development documentation site
  • Acolyte of the Butterfly
    Acolyte of the Butterfly
    kamelito
    Posts: 103 from 2011/9/21
    For developing Amiga applications there's the RKM, for AmigaOS 4.x there's wiki.amigaos.net
    Is http://krashan.ppa.pl/mph/ and the SDK the only documentation available for developing for Morphos?
    Maybe there's parts in the RKM that are still 100% valid for Morphos development but is there a list somewhere?
    Is there plan to have the equivalent of wiki.amigaos.net for Morphos?
  • »16.12.18 - 13:07
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  • ASiegel
    Posts: 1369 from 2003/2/15
    From: Central Europe
    @ kamelito

    This is what the MorphOS Library is for. You will find the link near the top of this website. Everyone is invited to contibute and add content.

    (There is absolutely no need to create yet another website that is restricted to development topics.)
  • »16.12.18 - 14:25
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  • Acolyte of the Butterfly
    Acolyte of the Butterfly
    kamelito
    Posts: 103 from 2011/9/21
    That’s pretty thin to say the least knowing for how long Morphos exist.
    « Everyone is invited to contibute and add content.« 
    Well it doesn’t seems to work then, isn’t it what the Mophos team should provide ?
  • »16.12.18 - 20:13
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  • MorphOS Developer
    Piru
    Posts: 575 from 2003/2/24
    From: finland, the l...
    @kamelito

    For most parts MorphOS indeed is source code compatible with AmigaOS 3. The thing that needs special attention is the argument passing in 68k registers when using 68k "callbacks". You normally only need to worry about this stuff when using hooks or other 68k callbacks in powerpc native code.

    There are some extensions however (exec, dos, intuition, reggae etc), which are documented separately in the SDK itself. There are some examples for their usage as well, but not everything might be covered. Of course you're not forced to use them, the old, existing AmigaOS APIs work just fine, too.

    If you have any specific questions I'm happy to help.
  • »17.12.18 - 07:18
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  • MorphOS Developer
    Nadir
    Posts: 157 from 2003/3/17
    Quote:

    kamelito wrote:
    That’s pretty thin to say the least knowing for how long Morphos exist.
    « Everyone is invited to contibute and add content.« 
    Well it doesn’t seems to work then, isn’t it what the Mophos team should provide ?


    I think nobody is disputing that better development documentation would be a very good thing. However, you have to keep in mind that MorphOS is largely a hobby project. Nobody is paid to write documentation (with the rare exception of some bounties). Since most developers (me included) are more interested in coding than writing documentation in their spare time, this is where we land.

    Not ideal, but it is what it is. However, if you have specific questions, I am sure people are more than willing to help.
  • »17.12.18 - 15:19
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  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    Minuous
    Posts: 161 from 2010/2/12
    Writing documentation is part of development; there is no point in spending the 99% effort of adding features and then avoiding the 1% effort of documenting them; no one will know they are there or how to use them.

    I have found that for most software the amount of time required to write a manual once is generally less than the amount of time required to answer ad hoc support questions multiple times, plus all the other advantages that accrue from having proper documentation. The idea of getting the users to write the docs on a wiki doesn't really seem to have been a success.

    [ Edited by Minuous 18.12.2018 - 03:30 ]
  • »17.12.18 - 17:05
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  • Acolyte of the Butterfly
    Acolyte of the Butterfly
    kamelito
    Posts: 103 from 2011/9/21
    Quote:

    Piru a écrit :
    @kamelito

    For most parts MorphOS indeed is source code compatible with AmigaOS 3. The thing that needs special attention is the argument passing in 68k registers when using 68k "callbacks". You normally only need to worry about this stuff when using hooks or other 68k callbacks in powerpc native code.

    There are some extensions however (exec, dos, intuition, reggae etc), which are documented separately in the SDK itself. There are some examples for their usage as well, but not everything might be covered. Of course you're not forced to use them, the old, existing AmigaOS APIs work just fine, too.

    If you have any specific questions I'm happy to help.


    While not ideal knowing that it is source compatible help a lot. I don't really like the road taken by AmigaOS 4.x even if it has all the legacy we know of. It is departing too much from AmigaOS 3.1 API.
    I don't even talk about the price of the HW, all the trials about who owns what and the credibility of Hyperion.
    Thanks.
  • »17.12.18 - 17:54
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  • MorphOS Developer
    Nadir
    Posts: 157 from 2003/3/17
    Quote:

    Minuous wrote:
    Writing documentation is part of development; there is no point in spending the 99% effort of adding features and then avoiding the 1% effort of documenting them; no one will know they are there or how to use them.



