Programming

Dream Build Play 2008

PaulM — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 13:18:01 GMT

Finally Microsoft launched the new Dream Build Play competition! This time around you are given the opportunity to work in a group of up to 7 people or by yourself to produce an exciting game for the Xbox 360 using XNA studio 2.0.

A total of $75,000 is up for grabs which will be shared amongst the top four finalists. They will also be have the chance to receive an Xbox Live publishing contract.

Good luck to all who enter!

XNA Creators Club Site

PaulM — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:06:51 GMT

Earlier today the XNA team released the newly refurbished XNA Creators Club Online Web site, be very sure to check it out and get started on reviewing and submitting games!

For more information check out the XNA team blog http://blogs.msdn.com/xna/

XNA 3.0 CTP

PaulM — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:52:09 GMT

Yep its finally released!! According to my sources a beta is due (possibly) sometime this summer. Anyway here are the links.

Blog: XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP
Download: XNA Game Studio 3.0- Microsoft Download Link

It does not yet support 64 Bit or Xbox 360, but still its only a CTP release!!

And one bug mentioned so far has been that spritebatch seems to only work with certain image file types and certain sizes, more info on bugs and such to come. We all need to do our part to make it a better framework

C# vs VB.NET: Performance, Part 1

PaulM — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:40:47 GMT

As a VB.NET programmer i only really use C# for XNA and other projects when i don't have a say on the matter. Recently i have begun to think about making a full blooded transition to C# after having some great success with it (specifically in XNA) and its not because VB.NET doesn't cut it. It is great but C# is also fantastic in my opinion, as it took features from some of the more distinguished languages avaliable, C++, Java and Object Pascal to name a few. Feature wise they are perfect for me no issues at all so before making any sort of decision i thought i would do a bit of research. So i decided to take a look at the MSIL of two simple applications in C# and VB.NET.

After comparing the MSIL of both this is what i realised:

VB.NET contained 4 extra opcodes which were NOP (No Operation)
VB.NET generated two extra variables (types Int32[] and Bool)
VB.NET certainly used more OpCodes

The code was a simple for each loop like so:

        Dim intArr() As Integer = {1, 2, 3, 4}
        For Each i As Integer In intArr
            Console.WriteLine(i.ToString())
        Next

       and..

        int[] intArr = {1,2,3,4};
        foreach (int i in intArr)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(i.ToString());
        }

I am yet to test the execution speed of either application which will be one of my next tasks after a little more research. On a side note the C# code compiled was of size 5.0 kb and the VB.NET code compiled to 11.0 kb. I'll be sure to post more after i conduct some more research. Also note i am in no way trying to change peoples mind on what language to use, i don't believe the execution difference would be that noticeable anyway.

And here is another article which sort of explains the same thing as me but in a little more detail: VB.NET vs C#: Performance

Microsoft DreamSpark!

PaulM — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 08:48:11 GMT

Looks like Microsoft are looking at helping out programmers who are registered members of universities or other learning faculties. They are providing all student programmers (in specific countries, more to be added) with the chance to download professional level development tools for free

Here is the link: downloads.channel8.msdn.com

I just hope they add Australia real soon!

Delphi equivalent to System.String

PaulM — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 06:48:15 GMT

I guess i found out the hard way but better than never finding out :D

I recently had to make an example program in C# using the .NET 2.0 framework to call a function from a Delphi Dll. The function definition was as follows...

function EncryptDoc(Password, FilePath, LaunchFile, OutputFile : WideString) : LongBool; stdcall;

But when i was calling the function like so...

[DllImport("Encrypter.dll", CallingConvention = CallingConvention.StdCall)]
public static extern bool EncryptDoc(string PassWord, string FilePath, string LaunchFile, string OutputFile);

I was receiving an AccessViolationException, anyway i decided to have all four parameters changed to the PChar data type and then recompiled. After this there was no longer an error and everything worked perfectly fine :)

So in conclusion PChar is the Delphi equivalent to the System.String in .NET, i was just wondering if anyone had info on what the equivalent of WideString is in .NET? Would i have had to use the StringBuilder class?

Any comments or information would be great! Thanks