Roku Developer Program

[NewManLiving]

Hardware
============================
ASUS i7 2.4GHz 8GB 1TB Laptop, Win 8
All Supported models of ROKU ( except TV and the new 2 which is really the 3, and the new 3 which has not changed internally from what I read )
LG 32 HD 1080 TV
Thinking about the ROKU TV will eventually get it

Development, Backup, CDN
===========================
Amazon Cloud ( costs about 1$ a month for development use )
S3 Browser for Amazon S3, Amazon S3 APP for ios

IDE
============================================
Eclipse LUNA Release 2 (4.4.2) Setup with JSON and XML plugins as well as the internal web browser for Brightscript reference

Software
===================================================================
MediaCoder
HandBrake
FormatFactory
Paint.NET
NotePad++
Gimp 2
Swish ( Flash generator also generates png frames )
Synfig Studio
Powerpoint

[sjb64]

"dev42" wrote:

"sjb64" wrote:
2 TVs plus Windows 7 on 6 screen 16Gb PC (on a 2 row by 3 wide stack)

Seriously?!...

Yes, but understand I'm mainly doing some rather large C# development for the backend and web services, CMS, housekeeping, and other systems that the Roku (and website and so on) call, RDPing into our Azure VMs and our automated transcoding and syncing servers, etc., so this setup makes sense for that, is admittedly overkill if I was doing mainly brightscript coding.

But I'll admit, having a setup like this is convenient.

[EnTerr]

"TheEndless" wrote:

"BradC" wrote:
Managed to accidentally delete all my source code a couple years ago. (yay me! wooo! :oops: ) Trying real hard not to repeat that one, but I probably will.

I have CrashPlan setup to backup my source folder every 5 minutes, and keep infinite versions... 😉

You guys, umm... don't believe in source control systems?
Things like cvs, subversion, git, whathaveyou...

[TheEndless]

"EnTerr" wrote:

"TheEndless" wrote:

"BradC" wrote:
Managed to accidentally delete all my source code a couple years ago. (yay me! wooo! :oops: ) Trying real hard not to repeat that one, but I probably will.

I have CrashPlan setup to backup my source folder every 5 minutes, and keep infinite versions... 😉

You guys, umm... don't believe in source control systems?
Things like cvs, subversion, git, whathaveyou...

I use subversion, github, bitbucket, etc. when working on code that I'm collaborating on and/or sharing with clients, but for personal development and backup of code between commits, automated backups have proven very effective and beneficial.

[EnTerr]

"TheEndless" wrote:

"EnTerr" wrote:
You guys, umm... don't believe in source control systems?
Things like cvs, subversion, git, whathaveyou...

I use subversion, github, bitbucket, etc. when working on code that I'm collaborating on and/or sharing with clients, but for personal development and backup of code between commits, automated backups have proven very effective and beneficial.

Hmm, how interesting! Glad i asked and can see different way of thinking.
I use revision control for other reasons beyond backup - actually mostly for the other benefits.

For example i do some code review of the deltas when committing. Premise being the code in repository is stable/working and i inspect transactionally the differences i will be introducing. The code in the working copy on the other hand might not be - there'd be snippets of me horsing around, trying different things and forgot about them - which i dont want to leak into the repository.

I also tend to comment on each commit what was done, so at a later date i can pull a detailed list of changes (like this one). It comes quite handy if i have been poking at the code on and off over a long period (over a year in the sample presented) and frankly have no idea what was changed.

It also comes handy when i've shot myself in the foot - except a month ago and did not realize it till now but have been editing other parts of the code. So with revision control it's easier for me to pinpoint (diffs) when the damage occurred temporarily - and i don't have to revert but can just see the offending delta and (usually manually) undo the harm.

I am not mentioning branching/merging, where version control systems shine because that's not typical for the kind of development we are talking here. But at least tagging the tree at beta/release versions is useful.

How do you manage such things with auto-backups? Or is it so rarely you find yourself needing things like above that it's not worth the botheration?

[TheEndless]

"EnTerr" wrote:
How do you manage such things with auto-backups? Or is it so rarely you find yourself needing things like above that it's not worth the botheration?

For client code, I do exactly what you've described. Generate my changelog and verify deltas during the diffs at check-in.
For my personal code, I definitely should, but I generally don't. I've tried it on several occasions. I even have my own SVN server set up "in the cloud", but I never remember to check stuff into it, so having automatic backups is the next best thing. FWIW, my makefile also appends a timestamp to the end of every zip and/or pkg file it generates, so until/unless I manually clean up my builds folder for each project, I also have a copy of every single build I make of a channel.

[BradC]

"EnTerr" wrote:
You guys, umm... don't believe in source control systems?
Things like cvs, subversion, git, whathaveyou...

I'm up to my eyeballs in using and managing subversion and TFS at my *real* job. I really never even considered using it at home. I suppose now that my projects are starting to get stupidly complicated it might not be a bad idea, ...but knowing me I'm pretty much certain that I'd spend a lot of time getting everything set up and then never use it anyway.

[Komag]

All my Roku files are in my Dropbox folder, so that's my backup (cloud, and my other PCs). I just overwrite the zip of my channel every time, but every few days I copy it over to a "backup" folder, so I have old versions.

And whenever I cut out some section of code or make significant changes, I copy the old part into an "old code" file with some notes. I've "searched" it on a couple occasions for some snippet I needed to get back, but mostly it's just a graveyard.

So my whole approach is very amateurish and small potatoes, but hey, this is my first programming, so it works for me 🙂

[sjb64]

"Komag" wrote:
So my whole approach is very amateurish and small potatoes, but hey, this is my first programming, so it works for me 🙂

I know a lot of professional programmers with decades of experience who, without an enforced corporate version/source control system in place, do a lot worse than that. Informal and not as 'thorough' as TFS or GIT or any of the local SC systems might be, but works a lot better than nothing at all (unfortunately the most common scenario).

[Romans_I_XVI]

@TheEndless I love your setup. I know what you mean about Macs, if I had the money I'd do the same, except I'd slap a penguin sticker over that Apple! 😛 Love Linux. Despise windows 8 so bad, if I need windows I stick with 7. Also I want to steal your MinGW , never heard of it before but what you say you can do with it sounds VERY cool.

And if anyone is curious of my setup.


Old low powered laptop with a screen that's way too small for development (seriously want a new one)
Ubunu Linux with Gnome Shell DE (actually prefer Arch but Ubuntu is easier to install and breaks less)
Eclipse

It's really a very basic setup. Maybe someday I'll have a fancy setup like TheEndless 😛

Also I'm with you Enterr, I use private Git for my games. The comments are useful, also I do use branches if say I want to try to add a new feature to a game that I am otherwise happy with. Great way to try out new things while leaving the original version in tact.