Thoughts after the RuneEngine V2 Code Review

Last night I spent a lot of time going through the RuneEngine V2 source code, updating documentation and reviewing the source for poor organization and garbage code left behind.  This is a good practice to act on with some regularity, but isn't always necessary.

Going through this I had quite a few thoughts.  Absolutely none of them involved considering change.  I found that for 210 code files currently they all seem to be in pretty good order and have great readability.  But that is aside from the point.  The real point is an issue of mentality gained from reviewing the source.

I have spent a lot of time over the past few months procrastinating about not working on the engine.  I am getting heavy back in development with it so I decided a cleanup pass was in my best interest.  I had been procrastinating because of "how much is left."  Well, this review showed me quite a it in the direction of how inaccurate that really is.  There are still plenty of unfinished areas and new features that need implementation, but reminding myself that there are systems and features already implemented that push into professional grade quality affected my opinion of where I am at.  It would appear that by the end of the week I could have any loose ends taken care of and begin development of new features next week.  By new features I specifically mean building the editor.

Now, I've spoken here about the goals of the engine as far as features, but here's a list of what I found that gives me such a confident outlook on the status.

- Deferred Rendering
- Post Processing System
- Dynamic Content system
- Custom material format
- User defined geometry system capable of working to the extent of a simple modeling utility
- Extendable file IO system
- Extendable XNA content resource extensibility (This is small, but huge at the same time, specifically it is    built that shaders with custom structs used can be applied via the material file format with some extension to this area)
- Input System, with plugin capabilities
- Updateless and per-frame draw call removed system (huge optimization)
- Custom SpriteBatch which renders into a deferred scene with textures that support the multiple channels.
- Architecture in a way that almost every part of the engine is 100% self reliant.
- Low-Level and High-Level implementations for most features

As a foundation, RuneEngine V2 has all the necessary pieces to be something really impressive.  Nearly the entire engine is designed for extendability.  This design is going to make moving forward significantly easier than it was in past iterations.

Very soon, after the loose ends are tied up I will be making a post here and on the RuneEngine V2 facebook page.  This post is going to be a demonstration of development with RuneEngine V2.  I want to showcase, how some of this stuff is compartmentalized and how, as a coder using it, things are going to be done.  In many cases a test project only consists of a few RuneEngine lines of code.  If it's much more then it is due to setting up parameters of objects for a less "defaulted" test.

Anyways, happy coding.

My new Development Pattern and why it works

I’m generally not one in the past who has studied other’s development patterns, so I generally just go with whatever works best for me.  I found not real long ago, that doesn’t really work… So, I did actually put some thought into how I worked on my projects.  This has been heavily exercised in the restructure of RuneEngine V2 over the past year.  The code base is the most organized and the most stable, but also the largest it has ever been.  Therefore, I am confident this is working well for me.  So, I decided to share some details in my new design process towards development.

Ok, I’ve always done this, but I’ve taken it more seriously.  Whether I write it down or just visualize it, or even go ahead and set it up in Visual studio.  The first thing I do is define objects that I need in a given area.  I also ensure that I know an approximation of what members I need.  Like I said, I’ve always done this; this is a pretty standard starting point for planning phases.  

The next part is where I determine which methods are used commonly across the objects and/or if there are methods/properties that may come in handy across other parts of the project.  Then, I place all of these common methods and properties in groups and apply them to interfaces accordingly.  Ideally, the first code I write is at this point.  If you’re not overly fond of interfaces and/or believe that they aren’t a necessary part of development you may want to re-evaluate that statement and review MSDN and observe the inheritance trees of .NET objects.  I would agree they’re not required, but when you practice this way you get a few amazing advantages you may not have thought of.

First of all, one example is extension methods for interfaces.  These are a great addition to an interface driven design pattern.  You can define behaviors with these interfaces and avoid rewriting the same logic in every implemented object.  This is more appropriate than inheritance; because it is flat there is no call stack for this.  So, this does become an optimization later.  One major con is that interface casting is expensive, you can control how much time you spend casting interfaces in many ways, so this is not overly an issue.  An example of a major pro would be extensibility of your code base.  Along with the extension methods, other methods that are geared to accept the interfaces and not objects can act on any object that implements them.  This gives phenomenal ability to add whatever you need to adhering to the rules in the interface, and all of your code base will support it.  This is my purpose in designing this way.  One issue that you run into that is not really a pro or a con is that you do have to define everything, every time.  So, it does take more work to add new objects than deep inheritance trees and abstract objects, however this does promote flatter code overall, so again it runs faster.

