Subject:
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Re: LEGO Brick Masters Launches!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego
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Date:
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Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:47:38 GMT
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Viewed:
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3165 times
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In lugnet.lego, Ted Michon wrote:
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Next, why can’t you hire some programmers that are more flexible? This
Windows-only nonsense is silly. This is not the best, so this is not good
enough.
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This question gets asked a lot, but the answer is easy. Macs have 1% (pick
your own number, whatever it is, it’s under 10%) of the market.
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I believe Apple sells about 2-5% of all personal computers in the world.
However, people tend to keep Apple computers longer than people will keep the
average x86 box, so the percentage of actual Mac users is higher than their
marketshare. Furthermore, a large number of the Windows-based computers are sold
to businesses to be used as generic terminals for specific tasks, so none of
those computers are going to be used to run any LEGO software. Also, the
majority of Apple computers are sold to the home or education markets where LEGO
software would be popular. Apple does sell millions of computers each year, so
it’s not like they are nonexistent.
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Suppose it
“only” takes 25% more budget to clone a Mac version of the PC product (it may
not be that cheap, because typically Mac programmer resources come in
multiples of whole bodies because there are not a lot of switch hitters out
there).
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Who said anything about cloning? I’m talking about cross-platform development.
Blizzard Entertainment only needed to hire 2 mac-specific programmers to keep
Mac versions of their software completely current with their Windows
counterparts during development and when patches are released.
id Software needed one guy to devote only a portion of his time to keep Quake 3
for Mac OS current with the Windows and Linux versions of the game.
Take a look at sourceforge, and you will see plenty of projects being developed
on multiple platforms. The trick is to begin with this in mind. For example,
designing your software to use cross platform APIs where available (Such as
using OpenGL instead of Direct3D for graphics), and writing your software so the
interface code is separate from the the rest is a good start. There are even
cross platform libraries such as SDL that can allow software to be written in
such a way that a simple recompile is all that is needed to run it on another
platform.
Unfortunately, I get the impression that LEGO’s programmers are using a very
proprietary tool such as Microsoft Visual C++, and so they are stuck releasing
Windows-only software. That is why I suggested getting some programers who are
more flexible.
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Nobody wants to make only 1% more for spending 25% more - that’s a
really poor return on investment compared to spending that same 25% on
another new PC product that also sells to the 99% part of the market.
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Well, it doesn’t *have* to cost more if it’s done with cross-platform
compatibility in mind from the beginning. Many developers who have done
simultaneous Mac/Linux/Windows development have said that it is actually
beneficial to do cross-platform development because it makes it easier to find
bugs and other flaws that might be hard to track on one OS but easy to find on
another.
As an aside:
TLC seems to have their computer systems deeply rooted in Microsoft’s
proprietary technology where there are more open solutions available that would
serve them just as well. Even the shop.lego.com website is written in ASP. That
is a shame, for it could be done just as well in PHP and then TLC wouldn’t be
locked into Microsoft’s grip. This Microsoft mentality does hurt them. Look at
the mosiac maker they had. It required computers running Windows. The same thing
could have easily been done with server-side Java, PHP, or Perl and worked for
everybody. (In fact, I know some people have written their own mosiac makers in
Perl) It would not have cost TLC more to develop the site or mosiac maker with
something else, and it would have opened up room for more potential sales.
Tis folly, I say.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: LEGO Brick Masters Launches!
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| (...) ... (...) The real irony is that LDD was not even written by developers at Lego, it was outsourced to a company called (URL) Qube Software> who have the release blurb (URL) which states: LDD uses a sophisticated, skinable GUI built on Q's (...) (20 years ago, 29-Sep-04, to lugnet.lego, FTX)
| | | Re: LEGO Brick Masters Launches!
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| (...) We develop everything on a cross-platform engine, have a look at it at (URL) also use cross-platform build systems, use gnu emacs instead of a proprietory editors like Microsoft Visual C++ and have developers who use boxes that don't run (...) (20 years ago, 16-Dec-04, to lugnet.lego, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: LEGO Brick Masters Launches!
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| (...) This question gets asked a lot, but the answer is easy. Macs have 1% (pick your own number, whatever it is, it's under 10%) of the market. Suppose it "only" takes 25% more budget to clone a Mac version of the PC product (it may not be that (...) (20 years ago, 21-Sep-04, to lugnet.lego, FTX)
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