SimPE Must Be Destroyed!

[Inge]

Peter has them already zipped for me to back up.  I don't have anything I can archive with other than zip.  I can email it to you instead if you want.

[Inge]

Let me understand this... ls is meant to flash up a cmd window for a second and finish?   That's what it did for me.

[dizzy]

Inge, you need to be in a "cmd.exe" shell. Otherwise, these tools are kind of pointless.

I think I'll wait for you guys to get Subversion sorted out.

[Inge]

Crikey, why would anyone want to go back to using DOS? /me shakes head bewildered

[J. M. Pescado]

Ye Olde DOSse Prompte FTW!

[jrd]

I'd never go back to DOS. But the command console (cmd.exe) is an extremely useful tool.

[Database]

DOS is teh win. READ AND WEEP.

Anyway, I can do SVN, but CVS is a bitch. So I refuse to try with stuff like that.

Pescado: Strange Database Babble is partly _ME_ trying to get my head round it. This stuff hurts the brain.

[wes_h]

Pes makes some compelling arguments.
I agree with Inge about Quaxi and some of the others that have contributed. SimPE's main problem now is it addresses too many things. It takes too long to load, and pauses inexplicably to load something or another if you happen to click on a 3IDR resource.
I will be looking at dizzy's work, although I also HATE command-line programs (although I have a few here I hacked together at one time or another, including a gmdc parser/component disassembler I use pretty often). I think there is a need and room for something like the original SimPE... a (.)Package Editor. I like dizzy's argument about small add-on tools. One tool to package, one tool to edit, and no tool to rule them all.
I would love to have a SimPE option with no bells-and-whistles. I have sped the process of opening and doing many things I do by copying the whole installation to another directory, making a new desktop icon and then deleting the plugins folder from the additional directory. So I use one icon for the full package with all tools, and the other for a simple package manipulation.

[J. M. Pescado]

What we would like to have to START would be some kind of basic I/O library source. Something that opens, loads into a memory structure for manipulation by whatever tool this will be used for, and then can save it back out on demand. This would be a solid base from which to build a suite of no-frills tools.

[wes_h]

Here's the first tool: ls. It seems to work fairly well so far.

Mr. Dizzy:
I get confused easily. Since I see a "b" in the name, I think this is the latest rev? (I'd hate to start finding the same bugs you already exterminated).
If you are going to do this, can you put the latest version somewhere that stays put?
Can a moderator help him make a sticky message for this?

<* Wes *>

p.s. I have written a line or two in C before. Maybe I could help.

[wes_h]

I just want to say that this is an elegant little program dizzy has cooked up.
I have my head all wrapped up in a new plugins version, so I will think about what I might be able to contribute, if anything (certainly testing).
Given I can't contribute anything to the effort at the moment, I will refrain from throwing any suggestions into the ring (since dizzy provided the source, I could do it myself but for my other work).
<* Wes *>

[J. M. Pescado]

I have no idea what it does since I'm unwilling to install 20 MBs of bloatware garbage just to run it. I still think we need something stripped down enough to run with ABSOLUTELY NO EXTRA GARBAGE and still fit on a floppy. Yes, I know, nobody actually still USES those, but it's still a good benchmark of good, compact code. Just because no one uses floppies is no excuse for making gargantuan bloated monstrosities.

[wes_h]

I have no idea what it does since I'm unwilling to install 20 MBs of bloatware garbage just to run it. I still think we need something stripped down enough to run with ABSOLUTELY NO EXTRA GARBAGE and still fit on a floppy.

Are we talking together, or past each other? Or are we on different threads entirely? (I do confuse easily).
What dizzy posted for a program could be put on a floppy 140 times or so. I appreciate the lean and mean sentiment, but if dizzy shrank it by 10% it would still be a whole 10K.
Now, it is far from a complete solution, and would grow some getting there... but it is written in C and seems to use only the standard libraries that should already be installed when you installed WINDOZE XP [eXtra Pudgy].
You'd probably need 20 megs of stuff to compile it, if you don't already have a C compiler, but it is a nice, small program, just like you ordered.