As I am designing the interfaces, I put a lot of thought into a few things.  Will it return an error code or throw exception?  Do these methods require specific implementation that is not optional?  Can I confine them into fewer methods?  Should this be publically accessed?  These are good questions to ask because they guide the process into making useful interfaces that are not too tedious and remain useful.  It is easy to make an interface that is a total waste.  The most useful interfaces in RuneEngine V2 are the IContentReference and derived interfaces.  The reason these are so useful is because they define rules that allow the RenderManager to use them without the need of any further information about the content.  IMeshContentReference for example, is used for custom geometry, models, animated models, and will be used for terrain as well.  One interface can handle all types of rendering.  To make it even more useful, this interface can be defined by a 3^rd party and game specific code, and guess what?  Now, that custom rendering logic is available to the RenderManager as well.  

After I do all of this and start rolling with the project and ensuring that my interfaces work in their desired environments and the objects I’m building can get their full behavior from this set up.  I go through again and make sure the interfaces don’t have any methods that across the board aren’t used.  The IMeshContentReference did have a few methods that weren’t being used by the RenderManager or the other objects so they were removed.  The objects that relied on them kept these methods, but the interface does not define them so they became object specific.

The last big key to the puzzle is actually one of the more important, that is done from the beginning, but mentioned last for its importance.  CHUNK IT, do not try to list out every interface and all of its methods from the beginning.  Build in chunks.  This gives you time to focus on each individual area closely.  It also allows you to overtime realize a more appropriate location for existing and new interfaces/classes.  I avoid moving things in too big of a hurry, but I’d rather do it now than later.  The longer you wait the more work it will require to do.  I generally define a chunk as a new feature or system.  Anytime I create a new DLL I tried to handle its major features right off the bat. 

A good example of how I work in chunks is this.  When I was starting the restructure of the content system, I knew I wanted to work in ContentReferences as before, but they were going to become interfaces.  So, that was an immediate.  I also, knew already from prior that the ContentReferences did require some uniqueness so I created the Mesh, Material and Texture reference interfaces.  These were the most important and I believed there was a chance I could confine all my rendering code to use them exclusively (I was right).  I didn’t start working on the implementation of any of the reference object implementations until after I had developed them into the RenderManager and the RuneContentManager objects.  I had to confirm their use and entry, what methods they would require before every implementing a single object.  I did find in implementing the objects that the methods required a little tweaking, but there was little to no change during this stage.

The more general stance on this is as follows, start with a list.  Use the list to define rules in the form of an interface.  Start the implementation at the most system level objects that use the interfaces as parameters.  Ensure the interfaces will work then implement the objects.  Make minor changes if necessary as the objects are implemented.  Only work in chunks of implementation as opposed to the entire code base at once.  If an object doesn’t apply in any of these systems and uses no methods that would be required in other objects, there is no purpose for an interface.  Basically, if you define IContentShaderReference when ContentShaderReference is the one and only object that will use it.  Well get rid of the interface.  IContentReference should be enough.  However, if there is any chance IContentShaderReference could be used in another case.  Yes I would include it.  Only exclude an interface definition if you know there is no chance another object will exist in need of those methods that will be passed into the same methods this object will.  Simpler put, if this object could be singing “I’m the only one” Then you probably don’t need an interface.

Most of this may seem pretty general, but as usual this may help you.  It’s just an approach I’ve been using.  You may want to review your approach and see if you do any of this and whether or not the ideas may benefit you.  If you ever find yourself cussing because you don’t have enough flexibility or you have to write large extensions to your entire code base every time a new object is added.  Then this is a good approach for you.

Happy coding.

Console Game Architecture: Part 1

This is something that I feel is poorly addressed to many students and aspiring game developers.  So, I just thought I would take a little time to write a little about some of the parts that make this work the way it's supposed to.  I am writing it against C# and posting some code snippets to make better sense of it.  But, it's not really a tutorial.

One crucial part to all games is the While loop.  So, in console games many people make this mistake in thinking.  Oh it's text based so I don't need that.  Sorry, you really do.  Granted you can avoid it, but you're only making it harder if you don't use the loop.  That means you need a boolean field which determines if the game is running and a while loop which utilizes that value.  here is the simplest way to approach this.

