitch.

 

[Sphinxter]

The guy who started the whole 'running' craze died of a heart attack while doing it...

Just as they will find my cold, lifeless, programming carcass slumped over the keyboard one day.

 

[klikklak]

Meh, I didn't know that developing on the dingoo was so much easier! That really puts GPH in a bad light in my eyes (even if they were blinded by the oled), they need to step up and deliver fast.

 

[aho]

Aho, you seriously don't get it. Fenix/Bennu's appeal is not in the language itself, but in the integration with the game engine. You don't have to setup libraries, you can just dive in to accessing the engine directly.[...]

Which makes it similar to using a framework. This doesn't really change anything.

You also so easily shrug off coroutines as if they're meaningless. For games they can be extremely useful, which is why Fenix/Bennu has them and it's why scripting languages like Lua that have them are used a lot in games. I've seen custom scripting languags that have them too.

JS 1.7 supports them. There are also libraries which add them to Java, C, C#, Ruby, Python... well, I don't need/want them.

We're talking about Wiz development here, so I think no one gives a crap about whether or not their stuff runs on mobile phones.[...]

Well, this does have some advantages. For example if you're developing a game for Android it would be pretty cool if you could run it on the Wiz as well. Or if your main target is actually the Wiz, but selling it for Android would generate some income.

If it can run in a browser it's similar. You can then generate some money with advertising, give the Wiz version away for free, but still make some money.

[...]Being managed may not be a big deal to them, especially when just starting out with the basics of development where they probably don't even end up having a lot of heap resources.[...]

Either way it's another thing to think about. It's something you have to double/triple/quadruple check... having less of that is surely better - well, it's surely more comfy.

[...]Bottom line is, Java still sucks for GP2X and Wiz and Fenix/Bennu don't, so you can see what the viable option right now is.[...]

JamVM should work reasonably well, I guess. I didn't get it running so far though. (There is a toolchain issue I can't resolve by myself.) IcedTea would be nice, but the Wiz got too little memory.

"right now" - yea. But that doesn't mean it's set in stone.

Javascript is even less of an option.[...]

JS actually looks very promising. V8 is very compact and pretty fast. It's about 10 times faster than Python, which is the point were it becomes interesting. No idea how things will turn out though.

[...]
The platform deoesn't really have to attract other people because it already has attracted people who are using it. It was clearly done for platforms like GP2X and Wiz in mind, it doesn't need a big sales pitch.

There are several groups. If we look at the Wiz owners there are developers and users for example. Over at the user side there are again a few groups: people who tried development but gave up, people who'd like to do some development but are unhappy with the options, and of course people who won't start to develop anything ever.

I'm talking about those first two sub-groups of the user group. I'd like to see them getting more involved. Simply because it makes things more fun.

 

[crookedmouth]

I am not sure I buy that logic. Allot of new stuff is released and updated every day for the dingoo but you can go weeks with almost nothing on the Wiz. It is like 10:1 or so. Unless all Wiz devs live in the northern hemisphere where it is just starting to get cold now then there is something else wrong.

I think the big problem is the lack of USB networking that makes developing harder and the painfully slow boot times. Why the hell does it take almost a minute for the Wiz to boot while dingux takes 5 seconds? What the hell are they loading on the Wiz at startup, a whole PC linux environment or something? While these issues are bad they mostly can all be fixed by some firmware work. The problem is that they (GPH or the community, the source is out but no one has bothered with it) aren't fixing them and seem to have no interest in doing so. If there was something like open2X available on the Wiz then I think we would see improvement in activity.

The Wiz has some nice potential over the other cheapoo console such as a touchscreen, more RAM , better ARM CPU, 3D GPU, better contrast screen, the ability to use up to 32 gb cards instead of only 8 etc. It is a shame that much of this potential will never be used just because of some simple boneheaded software oversights that could be fixed but aren't.

I do agree 100%.

I've ported my stuff (more than 12 apps/emulators for now) to dingoo in about 2 weeks. Dingoo boots in a few second, i can upload my binaries using a standard USB cable in a second, and test on dingux in less than 5 seconds. It works exactly the same on my linux PC so i can test nearly 99% of the features on it, no need to worry about SDK issues or whatever. I only need to cross-compile my linux binary to a Dingoo mips clone architecture using dingux SDK and mips gcc.

On the Wiz ? It took me 2 months to do the same. I won't speak about SDK or toolchain (i'm not able to find the source code of latest SDL libs etc ...) Everytime i'm porting a new apps/emus it's a nightmare. I can't use the "proprietary" USB cable because the Wiz menu freeze. I'm obliged to plug/unplug my SD card to put the binary from my PC to the SD and the SD on my Wiz. It tooks no less than 30 sec only to boot and to get the Wiz menu. When it crashs i've no trace on the screen (on the dingoo you can display the console, no need to redirect stdout in a file and do a sync !).

What i will do now, is to first port my stuff to the dingoo and then when it will work properly i will backport it to the Wiz ... I'm not able to use the touch screen when i'm using overclocking functions, there is always tearing issues.

As you said the Wiz is a good console (missing wireless, it's a pity, i would have so many apps for this !) but OS and menu are too unstable, and it's not so easy to dev on it.

Hi zx-81, So this means you won't completely abandon the Wiz? If you port say, the Intellivision emulator to the A-320, we might see it on the Wiz after, for instance?

