http://scriptionary.com/blog The informal part of Scriptionary Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:44:56 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Maybe Phoenix will live up to its name and start functioning again soon, until then: http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/11/11/phoenix-dead/ Just released, get it while it's hot. It doesn't look like there are any DirectX 11 previews in there. Is it my imagination or were those supposed to be in it? Thanks Aras for the confirmation that the DirectX 11 preview are actually in there. EDIT2: The new DirectX redistributable was released ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/11/06/directx-sdk-november-2008/ Didn't know Apple made this particular product. What do they call it? Crapple? iTrash? http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/11/04/crapple-itrash/ I'm not known as a person who particularly likes the .NET framework but I still have to use it. The .NET Framework is basically a massive library of general purpose functions, much like the Standard Library is to C or the Standard Template Library is to C++. But what if it ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/11/03/what-if-net-would-be-discontinued/ Maybe this news is a bit old but Visual Studio 2010 CTP was released, you can get it at the following location: Visual Studio 2010 CTP Site For you who don't know, CTP means Community Technology Preview and can almost be regarded as a public beta version. For C/C++ developers, you can find ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/10/30/visual-studio-2010-ctp-released/ First of all, I have to mention that this colleague has been a C and ASM programmer for most of his lengthy professional career, I won't mention his name here but let's just call him "Joe the Programmer" in light of current braindead naming schemes. Joe the Programmer recently started programming ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/10/30/aspnet-name-ambiguous-by-nature/ Here's another little snippet that might come in handy in your programmatic travels. I'll show you an example of usage below, which might also be of interest to you. The code presented is in C, not C++. First, the code to count the amount of digits in an integer: const size_t ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/10/11/amount-of-digits-in-an-integer/ Edit: Thank you, fixitman for the insightful comment; the code has been fixed to work with non-square arrays as well. In an effort to produce a better performing multidimensional array, I would like to share the following with you. Say we have a Matrix (or multidimensional array) of 5 x 5 ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/10/11/flattening-multidimensional-arrays/ What: A C++ wrapper around both WINAPI (Microsoft Windows) and PThreads (POSIX threads) functionality. Why: To abstract cross platform functionality. Remarks: On windows, CRITICAL_SECTION objects cannot be shared cross-process. This means that the class is tied to your application or DLL process. Comments are in Doxygen/Javadoc style. #ifdef _WIN32 #include <windows.h> #else #include <unistd.h> #include <pthread.h> #endif /** ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/08/22/criticalsection-wrapper-class/ Hot off the press, get it now: DirectX SDK August 2008 http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/08/16/directx-sdk-august-2008/ Following is a list of the major features that have been announced to be included in Direct3D 11, the next generation Graphics API included in the DirectX SDK. In my opinion, the changes (rather, additions) brought into this API are excellent so far. It seems as if the API has ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/08/15/preliminary-view-of-directx-11/ I don't like Visual Basic, yet in many Microsoft shops, VB is still being used especially in combination with ASP.NET. The problem with Visual Basic is that it's not very strongly typed. Conventions are often thrown out of the window and Senior VB developers often hold their seniority as experience ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/08/15/dont-worry-its-just-a-warning/ Artistic License? Once upon a time there was a little old API, struggling for its life amongst the giants of software. Little old OpenGL knew that in order to survive it had to adapt to a strange, bewildering and new environment; it was a strange new world indeed. For two years, ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/08/11/opengl-3-0-1-hour-after/ It's here, (Edit: It's official) haven't read it yet but here it is: The OpenGL ® Graphics System: A Specification (Version 3.0 - August 11, 2008) Link to the registry containing the link Let me know what you think of it, thanks nosmileface! http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/08/11/opengl-30-specification-august-2008/ It's been a while since I posted but this one will make up for it. A messy screenshot of NVIDIA's 2008 timeline has emerged on Chilehardware (CHW) and reveals that OpenGL 3.0 drivers/implementation will be due in September of this year in a collection called Big Bang II (Big Bang ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/07/25/nvidia-to-release-opengl-3-0-drivers-september/ NVIDIA officially announced its new line of GPUs today on their website. Two models from the line have been announced, namely the GTX 260 and the GTX 280. NVIDIA claims that the cards have a 50% performance increase over the Geforce 8800 Ulltra (figures anyone?). Below are some highlighted specs for ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/06/16/geforce-gtx-200-series-announced/ DirectX 11 is to be presented at NVISION 08, click here for details. Looking at the few mentioned features on the page (tessellation, multithreaded rendering, compute shaders, Shader Model 5), I'd say OpenGL is in big trouble if they want to catch up. http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/06/12/directx-11-nvision-2008/ This weekend I took some time out to reformat my development computer in preparation for Windows Vista. I used Vista before but switched back to XP x64 in less than a week's time. But heck, after a year and a Service Pack, I was willing to take the chance with ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/06/02/vista-and-directx-10/ Some questions have come up in regards to my last post, The Ghost of OpenGL 3.0, and one of them keeps popping out on top: Why do we need OpenGL 3.0 and What's wrong with OpenGL 2.1? This post will attempt to take you through the pre-published materials on the ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/05/15/why-opengl-30-is-important/ As you might know, NVIDIA has recently purchased Ageia, makers of the PhysX real-time physics SDK. Since then, NVIDIA has taken over the development of the SDK and a new version of the SDK is now available for free in binary form from the NVIDIA website, click here to go ... http://scriptionary.com/blog/2008/05/14/nvidia-physx-sdk-plus-more/