Nothing hard about that.  Making sure you start here is crucial to saving yourself thousands of headaches later.  Now, another big mistake I see is the lack of use for input handler methods.  I'm going to write a few examples and show you what I mean by this.

This is our global input handler, you use this one to handle input that you want for any and all input manipulation.  Pretty neat concept right?  There are two methods one for a one shot call, and the second which actually handles the input so it can be called by other handlers.







The ones below are for handling the concept of room navigation.  Same concept of the two methods, but notice in the RoomInputHandler method I call GlobalInputhandle.  The nRoomIndex argument is used to update the current room, this handler does all this for you with the room information set up accordingly.  The RoomInfo[] is a simple struct which holds the name and description.  All the rest of this is the same as the global handler.

The coolest part about all this so far.  That's majority of it.  The rest is pretty much whatever you want it to be.  I'm adding a few other parts to this as a series, but this covers 99% of what most students which consult me are missing.

Hope this helps.

P.S. I used screenshots so you can actually write the code yourself and not just copy it on purpose ;-)

State Of RuneEngine V2

This post is being directed here since it is rather large and easier to write in the environment of my blog as opposed to a Facebook post for example.

RuneEngine V2 is currently somewhere near the 50,000 line mark in C# and C++/CLI code.  All Visual Studio 2010 developed.  Most of which is 2008 compliant which I intend to update in order to be 100% 2008 compliant.  RuneEngine is developed against XNA 4.0 and .NET 4 runtimes.  I want to make a few minor changes to allow XNA 3.1 compilation, but I may never do this unless at some point I am asked to do so.  The C++ Native build is in a semi skeletal structure, but has no executable implementation at this time.

Recent Changes-


I have recently updated the assemblies and consolidated them to be more concise and promote stronger modularity. The new list of the core dlls is as follows:

• RuneEngine.dll
• RuneEngine.Content.dll
• RuneEngine.Components.dll
• RuneEngine.Components.Baseline.dll
• RuneEngine.Graphics.dll
• RuneEngine.IO.dll
• RuneEngine.Physics.dll
• RuneEngine.Scene.dll

I have removed the Math, Threading and Sorting dlls.  And moved their contents to the RuneEngine.dll.  These 3 DLLs were being used or intended for use across many parts of the engine and made more sense to be in the core kernel assembly.

RuneEngine.Components.dll and the RuneEngine.Scene.dll were rewritten against C++/CLI in order to improve performance.  This improvement will only apply to Windows Games if I cannot get the new dlls to compile for XBOX 360, though to my understanding this is possible.

RuneEngine.Components.Baseline.dll was added as a C# features dll or test bed for components that will be added.  In this DLL you're going to find core features needed for most to all games.  Such as health information components, event system related components, terrain system, and tile map systems for 2D and 3D.  In the RuneEngine.Components.dll there will be all minimal requirements for a game.  Core implementations for rendering, movement and sorting logic.  Everything here should be used in every game unless your game is strictly 2D or strictly 3D.  A 3D game will generally use every component in this DLL, but it does not HAVE to use the 2D features here.  Also, any base component objects are here and are available for inheritance to expand upon them.

Performance-

So, how is performance looking?  I can get, on my machine, 17,000 moving and rotating textured cubesrendering with a basic lambert lighting algorithm in a deferred rendering environment at 30FPS with ~20% CPU usage.  Machine specs are expected to vary, but this is greatly optimized from comparison to before.  65535 non-moving textured cubes can be rendered at ~300-400 FPS.

I have consolidated my largest bottlenecks in performance to XNA itself.  There are a few areas of overhead from the engine, but primarily they are minimal issues and can be ignored as they can not be improved easily or they already have to a point I have not found methods for further improving them at my current ability.

What's To Come? --

Ok, this is something not being mentioned enough.  What is all of this for and what will it be used for?  So, there has been some mention of a game being built with the engine.  At this time it is scoped to be a 2D side scroller.  If things change on a resources standpoint it will transition to 3D.  The game is still being kept pretty thoroughly underwraps as far as what it's about etc etc.  Once a playable prototype is running there will likely be a more official announcement and video for it.

Is RuneEngine only going to support core engine features?  This is not going to be the end result of RuneEngine V2.  As I develop the working title many of the components will go into a new assembly RuneEngine.Components.Sidescrolling.dll  This dll will contain many components and features necessary for any side scrolling game.  And yes, there will be side scrolling features for 3D games as well regardless of the projects end platform.  

