vuurrobins devblog

This is a guide on how to compile boost for ARM processors using the devkitARM compiler. I’ll asume you already have devkitARM installed and that the DEVKITPRO and DEVKITARM environment variables set. I have the latest boost version (1.43.0) compiled with the latest devkitARM (r31) as a download at the botom of this post, if you want to use that.

First thing to do is download the latest boost and bjam version from the boost website, and unzip them to some directory. Next, create a file called user-config.jam and put “using gcc : 4.5.0 : arm-eabi-g++ ;” in it, without the quotes (change the version number if needed). You can use the default one at BOOST_DIR/tools/build/v2/user-config.jam, but personally I prefer not to change anything in the boost directory.

Next, change your PATH environment variable to include $(DEVKITPRO)/msys/bin/, $(DEVKITARM)/bin/ and the path to bjam (the first may already be in your PATH variable). It doesn’t really matter how you do it, as long as the PATH variable contains those directories when you execute bjam (I personally use a makefile to change the path and execute bjam).

Now open up a command shell, change the directory to the boost directory, and execute the following command:

bjam –user-config=”$CONFIG” –build-dir=”$BUILD_DIR” –layout=system –toolset=gcc variant=release link=static threading=single runtime-link=static –prefix=”$DEVKITPRO/boost” install

If you use a custom user-config.jam file, then change $CONFIG with the location of the file (including the filename) or if you use the default one, you can remove the –user-config=”$CONFIG” part. $BUILD_DIR should be the directory where all the intermediary files are stored. If you use a shell other than bash, then you should change $DEVKITPRO to the correct way of using environment variables. e.g. %DEVKITPRO% for cmd.exe etc. You can use –with-XXX or –without-XXX to compile just a few libraries or to omit libraries from compiling.

Compiling boost takes a while, so I suggest you do something else in the mean time. after its done, it should output something like this:

…failed updating 8 targets…
…skipped 159 targets…
…updated 8136 targets…

and the library should be installed in $DEVKITPRO/boost. Do note that some libraries have errors during compiling, and therefore aren’t available.

And now you can use boost in all your DS projects. Just don’t forget to to add boost in the makefile and remove -fno-exceptions from the CXXFLAGS, because boost uses exceptions pretty heavily.

boost 1.43.0 for devkitARM r31

I have been working with java for quite some time now, and the more I look at it, the more I dislike it. It has some good design decisions that it implements well, it has some good design decisions that it just didn’t implement well, and there are some design decisions that just made me go WTF. Now I know that some of those decisions are because they thought that it was the best way back when they created java (the language is 15 years old, being first released in 1995) or trying to make the language simple and idiot proof or that the decision was based on another, older decision to keep compatibility between java versions. But that doesn’t mean that the decisions aren’t bad. So here are 7 design decisions that I think are either bad or badly implemented.

Note that I only list things of the core language here, not of the standard library, frameworks/libraries, documentation, virtual machine, etc. I also try to be objective and put only actual decisions here without going into a rant. Although I don’t explicitly say what it should be, I think that it is fairly obvious to tell what needs to be changed to improve the language (although that would change the language to much). I also make a lot of comparisons with c++ because I have the most experience in it and I like the most.

One final thing before we go to the list. This is just my opinion. If you disagree with me and you want to discuss it, then go ahead, but do it in a respectable fashion or go away. There are a lot of other people’s opinions that you can read.

On to the list:

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Yea, its been a while ^_^

I’ve been very busy with school, so I haven’t posted as much as I would have wanted. However, I have learned alot, from designing to testing, so I haven’t wasted my time (exept on playing games ). We are currently busy creating an webapplication for an company using java and a lot of techniques and frameworks that I’ve never even heard about when we started. However, after using it for a few weeks it starts to be a lot easier to use and I’m also learning alot about creating webapplications. It has also remembered me how crappy it sometimes can be to write html and css .

The project takes about 2 more weeks, so I’ll be able to spend some more time on programming for the ds and other stuff after then.

I haven’t looked at the DSOL code for months, and with all the new stuff I have learned, I’ll probably rewrite a big portion of it when I start working on it again.

Happy new year everybody =).

It took me a bit longer than expected, but a new version of DSOL is out.

changelog:

• added code for using keys and touchscreen
• changed IUpdater name to IUpdate, to be consistend with the update function
• changed the update function so that it returns a reference of itself
• changed AffineMatrix to have more functions, like getting the scale of a sprite
• improved documentation

download is on the DSOL page.

Well, the first week of my second year at college is over (I’m doing an ICT education). The first year was mostly general and diverse stuff, so students could see which way they want to go. So the second year is more about what you want and more in depth, what I like. We’ve used java in the first year and we’re using java now, so we did need to refresh our knowledge of the first year. Before we started with the 2 courses, we needed to do 2 assignments.
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I’m currently busy with creating the DSOL code for reading key presses, and I’ve run into some interesting stuff (I think) about how to create read only class variables.
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A new version of DSOL has been released (or actually the first version, because the other version didn’t had the DSOL name). this version also is an actual library, instead of a bunch of header files. there is also some documentation generated with doxygen added with the library in the docs directory (and on this site), as well as some examples in the example directory.

as for the library itself, I can’t really think of anything that is really new, but pretty much everything has been improved and a lot of bugs has been fixed.

I have also created a page about DSOL, which contains download links to the new version (as well as the older version), a link to an online version of the docs and steps on installing the library.

because the library is still very incomplete, I just gave it v0.00. the version number will increase when I have done some more stuff.

now, onto button and touchscreen input.

Hello, and welcome to my blog.

I am vuurrobin, I am 20 years old and I live in the netherlands. I am currently starting my second year of my ICT education. My hobbies are mostly gaming and programming, and I currently spend alot of my time programming games and applications for the nintendo ds.

This blog will mostly be a place where I can post updates of my programs, host the files and the documentation, ect. I may also post questions/comments/thought about programming for the ds or in general, as well as random stuff that keeps me busy. I have no idea how much I will be writing (I’m not much of an writer (I know, I’m not the best person to start a blog), so dont expect a lot of posts, or long posts.

Well, thats it for my first post. lets hope it wont be the only one .