Just curious, was thinking of screwing around with it on MorphOS for kicks. Never used E before and I'm a language nut. Also, does anybody have a forth recommendation on the amiga platform?

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@koft

If you want to try E, better try ECX

http://blubbedev.net/ecx/

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x86/MorphOS 4.0

"Delving into the past can be a dangerous exercise." -hyperionmp

"I've been a supporter of "REACTION" GUI because is an Amiga OS thing." -Snuffy

"I personally prefer a vision of do'ers and makers rather than

@Cheese

Thanks for the tip, I will try it this afternoon. Looks like steady and stable development has been done on that project over the years, always a good thing to see.

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@koft

And check http://amigazeux.org/ for some ECX coded stuff

Last edited by Cheese on 05-Jul-2010 at 05:44 PM.

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x86/MorphOS 4.0

"Delving into the past can be a dangerous exercise." -hyperionmp

"I've been a supporter of "REACTION" GUI because is an Amiga OS thing." -Snuffy

"I personally prefer a vision of do'ers and makers rather than

@koft

ChrisH develops the OS4/OS3/Aros/MorphOS version, so guess at least he uses it.

http://cshandley.co.uk/portable/

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Site admins are people too..pooff!

@koft

Actually there was same question in AmigaE mailing list.

Here is answer from Daniel Westerberg

Quote:

> What are you working on, or recently worked on, or plan to work on, using E? Well, my latest program is DeeJay'D, written in PortablE. Haven't had much time last 6 month though. We'll see after the summer again.

@Cheese

PortablE transcodes to ECX anyway for MorphOS I think. The advantage of using PortablE instead is you can easily create binaries for OS3, OS4, AROS and MorphOS, and it can potentially target Windows etc as well. The disadvantage is you end up with pretty huge binaries on most platforms as the resultant code is compiled by GCC.

It's probably a matter of personal preference as to whether to use ECX or PortablE. If you are only planning on writing for MorphOS it is probably easier to use ECX. I haven't had any luck compiling my old E code with ECX for OS4, although I can't remember what the problems were now - maybe a module issue, although they all look up-to-date in the archive. Perhaps I should try it again.

To answer the original question, I do not use PortablE for new projects, only for porting old ones to newer architectures.

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"Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer" - AJS on Hyperion
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@tomazkid

Quote:

tomazkid wrote: @koft ChrisH develops the OS4/OS3/Aros/MorphOS version, so guess at least he uses it. http://cshandley.co.uk/portable/

I know he's behind ProtableE, I've messaged him about it, but he's got a personal problem or something. Not surprising given all the nasty grams he's sent me over the months.

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@Chris_Y

Quote:

Chris_Y wrote: @Cheese PortablE transcodes to ECX anyway for MorphOS I think. The advantage of using PortablE instead is you can easily create binaries for OS3, OS4, AROS and MorphOS, and it can potentially target Windows etc as well. The disadvantage is you end up with pretty huge binaries on most platforms as the resultant code is compiled by GCC. It's probably a matter of personal preference as to whether to use ECX or PortablE. If you are only planning on writing for MorphOS it is probably easier to use ECX. I haven't had any luck compiling my old E code with ECX for OS4, although I can't remember what the problems were now - maybe a module issue, although they all look up-to-date in the archive. Perhaps I should try it again. To answer the original question, I do not use PortablE for new projects, only for porting old ones to newer architectures.

Thanks for the wealth of information. I just want to get familiar with E, I have no plans for now regarding it. Maybe I'll like it, maybe I won't. In any case I'm using MorphOS a lot, but what ever I write I'll make it as cross platform as possible.

ECX I'll be using. I've read some embarrassing things from ChrisH regarding development on lists.

Last edited by koft on 06-Jul-2010 at 12:02 AM.

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@koft

ChrisH does seem to have a problem with anyone criticising anything OS4 related. Not sure why but there are a good 5-10 people who won't accept anything negative being said about OS4 and the related hardware. That said, let's hope his personal problem is resolved soon.

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Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@A1200

Quote:

A1200 wrote: @koft ChrisH does seem to have a problem with anyone criticising anything OS4 related. Not sure why but there are a good 5-10 people who won't accept anything negative being said about OS4 and the related hardware. That said, let's hope his personal problem is resolved soon.