[J. M. Pescado]

I think we're talking about different programs. Dizzy made two things, one of which requires about 20 MBs of crud to work. The other one is good and works with a standard C compiler, but I didn't see anything for actually writing.

[dizzy]

C is crappy language to code in, but C libraries (as opposed to Java or Python libraries) are widespread. I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time coding a complicated tool in C, so it's no big deal.

Once I have the extract/create/append capabilities finalized, the ability to write whatever you want will be a trivial matter of coming up with some sed-like tools for the purpose.

[J. M. Pescado]

It's okay, we don't need a complicated tool, we just need the ability to read crap, load it into memory, and spit it back out. Somebody can nail a graphically thing on it and I can then start working on the editing part. Any information you have on what the file formattings are would be useful. The SimPE people are not terribly forthcoming, no doubt to maintain their monopoly. And C most certainly is NOT a crappy language to code in! It doesn't involve migs and megs of random crap being installed, for one thing!

[wes_h]

And C most certainly is NOT a crappy language to code in! It doesn't involve migs and megs of random crap being installed, for one thing!

What I suspected... we were on different pages. Told you I am easily confused.

Well, if you're so inclined you can use the foundation classes or .net classes to make bloatware with in C++. Usually this isn't noted as being so painful only because the library bloat is already installed, anyway, to run your day-to-day bloatware.

I was curious how many migs you have there? I don't have any here because I don't have an airstrip long enough to land one on while retaining the wheels and general body-shape.

[dizzy]

If you really want to eliminate the bloat, you should be hard core and program in NASM (as I have for many years). C is bloated next to that.

[Inge]

There is no need to reinvent the wheel.  All the library functions you need are already created and you just need to arrange it differently, leaving out the parts you don't need.

Basically just create a shell that knows how to read in a package and split it into resources and put in the hooks for PJSE or your version of it.   That will take care of most of the simantics-related resources apart from OBJD that Quaxi wanted to keep in the main program.

[dizzy]

So, any chance we'll see a command-line version of SimPE? 

[J. M. Pescado]

Basically just create a shell that knows how to read in a package and split it into resources and put in the hooks for PJSE or your version of it.   That will take care of most of the simantics-related resources apart from OBJD that Quaxi wanted to keep in the main program.

If you'd like to outline how to go about doing that, given that I don't have the slightest idea what a PJSE-thingy looks like (and I find it missing a few functionalities for my taste, like blockmoves), go for it. As it is, I haven't even seen a complete PJSE source...nor am I messing with that awful .NET shit!

[Inge]

So, any chance we'll see a command-line version of SimPE?

Looks like it, the way you're going

But seriously, although I can definitely see a use for specialised package editors to save the waiting time and memory load, I am not sure how convenient I would find something without any form of GUI where everything you want to do requires typing a command in.   That's why I never really got into disasim as a tool.

I will however have a talk with Peter tonight and try again to persuade him to make a simantics specialised package editor.

[J. M. Pescado]

I'm hoping to get some sort of crudimentary GUI ala Ye Olde SimPE, but absolutely nothing fancy and NO FUCKING ICON SLIDESHOWS.

[Inge]

Well I will leave you doing it then, no point two teams racing each other for the same tool, unless you can think of a way to work together with Peter?  Though I think you'd irritate the hell out of each other...

[J. M. Pescado]

Well I will leave you doing it then, no point two teams racing each other for the same tool, unless you can think of a way to work together with Peter?  Though I think you'd irritate the hell out of each other...

Working together with him is possible, but I honestly have never met him and we have no real point of live contact. I tend to work in a rather furious, fast-paced manner compared to the way he seems to operate. This probably stems from a motivational difference. Most such people tend to be motivated by curiosity or interest, whereas I am motivated more or less entirely by rage. Pretty much every undertaking I have ever started, especially in the sim community, is brought about through rage: Something pisses me off, and I decide to do something about it.