    It is very well to adopt this kind of thinking to a commercial development project but I really think it is a bit arrogant of you to have views of how other people should spend even a small part of their spare time. I for instance typically don’t have the energy or interest, after a full day at work, to come home and work on documentation. MorphOS is my hobby and I work on things that interest me.

    You also have to understand that the largest share, by far, of MorphOS development happens inside the team and we have source access and example code to look at when documentation is lacking.

    Besides, I do not at all agree that writing good documentation is a small undertaking. Documenting the whole MorphOS api (including OS3 libs) in a professional way would probably take several years of full time work. You are more than welcome if you want to contribute to this.
  • »17.12.18 - 18:34
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  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    Minuous
    Posts: 161 from 2010/2/12
    @Nadir:

    But it *is* a commercial product, of course. Not sure why you are charging a commercial price for something you couldn't even be bothered documenting.

    >it is a bit arrogant of you to have views of how other people should spend even a small part of their spare time.

    So it is "arrogant" for me to suggest the paid developers document it (and not in their "spare time" but rather as part of the normal development process), yet then not arrogant for you to suggest I do it (with no access to the source code etc.) on an unpaid basis in my spare time?

    [ Edited by Minuous 18.12.2018 - 05:48 ]
  • »17.12.18 - 19:17
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  • MorphOS Developer
    Nadir
    Posts: 157 from 2003/3/17
    Please stop and think for a moment! MorphOS has a usern base that isn’t significantly growing while offering updates for free for something like a decade. Do you think that can fund commercial development and documentation?
  • »17.12.18 - 19:32
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  • MorphOS Developer
    Piru
    Posts: 575 from 2003/2/24
    From: finland, the l...
    Quote:

    Minuous wrote:
    But it *is* a commercial product, of course. Not sure why you are charging a commercial price for something you couldn't even be bothered documenting.

    If we'd try to recover the investment (just merely the work put into it) the price of MorphOS would likely have to be somewhere around thousands of euros per license.

    Believe me, this is a hobby.
  • »17.12.18 - 19:33
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  • Order of the Butterfly
    Order of the Butterfly
    asrael22
    Posts: 404 from 2014/6/11
    From: Germany
    Quote:

    Nadir wrote:
    Quote:

    Minuous wrote:
    Writing documentation is part of development; there is no point in spending the 99% effort of adding features and then avoiding the 1% effort of documenting them; no one will know they are there or how to use them.



    You also have to understand that the largest share, by far, of MorphOS development happens inside the team and we have source access and example code to look at when documentation is lacking.



    The source code itself is the best documentation available.
    Documentation as such tends to be obsolete as soon as it's written.
    But it depends and the source code of examples should be available.
    Since MorphOS is largely Amiga OS 3.1 compliant much of that documentation can be looked at.


    Manfred
  • »17.12.18 - 19:37
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  • Paladin of the Pegasos
    Paladin of the Pegasos
    Intuition
    Posts: 1110 from 2013/5/24
    From: Nederland
    Quote:

    Minuous wrote:
    @Nadir:

    But it *is* a commercial product, of course. Not sure why you are charging a commercial price for something you couldn't even be bothered documenting.

    >it is a bit arrogant of you to have views of how other people should spend even a small part of their spare time.

    So it is "arrogant" for me to suggest the paid developers document it (and not in their "spare time" but rather as part of the normal development process), yet then not arrogant for you to suggest I do it (with no access to the source code etc.) on an unpaid basis in my spare time?


    What makes you assume the devs get paid?

    Also, if you can't code for a system just by looking at other code already written you shouldn't be coding.

    How many paid licenses of MorphOS do you own btw?
    1.67GHz 15" PowerBook G4, 1GB RAM, 128MB Radeon 9700M Pro, 64GB SSD, MorphOS 3.15

    2.7GHz DP G5, 4GB RAM, 512MB Radeon X1950 Pro, 500GB SSHD, MorphOS 3.9
  • »17.12.18 - 20:15
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  • jPV
  • Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    jPV
    Posts: 2021 from 2003/2/24
    From: po-RNO
    Quote:

    Minuous wrote:
    But it *is* a commercial product, of course. Not sure why you are charging a commercial price for something you couldn't even be bothered documenting.


    I'd rather see that user documentation could be requested by the fact that this is a commercial product, but the question was about developer documentation, and I can't see that much obligation for it... of course it would be nice, but you still have SDK with autodocs and header files etc where competent programmers can find stuff quite well.
  • »18.12.18 - 05:22
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