CleanCode Quake II has gone public!

[Paril]

The anticipated release of CleanCode to the public can be anticipated no more!

If you haven't heard of it yet, CleanCode is an object oriented, clean and stable version of the Quake II modding gamex86.dll system. The project aims to provide a clean, efficient, quick base for any modding you plan to deliver on Quake II. It also provides an easy to use, C++ base.

Due to it's volatile nature of testing, we encourage people to report any issues in the Issues section of the site linked below.

What are ya waiting for? Go give it a spin!

Site: http://code.google.com/p/cleancodequake2
Downloads: http://code.google.com/p/cleancodequake2/wiki/Downloads?tm=2

-Paril

[The Happy Friar]

question:
Will this be any benefit to people who run servers?  IE can I compiled & put this on my linux server & have it run better/more stable (like baseq2 ever crashes!!!)?

[Paril]

In the future, possibly; the DLL itself was built using VS2010/VS2009 and therefore does use a lot of Windows-only features (such as the WinINET library for updating); eventually a Linux port will be available, but for the time being you may have to emulate your dedicated Windows server to run on Linux with something like WINE (I know some servers can handle this, not sure about web host-type servers though).

It's mostly aimed at mod developers, map developers, and for client-side usage, but of course all of these tie one way or another into servers.

EDIT: Should also mention, any Windows-only portion of the code is separated in a way that new platforms will be able to just add their respective cc_platform_x file and exclude the Windows one. Hopefully this should make porting a breeze, my main concern is compilers liking the code I wrote with VS.

-P

[The Happy Friar]

I know the C dll code need some slight changes to compile in linux.... you're just trying to make job job harder.   

[Paril]

Well I kept the module definition file and everything, I avoided dllexport for this very reason. Module defs are cross-platform, so that part should be fine. It'd be the compiling part that would give you issues, not the usage of Windows in the code itself.

-P

[QwazyWabbit]

2>c:\q2cleancode\cleancode source\shared\mersennetwister.cpp(80) : fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'random': No such file or directory

[Paril]

If using VS08, it requires the VS08 Feature Pack; random is from C++0x Technical Report 1, which is supported by VS08 Feature Pack and VS2010.
Otherwise your compiler doesn't support TR1 headers (in which case reply back, because then the macro is at fault, since random should only be being used if MSVS_VERSION >= 9).

You can change _CC_NO_TR1 to 1 in cc_options to get rid of this and use CleanCode's own mersennetwister implementation.

-P

[[BTF]Defiant!]

So this might be a good option for a novice mod developer?

[peewee_RotA]

So this might be a good option for a novice mod developer?

Being OOP and using a lot of modern libraries, it is probably easier to get into for someone following along in a C++ textbook. You'll see a lot of those concepts in practice. The original c version of quake2 has a lot of nonstandard practices and work-arounds that you wouldn't see today.

Apart from the academic value I don't know that it would be easier, but it certainly shouldn't be harder.

[Paril]

The attempted design of CleanCode was to make sure that new programmers knew exactly what everything did; you'd still have to have knowledge of what templates are and things like that, but we designed it so that if you knew C++, you knew CleanCode. In fact, OOP made a lot of things easier, vectors for example.

-P

[R1CH]

Given that most servers run Linux don't you think no Linux support is a bit of a step backwards?

[Paril]

Most modders that I've come into contact with were only interested in working on Win32.

The fact that servers run on Linux is not a big issue for me personally because that doesn't stop the modding process.
A Linux port is viable, not at this point of course, but it is viable.

CleanCode is a community project. It isn't just me working on this, there are several developers who pitch in and out all the time. I don't work with Linux and therefore cannot offer any support for Linux; anyone who is willing to create a Linux port is encouraged to step forward so we can get that show on the road as soon as possible.

-P

[peewee_RotA]

Most modders that I've come into contact with were only interested in working on Win32.

The fact that servers run on Linux is not a big issue for me personally because that doesn't stop the modding process.
A Linux port is viable, not at this point of course, but it is viable.

CleanCode is a community project. It isn't just me working on this, there are several developers who pitch in and out all the time. I don't work with Linux and therefore cannot offer any support for Linux; anyone who is willing to create a Linux port is encouraged to step forward so we can get that show on the road as soon as possible.

-P

I'm going to add that adding Linux support is a major goal for the wolf mod friar and I are planning on porting over. I'm sure that others already feel the same way and are planning on adding it. I'm ill equipped to do that in the immediate future but it definitely will happen eventually.

[QwazyWabbit]

The key to portability is to avoid compiler extensions and OS-dependent functions or classes that don't have equivalents. Nothing is more annoying than dealing with a bunch of code full of #if WIN32 directives. Your OS dependencies should be wrapped such that your code hides these details.

Also, DON'T use constructs in your code like __CC_DEPENDENCY_H__ with leading/trailing underscores. Functions, variables and constants with leading underscores are reserved to the implementation, (the compiler writers) not user namespace. Functions with leading underscores for example, are compiler extensions or non-standard C runtime functions that are platform/implementation dependent and you should not use this namespace for your application code. If you find yourself using leading underscores or double leading underscores this is supposed to be a clue that you are venturing into non-portable territory.

There should be almost nothing in a Q2 mod that is OS dependent. The only exception is the code necessary to support the different DLL implementation and names. (Although I confess to using OutputDebugString occasionally, I undefine it in the header on non-windows platforms.) All the OS dependent code is in the engine, the mod only needs to call the engine API. All other functions in the mod should be completely contained and defined in the mod code, dependency on outside packages makes modding harder, not easier. If he downloads the wrong version of the package the modder ends up debugging the package, not his code. If you import package code then ship that code with the project. Make no use of Windows API or classes.

You should consider creating a VM and running your code through the GCC compiler concurrently with your Windows development since the vast majority of active servers are on Linux. idSoftware made the mistake of not paying enough attention to this and they ended up massaging the entire Quake 2 code base for Linux and the 3.21 release. OO helps you in this case since you can conceal platform dependencies inside a class but again, this should not be necessary at the mod level.

ALWAYS test your conditional switches and pathways to be sure they work. Test all cases to be sure your project builds successfully under all conditions of switches and packaging. Obviously, the more switches and special configurations you have the harder it becomes to maintain.

[The Happy Friar]

anyone TRY compiling in linux yet?  I'll give it a whirl later.

EDIT: can't "give it a whirl."  No g++ in my shell account from quadz.