It looks like I jumped the gun a bit in yesterday's post when I complained about the ease of learning to use DevKitPro (DKP).
Got some sleep and woke up a lot less grumpy today so I thought I'd give it another shot. This time with a clear head.
I came across the PataterSoft tutorial and in the process of messing around with it I ended up going back through the "examples" directory of DKP. And, I must say.... they're really well commented, fully explained, easily understood examples. Maybe that's why all the tutorials have fallen into states of disrepair; they're unneeded. You just pick the directory you want and learn about what's in there- it's kind of like "Choose Your Own Adventure".
Really didn't take much to get a few easy examples going. I retract all the nasty things I said earlier and instead tip my hat in their general direction.
Showing posts with label tutorials. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tutorials. Show all posts
2006/08/24
Hmmm.... the API has changed, eh?
In general, DevKitPro is a pretty nice software package. GBA, PSP, and (most importantly) DS development libraries all in one place. They even have a fancy updating tool that will keep your libraries up to date and add new ones (they recently added dswifi).
Biggest problem? Documentation... of course. Unless there's some guys that are really dedicated to working on it, the documentation for every project generally seems to limp along coughing and wheezing behind the coders. And, DevKitPro is no exception.
Don't they have a Wiki? Well... kinda. But its out of order.
Doxygen? Well... kinda. But its pretty obviously not complete.
In case you're wondering, there doesn't seem to be any documentation in the software directory- save for the PSP.
For this reason, tutorials are nice just to avoid the frustration of figuring things out. If you check out any other DS dev-related sites: NDS Homebrew, Drunken Coders, PataterSoft, etc. They all tend to link to the same tutortials- all of which are either quite outdated or incomplete.
Far and away the best is PALib. This is assuming you want to use PALib, that is.
I was using the highly regarded double.co.nz tutorials. But, they no longer work. I haven't looked into it very deeply yet, but when I tried to compile the very short programs there were several errors. devKitARM (part of devKitPro) seems to have changed since the tutorials were last updated.
Most notably:
The first isn't really a bit deal. But it illustrates the a problem that may be more difficult to solve for a real beginner. I didn't really bother with it after than. I'll give it another go tonight when I get home.
Perhaps writing an up to date tutorial is something I should undertake. We'll see.
Biggest problem? Documentation... of course. Unless there's some guys that are really dedicated to working on it, the documentation for every project generally seems to limp along coughing and wheezing behind the coders. And, DevKitPro is no exception.
Don't they have a Wiki? Well... kinda. But its out of order.
Doxygen? Well... kinda. But its pretty obviously not complete.
In case you're wondering, there doesn't seem to be any documentation in the software directory- save for the PSP.
For this reason, tutorials are nice just to avoid the frustration of figuring things out. If you check out any other DS dev-related sites: NDS Homebrew, Drunken Coders, PataterSoft, etc. They all tend to link to the same tutortials- all of which are either quite outdated or incomplete.
Far and away the best is PALib. This is assuming you want to use PALib, that is.
I was using the highly regarded double.co.nz tutorials. But, they no longer work. I haven't looked into it very deeply yet, but when I tried to compile the very short programs there were several errors. devKitARM (part of devKitPro) seems to have changed since the tutorials were last updated.
Most notably:
- The development tools all changed from arm-elf-* to arm-eabi-*
- The DISP_SR symbol seems to have completely disappeared.
The first isn't really a bit deal. But it illustrates the a problem that may be more difficult to solve for a real beginner. I didn't really bother with it after than. I'll give it another go tonight when I get home.
Perhaps writing an up to date tutorial is something I should undertake. We'll see.
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