I hope so too. I'm not knocking AOS 4. I have been negative on a narrow set of the scene regarding the A-Eon offering because I don't see that solution pushing the ball forward. I've got my hands on almost everything except for AOS 4 and I want AOS 4 though I'm not estatic about the folks behind it or the hostility from some of the main devs.

Last edited by koft on 06-Jul-2010 at 12:20 AM.

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@koft

Well put. A lesson in biting the proverbial tongue is what Rogue and others need. The egotistical nature of his posts on occasions beggars belief. And then people like ChrisH come to their rescue saying "x has done lots for the community, we are not worthy - don't upset them or they might throw in the towel" etc. Which would be great, then people would move to something like Natami or AROS and get some community led features into the platform.

Its a commercial product, if it cannot stand on its own merits then of course it will be open to criticism.

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Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@A1200
I don't understand why a programmer's discussion about E should turn into a lesson of behavioural science, specially considering the persons you're talking about did not participate here with comments of any sort.

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SamFlex Complete 800Mhz System + AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4
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AmigaCD 32

@koft

I use PortablE for most new stuff I write. I used to use EC but it is 68k only and by the time I wanted something OS4/PPC ECX was too buggy or didn't work at all on/for OS4 so I used C or C++ for one or two projects.

Now PortablE has matured and I have used it for two project, one of which is DeeJay'D on OS4 depot. That is currently alpha though.

Positive with PortablE is (IMO):
+ Designed to be cross-platform.
+ Very good OOP support.
+ Handles OS4 libraries/interfaces transparently. Just OpenLibrary() and you're done.
+ Strongly typed and good and useful error messages from the compiler, yet has the generic VALUE type making it possible to write old-fasion typeless code to some extent.
+ Outputs intermediate C++ source code that can be examined when in doubt.

Downsides (IMO):
- Long compile time due to a dual step compiling with g++ as last step.
- Requires g++ on/for the target platform.
EDIT: Ok, that's not true. It can generate AmigaE code for OS3/68k and ECX code for MOS as well
- Somewhat large executable due to g++ (when used). (Nowhere near Hollywood though!)

I think it's a good language.

Last edited by Deniil715 on 06-Jul-2010 at 10:47 AM.

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- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

@Deniil715

Quote:

+ Handles OS4 libraries/interfaces transparently. Just OpenLibrary() and you're done.

How do you access interfaces other than main then?

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Playstation Network ID: xeron6

@DAX

Quote:

DAX wrote: @A1200 I don't understand why a programmer's discussion about E should turn into a lesson of behavioural science, specially considering the persons you're talking about did not participate here with comments of any sort.

In the words of holly (Red Dwarf) "Well, it's a laugh, innit"

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Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@xeron

Quote:

How do you access interfaces other than main then?

You don't, and you won't, because you write cross-platform code. And as we all know, only OS4 has the advantage of having interfaces so far...

You can write code to use the interfaces directly though I guess using the NATIVE keyword and input C++ target code directly, or write wrappers or anything.

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- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

@koft

PortablE has come along quite nicely in its development. I have it installed and it's quite easy to compile code. I'm only experimenting with it ATM so haven't compiled any of my stuff yet. That said, my stuff is slightly incompatible, as it's written for EC. But PortablE has the most up to date modules I've seen.

Last edited by Hypex on 07-Jul-2010 at 02:52 PM.

@Chris_Y

Quote:

I haven't had any luck compiling my old E code with ECX for OS4

I've been through this stage and am mostly over it.

If you are stuck the author responds well to emails and I found him to be quite helpful. He has done well to implemment the OS4 support.

With modules you will get a compiling error if you are writing native code and include a 68k module. The error may confuse you.

Also with OS4, you must also open the interfaces, which work like the library bases did in E. So gadtoolsbase has a matching gadtoolsinterface. But after that you can forget about interfaces and just use the function names.

Last edited by Hypex on 06-Jul-2010 at 02:54 PM.

Thanks everybody for the wealth of information on this subject. I'll give PortableE and ECX both a fair shake. I'm new to development on the Amiga family of platforms, lots of experience on other platforms. Who knows, maybe I'll come up with some interesting apps that can be of use in the community. I'll make sure to keep portability in mind and use BSD license which gives folks the most freedom and flexibility. This is a hobby to me and I see no commercial viability in this sphere.

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