That being said, will RuneEngine V2 only have features for sidescrollers?  I hope no one thought this would be yes.  I actually have plans and some layout for many other features such as this.  Here is a list of component assemblies which are intended to be added as well:

• RuneEngine.Components.Sidescrolling
• RuneEngine.Components.RolePlaying
• RuneEngine.Components.Adventure
• RuneEngine.Components.Strategy
• RuneEngine.Components.FirstPerson

Ok, this list has actually received a lot more thought than it may appear.  I know there is not Action, Shooter, Racing and many other genres.  However, if you pay attention to this list carefully and think about each of these basic subsets and what they may contain.  This list is a compilation of the genres which actually contain substantial unique elements to their genre.  Adventure for example is going to contain components for 3D platformer elements like puzzles and basic action combat.  Features easily extending to make the next hack and slash Action game like God Of War.  RolePlaying is going to contain primarily data components for handling statistics and algorithms for damage and experience.  Adjustable parameters for curve adjustments etc.  Strategy contains elements for unit manipulation and resource gathering.  There will be many unique data components here as well which are simpler than the RPG elements since they need to happen on a larger frequency.

Those reading this are probably starting to wonder, what if I don't want to make a turnbased RPG?  Like I mentioned earlier though this is mainly data and some UI components.  Basic movement can be handled by the baseline components however, if you use the Adventure components for movement and combat and RPG for stats you have the next Action RPG.  A fairly compelling approach to making games like Kingdom Hearts for example.

The Strategy components are not restricted to turn based or real-time either way.  There will be a few unique components for each, but overall we're looking at a pretty broad topic.

First Person should be self explanatory, but if not here it goes; IT WILL NOT EXIST!!!! First Person shooters only have one or two unique factors so they will not justify a unique Assembly.  The first person movement and the mechanics for firing a weapon will be between two separate components in the baseline assembly and can easily be implemented a new for custom behaviors.  If with this development pattern I do find that shooters are difficult to complete with the Engine as it is, I will add a Shooter components assembly, but it is not intended for initial features.

Time Line--

No, I'm not going to wait for all the above to be completed before making potential releases.  However, the working title game will be released first.  There may be some alpha/beta release builds of the engine though.

The components DLLs mentioned above will be built in the same order they were written above.  Which is funny since the next title I have in mind after the current one is a RTS.  It will pull from RolePlaying and Adventure features so they will come first.  Also, RolePlaying may be used for the current working title though that is undecided as even if its features are used the working title will have no visible exterior of a RPG.

At this time I do not have the means to put official dates or even presumable dates on any of this, but I did want to give a little scope as to how things are progressing and where things will progress towards.

Thanks,

Designing RuneEngine V2

This is something I’ve been meaning to discuss wider scale, but haven’t taken the time to do so. This post is going to be all about the ideas and design theories I am using as features are added to RuneEngine V2. I am also going to do my best to explain why these theories are proving to work well and how they will improve experience for use of the engine later when it is more completed.


Interfaces and Polymorphism

One of the biggest concepts that have stuck hard in the new structure of the engine is strong use of Polymorphing topics and interfaces. This is extremely important for users who would plan to extend the engine and add objects without having to write crazy wrappers around my rendering and content systems. Almost every object in the engine implements an interface, and almost all of the internal systems use the interfaces and NOT the objects directly to handle core features. For example, all content reference objects are interface driven and apply specific rules that the rendering pipeline requires. So, the rendering pipeline only requires the interface and proper implementation. Therefore, this can be extended very easily so long as the interfaces are implemented correctly. The most recent IO systems are nearly 100% interface driven, and probably show the extensibility of RuneEngine at it’s peak. The physics system exposes no objects, only interfaces and attaches to physics engine wrappers, so to add a new custom engine is trivial(well as far as making it work with RuneEngine goes).

As you can see those are some major area’s and they are very simple to plug into the existing API. This makes my life especially easier, but other’s using the engine could gain the same benefit as these interfaces are not internal and can be used by anyone.

Key reasons for the high focus here are obviously for extensibility and generic behaviors. This benefits mostly programmers, but that high benefit could allow a team to do much more with RuneEngine than what I allow them to.

