@saimon69

Quote:

saimon69 wrote: @cdimauro Here i have to agree to disagree: prefer to have sometihng done even badly than nothing done goodly, but that is my personal point of view.

As a coder and as a professional, I totally reject this position.

Breaking rules leads to have NO software in future, because it... stops working when the environment/platform changes.

That's what I've experimented when I switched from my Amiga 2000/ECS/KS1.2 to the new Amiga 1200/AGA/KS3.0: A LOT of software didn't work anymore. I don't know you, but I think that it was and is totally unacceptable.

Last but not least, this bad practice may also prevent the evolution of the platform, because some changes can be put on hold only to save this badly written software.


@Massi

Quote:

Massi wrote: @cdimauro Quote: a good coder should be able to follow the rules. 100% true. Quote: How many demos worked without problems on ANY Amiga configuration? There are also lots of good demos coded by excellent programmers, which of course run friendly without any patch. Many programming techniques have been invented for demos and then applied to games too. I also believe the demo scene contributes to keep the Amiga alive, with so many enthusiasts still hacking the machine after 30 years

I have nothing to say for coders which diligently followed the rules. Absolutely. Whatever kind of software it was.

I was/am against lamers which were too lazy, or "just" incompetent, to write software which respected Commodore's guidelines (which didn't required a PhD to be assimilated).

Regarding demos, I simply don't like them, but I'm not against them "by definition". I prefer other kinds of software.

The only thing which I think is that it was a waste of resources, which would have been better to be redirected to more useful stuff, like applications or games, which Amiga lacked. That's all.

@cdimauro


About the bash metal with no respect with basic rules we have the partial (partial,note) alibi that until Amiga dn ST came out home computer hardware+system was mostly a static immutable entity: revisions were rare and not THAT crippling (might cite spectrum 48 vs 128 and 64 SID revisions) so you have bedroom coders that lack foresight (they did not need it before); indeed Amiga and the 16-bit were a paradigm shift on home computing even on this! (at the end they DID learn in the good old way* we hope)














* good old way = bang your head on the wall until you break the wall - or the head; in the latter case you were banging it wrong: rinse and repeat

Last edited by saimon69 on 11-Aug-2015 at 06:19 PM.
Last edited by saimon69 on 11-Aug-2015 at 06:19 PM.

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@cdimauro

Quote:

cdimauro wrote: @Massi: a good coder should be able to follow the rules.

Even if those "rules" means no possible way to do it? Bullshit.

Quote:

How many demos worked without problems on ANY Amiga configuration? I mean, without tools like WHDLoad which actually tried to correct all the bad things that poor coders (even the ones which created games. I've no bias against only demo coders from this point of view) have made. Personally I don't give any credit to such kind of bad coders.

Well fuck you then. Elitist bullshit viewed 25+ years after the fact -> not grounded in reality.

@saimon69

Quote:

saimon69 wrote: @cdimauro About the bash metal with no respect with basic rules we have the partial (partial,note) alibi that until Amiga dn ST came out home computer hardware+system was mostly a static immutable entity: revisions were rare and not THAT crippling (might cite spectrum 48 vs 128 and 64 SID revisions) so you have bedroom coders that lack foresight (they did not need it before); indeed Amiga and the 16-bit were a paradigm shift on home computing even on this! (at the end they DID learn in the good old way* we hope) * good old way = bang your head on the wall until you break the wall - or the head; in the latter case you were banging it wrong: rinse and repeat

I know that home computers were treated like consoles, since their hardware was essentially the same, so coders used any kind of tricks, even illegal instructions.

However Atari ST and then Amiga 1000 showed a different thing, since the hardware was expandable, you can replace the processor (with a 68010), or even use some accelerator board. The o.s. was also replaceable, with the Amiga 1000.

And when the Amiga 2000 and 500 went out, TWO years after, even a new chipset (the ECS) arrived. And a new o.s. version too.

Last but not least, Commodore released several manuals with documentation and guidelines to correctly program both at the o.s. and hardware level.

So, it was a clear break with the past, and there was a lot of time (at least from the Amiga 1000 to the 2000/500) to accept it and follow the rules.

@megol

Quote:

megol wrote: @cdimauro Quote: cdimauro wrote: @Massi: a good coder should be able to follow the rules. Even if those "rules" means no possible way to do it? Bullshit.

Then you should drop this bad trick, and use a more polite solution, even if it doesn't perform as well as the dirty one.

Anyway, can you give some example?
Quote:

Quote: How many demos worked without problems on ANY Amiga configuration? I mean, without tools like WHDLoad which actually tried to correct all the bad things that poor coders (even the ones which created games. I've no bias against only demo coders from this point of view) have made. Personally I don't give any credit to such kind of bad coders. Well fuck you then.

I suppose that you were one of those polite guys. In all senses, looking at your vocabulary...
Quote:

Elitist bullshit viewed 25+ years after the fact -> not grounded in reality.

The reality is that from 28 years ago 'til I had an Amiga and I've written code for them, I followed the rules even when I needed to execute self-modifying code on games which I was working on.

That's because the Amiga Hardware Manual had a specific section even for such scenario. Of course, for peoples which have read it...

@cdimauro

Personally I never coded demos, nor wrote games, and my contributions to Aminet etc aren't worth whopping on the table, but...

Wasn't demo coding all about pushing the limits, introducing new tricks, creating the illusion of the hardware doing more than it -officially- was capable of?

Who cares about 'bad coding' in demos preventing running under emulation/another platform - what would it be supposed to demonstrate, when running on hardware more than capable of performing those tricks without coughing.

Games/applications, sure... Bad coding is probably a fair description.
Demos... Not so sure that's fair - Who cares about portability? What's the point of demonstrating (on hardware B) what hardware A is capable of? Might as well watch a video of the demo imho.

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@megol

Quote:

Well fuck you then.

Use this language at your home please, not here.

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@Boot_WB

Quote:

Boot_WB wrote: @cdimauro Personally I never coded demos, nor wrote games, and my contributions to Aminet etc aren't worth whopping on the table, but... Wasn't demo coding all about pushing the limits, introducing new tricks, creating the illusion of the hardware doing more than it -officially- was capable of?

Yes, and the same applies to games too. I used a lot of tricks to push to the limits Fightin' Spirit (and USA Racing; never released) on a "plain" Amiga 500 (1MB), but nevertheless I followed the Commodore's guidelines because games had to work on any Amiga (with 1MB and ECS mode).

Let's say this: there's nothing that prevents a good coder to show his capabilities while remaining on the "legal" side.
Quote:

Who cares about 'bad coding' in demos preventing running under emulation/another platform - what would it be supposed to demonstrate, when running on hardware more than capable of performing those tricks without coughing.

Well, at the time problems were concrete, because it was on the real hardware that many demos and games didn't worked, and using an emulator wasn't even an option.

Nowadays we can laugh at such issues, set WinUAE properly, and enjoy whatever we want.
Quote:

Games/applications, sure... Bad coding is probably a fair description. Demos... Not so sure that's fair - Who cares about portability? What's the point of demonstrating (on hardware B) what hardware A is capable of? Might as well watch a video of the demo imho.

I don't see differences between demos and games, as I previously stated: both presented issues when running on different Amiga models and/or hardware.

@Massi: thanks.

@Boot_WB

+1 very agreeable:)

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