Yeah--it is kind of irritating that before they moved to Mac OS X people kind of were all about the whole "it is hard to port from windows"
Now people are doing the whole "well, just because it was on Win and OSX does not mean any other system is an option" I dunno--I hope that the new Source engine takes a hint from some of John Carmack's work... and is rather insanely platform independant (well, the C/C++ code anyways) and on top of that: insanely platform aware. That is, if certain optimization are on a platform, make use of those (such as rendering hardware, systems that can thread (so to not need to use forks), FPU, etc., etc.). Remember when the head of Squeenix mentioned that specific platforms were not the future? If we got this set up with Source and Steam--there would be no stopping this delivery method and engine. I mean, all it really takes is a few of the follow in key places: #ifdef USE_WINDOWS #endif #ifdef USE_OSX #endif #ifdef USE_Wii #endif #ifdef USE_PS3 #endif #ifdef USE_AMIGA #endif #ifdef USE_LINUX #end (then have a define passed into your compiler at compile time) And, it really is not that hard to find (or create) tool chains, to target a different platform. Like say compiling something that will run on an ARM based linux from AMD64 Windows.. or from something exotic, like say SPARC Linux to MIPS based AMIGA (however, this DOES require that any libraries you will be compiling against, be available for what your target platform will be, on the system compiling it). Though--I REALLY doubt, that this would be part of the announcement. I mean, Source and Steam designed in a rather comprehensive manner, to allow multiple hardware targets (which, BTW, was why the languages C and C++ were created: to target multiple hardware platforms)--I dunno... from what I have ranted about here, I may as well put on a tin foil boony hat, and yell on the street corner about how they put fluoride in the water. My suggests sound just as crazy. Here is hoping, Katrina Payne PS Crosses fingers. On Thursday, June 10, 2010 01:07:41 pm Joel R. wrote: > Is this the big surprise for E3?! I hope it is, that would so rock! _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