Internal Code Cleanup/Optimization

This is a huge reason I started restructuring the engine. My goals for what I wanted it to be changed a few times during the first structure so the internals were getting haggard and the calling conventions were inconsistent.

So what are the new guidelines and why? First a little history of what it kept shaping around originally. When I first started the engine it was designed to be built like C++, well I took that a little too seriously. So, I backed off that and went way the other direction for a while. The object oriented model has always been very important through development of this, but some pieces were being written poorly, and as the ideas changed the legacy code was not getting removed. This made the code base fairly hard to work in as there was a mix of all sorts of styles. Before I started the restructure I gained an even better handle over C++ development and stay well practiced with it building many prototypes first in C++. The C++ iteration was started for RuneEngine. This is when I saw how poorly they were going to correlate. Some parts would work fine while others would need full rewrites. Therefore, the engine began restructuring. I use the term restructuring because I have not rewritten much of the internal code, just optimized and sorted it better. Much of it has not changed aside from areas where the objects used were changed greatly.

Ok, so let’s focus more on what has happened internally now. Originally there were a lot of methods calling methods and deeper callstacks, well now unless completely necessary every method is completely self maintained and does not internally call upon another. I’ve made my method argument lists more appropriate for C++ porting. However, I have also added higher level overloads which do not look as much like C++. Naming conventions have been held true, and many fields are marked internal now. Using statements have been cleaned up(this can actually be a huge optimization). All of this has made the performance better and the cleanliness much greater.

Exposure of High Level and Low Level methods

Before I only really exposed high level methods to access features. Although, I did have internal methods to do much of the low level portion as well. The biggest change here is that the low-level methods are now public and cleaned up. This also gets back into extensibility of the engine. If I don’t expose these methods then users of the engine will still have to handle things the XNA way. My methods just make that process a little simpler, even the low level ones.


IO vs Content Pipeline

This is a big change more so than original design at all. Originally there was a high focus on the IO system to load files which were unique to RuneEngine. Well, to adhere better to XNA and what XNA developers are used to, I am extending the ContentPipeline for many proprietary formats. Of course the C++ iteration will need some major differences here, but it should be manageable. So, pretty much all Rune specific content types are extended in the pipeline. And therefore could be used without any feature in RuneEngine at all.


Compartmentalized Design

This has been the plan since day one. Each DLL has been designed to be completely self maintained and features are being better designed in this new structure to hold true that they can work without the rest of the engine. I do this by writing majority of the objects completely independent from the rest of the engine. I had made some mistakes in the original structure, primarily the content systems. The content was reliant on every other part there, and the Graphics wrappers I had built as well. Now they’re self maintained and as stated above can be loaded through the content pipeline and be used with normal XNA projects.


Platform Target considerations

This part is simple, I’ve focused towards XBOX360, because it has more restrictions than PC and it’s not a mobile device. Not to hark on mobile, but just because market studies show it as the better revenue stream doesn’t mean it’s my primary focus. I prefer to focus on maximum quality I’m capable for. I’m not going to downgrade the output by adhering to mobile. This is a personal stubbornness of mine and I admit that, but I am NOT ignoring mobile. Just I will build the engine focused against everything else and make a mobile build later. Adhering to 360 and REACH profiles are going to keep me closer to what mobile will expect, so I am genuinely not concerned.


Development Tools

There is a fairly large concern here as well, but none of this matters if the engine itself behind it is not backing it. So, I’ve rebuilt a lot of the editor and have a lot of plans for working new features into this side of the engine. There is also a strong feel for extensibility here.




That about wraps it all up, there is not much more to point out at this time. Of course there has been a lot of time spent some days determining what a method should be called, and where it should be located. I didn’t think any of that detail was that important ;-D. Anyways, until next time…

Project Organization and File Structure

I was just thinking on this and realized that I preach about
this to everyone, all my student, anyone I get into dialog with about
programming development. This is something
I’ve gotten better about over the years and have also seen how big of a problem
it can be not doing so. ORGANIZE YOUR
FILES!!!!! Make a bulletproof file
structure. I can’t stress that any more
than I am right now. If you do not get
your files organized in a way you can find things quickly, you will hurt
yourself later.

Now, I don’t believe I have taken the time to give some big
tips and tricks that have worked before for me on a regular basis, so I’m going
to put them up here now. When I create a
new project I generally spend about 2-3 hours putting it together BEFORE
writing a single line of code. You may
say “WOW that’s a lot of time for preparation,” but I say 2-3 hours on a
project that you’re going to spend more than a week on… that 2-3 hours is
nothing. And if you didn’t do it I
wouldn’t be far from promising it would take 2 weeks instead of 1.

