Platforms:

Linux.










Alright alright! Linux, HTML5, MacOS, Android, iOS and Windows. This particular order reflects my enthusiasm about these platforms.

• Linux is free, fast, flexible and fopen source. I do most of my development on Linux.
• HTML5 is the most efficient way to reach users and show progress. It’s finally evolving with new technologies coming to the scene like ASM.JS, Emscripten and WebAssembly. And with WebGL finally being supported in Microsoft browsers, HTML5 can finally be counted as a viable gaming platform. So this comes next.
• MacOS is very similar to Linux. Porting from Linux to MacOS is usually trivial. It also happens that my most powerful machine at the moment is a Mac. So, MacOS comes next 😀 .
• Android is the most popular among smartphones. It also enjoys much more freedom compared to their iOS counter-parts. Like most development tools/APIs/whatever made by Google that I’ve ever used, it sucks by nature. However, most Android hardware is more than capable of delivering good experiences. With enough work and lots of cursing, the Androidish nature can be suppressed and abstracted to a great extent. So here we go, this is Android’s place in the list.
• iOS being controlled by Apple is worst thing about it. Too many restrictions make stretching your arms in iOS a pain. You have to use their tools, their machines, their market and submit to being totally under their control. And I won’t go into details about how ugly and lengthy their publishing process is. All this besides their arrogant tone, vague terms of services and buggy tools. Apple is all about money. It’s neither about the users or the developers, like almost every other big company out there (notably Google and Microsoft), and they don’t even try to hide it. However, XCode provides some very nice profiling and analysis tools. It would be shame not to be able to use these. Also, whether it’s Google, Apple or Microsoft, they are all evil. So I don’t care whom I support, it’s the users we care about. That’s why iOS made it to this list at all.
• Windows is over-priced. With beautiful, free and open-source operating systems like Linux hanging around, I’d never pay to get Windows. However, that’s where the market is. So until this changes, Windows belongs to this list. Please note: the latest legitimate Windows I have is XP, and I won’t pay $200 for a Windows. So I’ll be using XP and Wine for development. I hoped to be able to use ReactOS, but it’s still a mess. If you really want to see serious Windows development, buy me a Windows 😀
• Windows Phone. Never had one of these, and supporting them is a bit tricky, as they don’t support OpenGL – the main backend for graphics in Addaadah. No, I won’t implement a DirectX backend, and I doubt I’ll have time to invest in Angle anywhere soon. I’m more likely to be implement a software rendered backend, or a Vulkan based one later. To me, these are way cooler than supporting Microsoft’s proprietary API. If you want to do it, I’ll give you all the support I can. But in my original plan, Windows Phone doesn’t get to be on this list (now). Sorry!
• For other platforms, Addaadah promises to be highly portable. Adding support for new platforms should be easy, as long as some basic requirements are satisfied. Stuff like having a C++ compiler and framebuffer graphics.

This turned into a rant about how I love/hate technologies! Well… ok! That’s what I think, nothing more. Don’t take it too seriously.

Coming up next -if Allah wills-, how we’ll do cross-platform. See ya 🙂