I just started using Dev-Cpp. I like the fact that it is portable but the claim that by using the Devpaks are a good thing because even a beginner could run projects from them is not true. People need to be aware of this.
I tried the Allegro Devpaks but they don't work. For example, the Allegro5 Devpak installs, but when I try also installing the Allegro GUI Un-uglification Project Devpak, it refuses to install because it says I don't have the Allegro Devpak installed. This is not a problem a beginner could resolve. The internal naming conventions are the problem, so the Allegro5 Devpak is internally named as Allegro5 instead of Allegro. Bad move. So then I uninstalled Allegro5 and installed the Allegro4.4.2 Devpak. Okay, now the Allegro GUI Un-uglification Project Devpak installs, so now onto the next problem. Allegro4.4.2 won't compile. Why not? Well I want to compile a 32-bit program but the compile log says Allegro4.4.2 isn't compatible with 64-bit. Shit! That's when I realize that none of the Devpaks tell me if they are 32-bit or 64-bit, I would have to try each one, one at a time, and see if any of the them is a 32-bit version. But wait! There is more! Before doing that, I tried compiling my project as a 64-bit project anyways, and guess what? It doesn't work! Why not? At first I couldn't tell, but then I noticed that the compiler was looking for a file named "lallegro-4.2.2-monolith-mt" but in the lib directory installed by the Devpak, the file is named "liballegro-4.2.2-monolith-mt". Do you think a beginner is going to solve that problem? All this tells me is that the Devpaks are a joke. They aren't documented very well. They need a comment section so people can give feedback on whether they really work, or whether they use the proper naming convention (i.e. -- "lib" instead of "l"), and so on. Because there is no feedback or control, I can't trust Devpaks. People can put anything they want in it, which just makes programming all the more difficult when you run into problems. And good luck if you want to upgrade your project from version 4.2.2 to 4.2.3, since the libs and headers could have anything in them, meaning you have no guarantee of compatibility. I hope the allegro.cc instructions for compiling the Allegro binaries/libraries for yourself is complete and works, because if they aren't, I'm not going to be using Allegro. You need to recommend that Devpaks are not to be trusted and you should not use them ... unless you know how to fix the numerous problems that Devpaks have presented.
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