From: Ross A. Finlayson (raf@tiki-lounge.com)
Date: Fri Sep 24 1999 - 18:45:09 MDT
Well, DirectX is pretty good, version 7 has the benefit of having 6 prior
releases to help iron out bugs.
I have one issue with this thread subject, it's about programming tools.
It's all well and good that one can get free SDK's from Microsoft, but
there is no free compiler from Microsoft. There should be.
For C, one can use LCC, for DOS DJGPP which is the GNU C/C++ compiler,
DJGPP can utilize RSXNTDJ to program for Windows on Win32. Also, there is
mingw32.
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Station/1177/index.html
http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/
http://www.mathematik.uni-bielefeld.de/~rainer/
http://agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de/~janjaap/mingw32/index.html
http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/
My point here is that there is probably no free compiler that can build
DirectX 7. There are examples seen of using DirectX from, for example,
LCC or RSXNTDJ, but this is close to a Herculean effort in itself.
So, Microsoft should release the compiler tools of Windows, cl.exe and
link.exe, as well as midl.exe and mktybelib.exe, and their linked
libraries, for free. Why? Purely altruistically. I am not advocating
releasing free Visual C++, although that would be a wonderful thing, yet
the two most basic tools, cl.exe and link.exe, are not available for free,
thus everything else that depends on these two programs can not be
considered free.
Industrial Java compilers are free.
Ross Finlayson
Ken Meyering wrote:
> Today Microsoft released their DirectX 7.0 SDK.
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/1999/Sept99/DirectX7pr.htm
>
> While the download is rather large at 129Mb, I expect it'll be worth
> the wait.
>
> Finally, for those of us mere mortals who are frustrated with C++ but
> can manage to program in Visual Basic, VB can now access the API for
> 3D graphics and sound.
>
> The SDK includes VB examples.
>
> I'm gonna experiment with 3D positioning of wavetable music
> synthesis, and maybe play with hardware-accelerated 3D graphics.
>
> I expect my CD should be ready for commercial release around the year
> 2025, when nanomedicine is able to provide self-discipline and a long-
> sought cure to writer's block.
>
> -------------------
> ken@define.com
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