So, what I start a new project what do I do? First of all first and foremost even before
starting VS. I create a master directory
for the project. Typically on the root C
drive of my PC at home, if I had a D partition it would probably be there. For example RuneEngine V2’s master directory
is located at “C:\RUNE2.” Now what goes
in the master directory? The solution
right? NO!!! I stress that the solution
is not created here because with the rest I’m going to cover creating backups
would be nearly impossible or an extremely painful process otherwise.

The next folder I create is a child folder of the Master
directory “Bin”. This is where ALL my
projects output goes. In C:\RUNE2\Bin I have these sub directories:

REACH
HiDef
XBOX360
Mobile
DOCS (Yes I actually build documentation, it would not be
inappropriate for this go to outside of the bin in the master directory if you
prefer)
Editor
EditorAPI

As you may see above, these are all the platform targets,
not debug and release like VS typically creates. This is entirely intentional; my
Debug/Release folders are contained in these.
And this is where my projects target their output. This is why we do NOT put the solution in the
Master directory. When we create the
projects and configure their target paths we do not have to redo this for any
backups we generate. Also, Source
control is easier to… well control this way.

So, where are the projects created? They’re created in Subdirectories of the
Master Directory. The current working
solution is contained in C:\RUNE2\RuneEngine_2D_MAIN, but there are 4 other
backups and iterations of the engine there as well as the initiation of the
Native code etc etc blah blah. The
Master Directory contains anything and everything related to the project in
this setup, and it isn’t burrowed in C:\Users\Me\Documents\Visual Studio
2010\Projects….. Yep, not my favorite place to put things.

A note on source control, IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL YOUR
PROJECT CAN BE CORRUPTED, hence why I have multiple backups at all times. Usually it only gets corrupted if you’re using
it incorrectly, but better safe than sorry with large projects.

A note about creation of code files in the solution explorer
and handling folders. In C# you’ve
probably noticed that it adds namespace when you add to the folder. And sometimes you don’t want that. Of course you can just delete it and fix it
that way, but my tip is to just always add files in the namespace you desire
and if you want to move the file somewhere else to be more organized, it’s a
simple drag operation.

I hope this is a good read for other developers out there,
everyone has their own styles of handling files and I’ve tried quite a few
variations and this is the way I plan to stick to for a while. Below is a pseudo copy of my file structure
in RuneEngine v2’s project directories:

C:\
  RUNE2 – Master
    Bin
      REACH (Debug/Release)
      HiDef (Debug/Release)
      XBOX360 (Debug/Release)
      Mobile (Debug/Release)
      DOCS
      Editor (Debug/Release)
      EditorAPI (Debug/Release) – FYI I’m going to be
talking A LOT about this soon.
    Lib
    Includes (Lib and
includes are for the native build ignore them if you’re developing fully
managed)
    RuneEngine_2D_MAIN
(There are
actually multiple solutions here which load different combinations of the
projects)
      RuneEngine
      RuneEngine.Graphics
      RuneEngine.Content
      RuneEngine.Physics
      RuneEngine.ContentExtensions
      RuneEngine.Math
      RuneEngine.Scene
      RuneEngine.Threading
      RuneEngine.Components
    RuneEngineOLD2
    RuneEngineOLD1
    RuneEngineBACKUP
    RENativeDX

I wanted to make one last modification to this, though I suggest this methodology highly if it doesn't work for you don't do it. This ulimatley is a reminder of how important this is and a suggestion in what works for me. It's mostly about what you benefit from most. -Happy coding

DevConnections 2012 - Las Vegas

So, I was sent off to the DevConnections conference in Las Vegas recently. I was there as an exhibitor, but I also had a full attendee pass and was told to attend sessions as much as I could while there. There was a lot to learn there specifically on Metro and HTML 5. I'm writing now to summarize some of the things that were key points accross the sessions that I attended.

New C++ Features

I'm actually going to start with the new features of C++ in Visual Studio 11 as it is the shortest and probably in my opinion the most important.