Basically, I'm just probing because your applications have added so much to the Wiz and Dingoo.

Thanks for your work.

 

[zx-81]

Hi zx-81, So this means you won't completely abandon the Wiz? If you port say, the Intellivision emulator to the A-320, we might see it on the Wiz after, for instance?

I did not abandon the Wiz . I've just release a Go-game for the wiz few days ago. I was just saying that it's not easy
to develop on it due to fw / os / sdk issues. I will work on intellivision port soon .

 

[crookedmouth]

Hi zx-81, So this means you won't completely abandon the Wiz? If you port say, the Intellivision emulator to the A-320, we might see it on the Wiz after, for instance?

I did not abandon the Wiz . I've just release a Go-game for the wiz few days ago. I was just saying that it's not easy
to develop on it due to fw / os / sdk issues. I will work on intellivision port soon .

I shouldn't have used the word abandon.

Thank you for answering, that is excellent news.

 

[Exophase]

Maybe once Pandora development has settled down a little we can convince DJWillis to do something about the state of Linux on Wiz. Hopefully it's not too late to get most people to transition to a different distro.

 

[crow_riot]

I do agree 100%.

On the Wiz ? It took me 2 months to do the same. I won't speak about SDK or toolchain (i'm not able to find the source code of latest SDL libs etc ...) Everytime i'm porting a new apps/emus it's a nightmare. I can't use the "proprietary" USB cable because the Wiz menu freeze. I'm obliged to plug/unplug my SD card to put the binary from my PC to the SD and the SD on my Wiz. It tooks no less than 30 sec only to boot and to get the Wiz menu. When it crashs i've no trace on the screen (on the dingoo you can display the console, no need to redirect stdout in a file and do a sync !).

What i will do now, is to first port my stuff to the dingoo and then when it will work properly i will backport it to the Wiz ... I'm not able to use the touch screen when i'm using overclocking functions, there is always tearing issues.

As you said the Wiz is a good console (missing wireless, it's a pity, i would have so many apps for this !) but OS and menu are too unstable, and it's not so easy to dev on it.

it seems i should get a dingoo

my workflow is quite the same, because i still dont have one of those magic serial cables and as it seems they're not working on all the systems.
as noted in another dev thread i cannot update the executable on the sd card and just start it again, without getting weird errors/crashes. after rebooting the whole wiz everything is just fine.

i must say, i'm new to the opensource-handheld area and still pleased to see how much already works on the wiz. that's really great. but i'm totally unhappy with the gph's behaviour. it seems that their success as a company depends on all those homebrew stuff, and anyone proof me wrong, they're not doing much to support the opensource community. it's not done with just releasing the firmware's sourcecode IMO. at least i expected to be able to buy some developer stuff directly from gph, get a full working sdk including documentation and what else is needed to start a project from scratch.

summed up, there are major drawbacks developing for the wiz at the moment. i hope gph addresses the demands of the community. but still - i dont think development is dead. it just takes time to develop something new. a game, an app is not written in 2 days...

 

[DurTahar]

For someone who is doing nothing but making games as a hobby, who cares what language they use as long as they get the end result they want? If they aren't going to be applying those skills elsewhere, there is absolutely nothing wrong with them locking themselves into this. Your arguments all seem to rest on things that the developers really don't care about, you're arguing based on yourself. Sure, they could port things to/from android, but maybe they already decided they never wanted to? Just because they aren't doing it doesn't mean they didn't think about it already. You have a lot of arguments that only work if we're talking about you, but all they prove is that you yourself should be using C/C++ instead of Fenix/Bennu. That's great, you don't have to. The reason we have so many programming languages is because they all serve different purposes and some people work better in one instead of the other. Hooray! Technology is wonderful! Stop arguing, can't you see we have all these wonderful languages? Let's all use whichever one we want and make some software instead of telling someone they're doing everything all wrong and should be doing it THIS way instead.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

DurTahar, well said, I echo your sentiments exactly. What's the point in going overboard if the app/game you're writing doesn't require it. If you're having fun writing something then that's what should count, or rather that should be the point of it all, regardless of what language it was written in!

 

[iprice]

It doesn't matter what you use, as long as you enjoy doing what you're doing.

I said that already - Aho obviously didn't agree way back then, either. Each to their own. Now let's forget about this and concentrate on Wiz development, in WHATEVER language YOU enjoy using.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

It doesn't matter what you use, as long as you enjoy doing what you're doing.

I said that already - Aho obviously didn't agree way back then, either. Each to their own. Now let's forget about this and concentrate on Wiz development, in WHATEVER language YOU enjoy using.

I did see the post as I got it in an email, but didn't have much time to reply and then forgot you had said it, sorry

I don't get to have much time here at the moment as I am pretty busy, this is also another reason I haven't produced much recently as real life is taking up much of the time I used to devote to development. For me the Wiz dev hasn't died, just on hold until I have more time on my hands to finish my current projects.

Again, sorry iprice, I didn't mean to ignore you.

 

[iprice]

Sorry Clare, reading my post back it does come across as quite harsh - it wasn't meant that way, and certainly not twards you. No harm done

And I still love developing for the Wiz, thanks to you

 

[torpor]

I only wish we had gadget serial or gadget eth.. this would make developing for the Wiz a whole lot easier. The stupidest thing they did was remove functionality that was known proven working on the GP2X, such as gadget-ether/-serial. Sheesh.