Roku Developer Program

[NewManLiving]

Sounds like you have given up already. Nothing is that easy. The new Scene Graph will give you some brain fog as well. I'm 62 workout everyday and still love to learn new things. Well you are almost there: when you get to the open perspective then select other , then select brightscript from the list box. I believe that part is in the docs that I referenced

[NewManLiving]

Your retired you have lots of time. I'm a gym rat, employed full time as a nurse and have a small business. I develop on three platforms.

[squirreltown]

"David21" wrote:
...... I'm old enough (and retired), so I'm not inclined to learn by experimentation, or by asking someone hundreds of questions. I simply don't have that kind of time available, nor do I deserve to struggle that much to learn a new system. Besides, I believe that any software that is really good will have good documentation. This one doesn't seem to.

I'm with EnTerr, I use Text Wrangler. Atom seems like a real good choice too.

The Roku SDK itself will require you to ask questions. Maybe not hundreds, but even the most experienced people ( NML neglected to mention decades of programming experience) will be stumped by things occasionally. Lots of people here are happy to help, but you do have to be willing to ask ( I dislike asking - I got over it). Expecting everything to be written down in a convenient place would be.... overly optimistic. So, unless you know you're going big, maybe the SDK will be enough to do without also dealing with Eclipse.

[TheEndless]

When I started out developing for Roku, I used Notepad++ with a VBScript syntax highlighter. As I developed more and more, project management became a necessity, and I migrated to Eclipse. Now it's a core component of my productivity, though admittedly I don't use some of the hyped features (e.g., the deployment tool). If you have no aspirations to do a lot of Roku development, and are instead just picking it up as a hobby, then it may be easier for you to go the simpler route. If there's another IDE that you're more comfortable with, there's a chance you may be able to adapt it to work for you, either by telling it you're working with VBScript, or using some of the non-Roku developed add-ins (e.g., the Visual Studio extension or the Atom BrightScript language package).

[EnTerr]

"NewManLiving" wrote:
There still is no support for the new operators ( such as l_variable++ ) so you will get a syntax error which you cannot override as far as I can tell.

I have good news: "++" and "+=" are just syntactic sugar for "var = var + 1"!

Perhaps you think they are faster? They aren't. Not in B/S and not most anywhere (for once i'll try not to digress discussing what good compilers do and not do). There is no point of using them, does not make your code faster. I'd love to prove it by showing you the byte code generated but the Co in their <censored> wisdom removed that from the degoober. Instead i ran some benchmarks and guess what? a[0]++, a[0]+=1, a[0]=a[0]+1 run at exactly the same speed (1e7 loop; 0.1% noise margin; ditto for simple variables). So, don't bother.

"Syntactic sugar leads to cancer of the semi-colon" :mrgreen:

I have always been a 2D API programmer so my projects are extremely code intensive, therefore Eclipse is a must-have.

That does not follow. I have written whole "2D" games in 1k-2k lines, didn't even need to split in separate files. All editors have search&replace, most all have code folding "chevrons". Me KISS principle big time.

[NewManLiving]

Did I say the operators were faster? Less typing-that's about it. The point was that the plugin generally lags behind the technology. As far as eclipse vs any other environment that is a matter of preference. I have used it from the start so for me it's the best we have. On the other hand I get the impression that you don't like or use it so your critique of it cannot be based upon actual use just your opinion.

[Komag]

"EnTerr" wrote:
most all have code folding "chevrons"

Once I discovered folding in Notepad++ I praised the 1980s (or whenever) computer gods for making my game development SO much easier! 😄

[marcelo_cabral]

I fully migrated to use Atom with the Brightscript language package and the Roku deployment package, and I also migrated to use the "PurpleBug" to debug.

Way lighter than Eclipse.

[EnTerr]

"NewManLiving" wrote:
The point was that the plugin generally lags behind the technology.

Right... it is lame. Strange to find ourself in agreement!
The difference between us two seems to be, you treat it like a human with disabilities and granting it accommodations under ADA.
Where i consider it pet at best and contemplate if sometimes euthanasia is better, to spare the suffering?

As far as eclipse vs any other environment that is a matter of preference. I have used it from the start so for me it's the best we have. On the other hand I get the impression that you don't like or use it so your critique of it cannot be based upon actual use just your opinion.

i have used Eclipse before for java/Android, not impressed. Feels like a consolation price for those (Linux?) who cannot use Visual Studio or XCode. Come to think of it, around here i know only two fans of the Eclipse plugin and one of them got screwed recently by said plugin.

"marcelo.cabral" wrote:
I fully migrated to use Atom with the Brightscript language package and the Roku deployment package, and I also migrated to use the "PurpleBug" to debug.

Way lighter than Eclipse.

Aha! Recently i heard the same from somebody else.
Here is the irony though: I have tried Atom and at 250MB+ it's far from "light". What does it say if developing with Atom is "way lighter" than Eclipsing?!

[belltown]

"EnTerr" wrote:
I have tried Atom and at 250MB+ it's far from "light". What does it say if developing with Atom is "way lighter" than Eclipsing?!

When I had a small disk and a small ram, I thought of "heavy" in terms of the weight of my tools on my desk. Now that I have a large disk and a large ram, I think of "heavy" in terms of the weight of the task on my brain. Currently, Eclipse weighs about 7,000 exaneurons, compared to Atom's 15 exaneurons.