One of the biggest surprises here was Microsofts statement regarding the state of C++ in software development today. IT'S BACK! That's right, as far as Microsoft claims to be seeing the interest and desire to work in C++ is growing again. It was thought for quite some time computers were surpassing the software we were putting on them so there was no need to go through the extra effort of C++/Native development.

The biggest things for me and I assume many developers with an interest and desire to work in C++ that are very good to hear are these two things:

• Intellisense has greatly improved
• Types are now color coded

I know these are not as big of a deal as they seem, but for many years C++ has been a painful experience while these two features greatly reduce just how painful that is. If you have used C++ in the VS 11 Beta already you have probably seen this.

There are a few things that are both really great and a little weird at the same time. For example there are a few new keywords added, one specifically I am not in full agreement on is the "auto" keyword. If you're familiar with var in C# or a few other various languages it basically does the same thing. Auto does not require a type definition, it requires a specific template based instantiation, but does not works very similar to var as it does not specify a type. It does delete itself, so it behaves a lot like a managed memory allocation. I refuse to use automatic type resolution myself so this was not appealing to me personally, and chances are if I'm developing in C++, it is to get away from managed and this sounds too much like managed behavior, without the CLR.

The last big implementation is that XAML can now be used with C++ when using WinRT. Yes, that's right Metro apps can be developed with C++ as well if you didn't already know this.

Something else really neat that threw me off a bit, mainly because they did not show much of what they meant was that supposedly the new Libs for C++ are more DirectX friendly and allow writing 2D/3D graphics in standard C++ libraries. It seemed to me all they really did was include DirectX in the standard Libs/Headers and that's just all it really seemed to be, still cool, but I don't know if it was a HUGE thing for me.

WinRT / Metro

This is where things start getting fun. WinRT and Metro are "practically" the same. So, let that sink in a moment...

Ok, unlike .NET WinRT communicates directly with the Operating System, but is also exclusive to Windows 8 and will not be ported for compatibility in Windows 7, which I think most everyone is aware of. What exactly is WinRT though? It is a new API for development which is NATIVE not managed for development of Metro applications in Windows 8.

WinRT is actually Native COM to be more specific. The DLLs/Assemblies are compiled with CLI metadata the same as .NET and actually... the code you write will very much resemble .NET. Another big kicker is that many of the .NET 4.5 objects ARE WinRT objects. Just in .NET they hit the CLR BEFORE going to WinRT.

INFORMATION OVERLOADED, take a breath...

Ok, now given the fact that WinRT is Native COM what does this give us? Unlike .NET the "common language runtime" WinRT is ACTUALLY more so a common language runtime than .NET by a thousand times. WinRT can be used in C#, VB, C++, Javascript/HTML, and pretty much anything else that can access COM. Another big factor is that ALL WinRT is XAML ready, sooooo... C++/XAML applications are possible where they were not really before.

There are a few downers to this though, WPF/Silverlight developers are not going to be as happy as they originally may have thought. WPF and Silverlight use XAML and so does Metro, but as one of the speakers at DevConnections stated XAML needs to be stated for what it really is and not associated directly with WPF/Silverlight.

XAML as he puts it is a language for object instantiation. Yes, this is true, but there is more to it than that. It defines data bindings as well and some extra syntax for handling event mapping as well. Basically think XML with a twist.

That being said, XAML in Metro communicates with WinRT, while WPF and Silverlight communicated with .NET or the Silverlight specific binaries. The objects and properties may be different... Actually you will find that only the MAJORLY used pieces of each were ported exactly as they are. So, just because you know WPF or Silverlight does not mean it's going to be easy, but it is NOT as bad as some are making out to be. General development should be rather simple, but most Metro apps will need a rewrite anyway to comply with the proper paradigm for Metro.

HTML 5

I really didn't take as much from these sessions. This is mainly because all they were really saying was it's an idea, you can use polyfills to add support to browsers that don't have it. There was some mention of more specifics, but there was nothing too glamorous or interesting to me aside from a little more realization to what the big fuss is. Oh and Opera is the most feature filled browser at this time. HTML 5 is very friendly will cell phones.

LOOK UP MONDERNIZR, this site has a ton of useful polyfills and scripts for making HTML5 work everywhere, even IE6.

Aside from that, I really don't have a whole lot here.

Conclusion

Ultimately, this article is not nearly as glamorous as I wanted it to be, but it's hard to get too deep into the specifics without losing majority of the people who may read this. Either way, I hope there was something here that sparked interest enough to do some of your own research.