couple questions by The Fellow

The Fellow · Post by **The Fellow** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 8:54 pm

Ok, I want to know two things:

1) How far is eC to being completely done? Do you guys even have a Project Plan, or some idea when it should be fully functional? What needs to be done in order for it to be completely done?

2) I have a idea for a project, and if done, I might do some eC coding, my idea is for a portable (by usb) complier and editor for eC, if this is done, I can get loads of people working with eC, is this possible at your current level of code, and what not?

Post by **jerome** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 9:08 pm

1) Software is never 'completely' done. It is in continual improvement.
Do we have a project plan? We have a bunch of features we'd like to see implemented/improved. However the resources are very limited, and thus we cannot commit to any particular point in time when those will be done. But eC is usable right now, all of our software is written in eC.

2) First, let me point out the fact that eC only 'adds' features to C. Everything (with no exception whatsoever) you can in do C you can in eC.
On top of its C basis, eC offers an object oriented framework and powerful tools to help you develop applications faster, and produce code that is cleaner, easier to maintain and extend.
So yes, I believe it is totally possible.

Cheers

Jerome

Post by **redj** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 2:35 pm

The Fellow wrote:my idea is for a portable (by usb) complier and editor for eC

hey The Fellow,

I've been meaning to do a portable version of the SDK. I really don't see any reason it couldn't be done. I want to look at doing this for the http://portableapps.com/ platform and/or as a simple .zip file which you would extract and then just run the IDE from there.

I also want to do a TCC (http://bellard.org/tcc/) version as well as the GCC version. The GCC version would be around 50 MB for the GCC compiler alone if we include it fully. What's really nice about the TCC version is that this whole portable compiler and development environment would probably be less than 10 MB or not much more than that. Would that be sweet or what!?

Do you have any experience with packaging portable apps The Fellow? Who's the "loads of people" you speak of that would use this portable version?

In any case, I should really try to get this going soon!

-redj

Post by **redj** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 3:15 pm

hey The Fellow,

Is this desire for a portable version of the SDK targeted at Windows, Linux or both?

-redj

The Fellow · Post by **The Fellow** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 7:54 pm

Windows, but I would also like to do a version for Linux so then when I get my own computer I will use it on there and what not, lol.

And the loads of people is my programming friends in RL, who are all like gods of programming, but from there usb and all that. Yeah, TCC would be nice, and I was also thinking about doing it the portableapps.com way!

Post by **redj** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 7:58 pm

hey The Fellow,

I've started work on this, I'll keep you posted here.

-redj

The Fellow · Post by **The Fellow** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 7:59 pm

not really, but I have been looking into it a lot, since I do programming from the usb, I need to learn it more, lol.

And Jerome, Do you have a complete list of what needs to get done before the language is at its 1.0 version? with it being there it will be more easy to get more people in, and I can get even more if it gets to that level, people are saying it seemed under developed because of that, so yeah, lets us get that through, no?

Post by **redj** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 11:02 pm

hey The Fellow,

We are nowhere near version 1.0 of the SDK. That's probably years down the road unless major contributors join the community and/or Ecere is granted serious investment. We don't foresee any of this happening soon. But keep in mind that the eC language itself is a solid base to which granular improvements will be added. No drastic changes will be made. So what you code today will still be compiling with little or no changes at all as the version numbers go by.

Our vision for version 1.0 is great software. That is polished, optimized, stable, and proven software. We hope eC will be very popular by the time we're ready to stamp the 1.0 version number on Ecere SDK.

That being said, version 0.44pre1 is already very usable software. Expect some caveats of course but we're spending every minute we can on fixing the worst ones in order to make the next version more accessible to as many developers as possible.

We hope people appreciate our efforts.

-redj

The Fellow · Post by **The Fellow** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 5:13 pm

I am asking what needs to be done, because I am thinking about becoming one of those "Major contributors" and believe me, I work hard and program fast and good, lol.

Post by **redj** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 5:19 pm

that would be great. so where do you want to start? if you ask about what needs to be done to eC specifically then you need to become familiar with the compiler and speak with Jerome about trying a few tasks.

there are a few mantis issues that are eC related. goto http://ecere.com/mantis and switch to the "eC Compiling Tools" project.