[Scummvm-devel] Better place for decompilers

yotam barnoy yotambarnoy at gmail.com
Sat Oct 16 18:33:20 CEST 2010


Since we put all the 'user tools' in one executable, here's an idea --
why not hide the advanced tools from users, unless they use some kind
of command line parameter such as '-a' or whatever? The GUI could also
have an 'Advanced Tools' button that gives access to the extractors
etc.

Yotam

On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 6:40 AM, Laurence Dougal Myers
<jestarjokin at jestarjokin.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Speaking as a regular user (i.e. not a ScummVM developer), I think hiding
> the decompiler tools away in a section for ScummVM developers is a bad
> idea. I enjoy hacking around in the SCUMM games, and I've written a tool
> called "Scummbler" that actually compiles SCUMM scripts based on the
> output from "descumm". Scummbler has now been used to aid in translating
> games, and is being used for a fan-modified "ultimate" edition of some
> games.
>
> If descumm is hidden away from normal end users (who I assume are using
> Windows), they will need to set up an entire C++ development environment,
> which limits the potential userbase to programmers with C++ experience,
> just so they can build the tools (obviously not such an issue for Linux or
> OS X users).
>
> >From a selfish perspective, I'd have to provide my own builds of descumm,
> just so that Scummbler is somewhat useful. I'm lazy, so I'd rather not
> have to ;)
>
> Stifling user's curiosity in exploring how these games are scripted, just
> because the users are not ScummVM developers, seems like a backwards step.
> However, I agree they are not tools that everyday users would commonly
> use.
>
> Why not just move the decompilers into a new sub-directory under the
> current user tools directory?
>
> Cheers,
> Laurence
>
>>   On 10/16/2010 12:47 AM, Travis Howell wrote:
>>> Regular builds of the current engine tools (in scummvm/tools) doesn't
>>> make sense, since they are all directly related to building ScummVM. So
>>> anyone working with those tools, would need to be building ScummVM too,
>>> for testing of their changes or work.
>>>
>>> There are far too many assumptions on this topic, removing the
>>> decompilers doesn't offer any advantage to the average user. There are
>>> people interested in using the decompilers, but not coding. And the
>>> average user isn't forced to use every bundled tool.
>>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> while I think that some separation might be nice, I agree with Travis
>> here that moving the decompilers to scummvm/trunk/tools is rather a step
>> backwards from the user's perspective. I have seen some people talking
>> about SCUMM scripts (and posting code lines which looked like descumm
>> output IIRC, like this one:
>> http://forums.scummvm.org/viewtopic.php?p=61533#61533) in the forums and
>> I can't say those are developers (in the ScummVM team sense). So I guess
>> it seems there's partial user interest.
>>
>> Of course we might separate the tools somehow, so it's obvious what is
>> exactly is targeted at the daily/occasional ScummVM user, mostly the
>> compression tools and *some* extraction tools come to mind here, and
>> what is rather targeted at the people curious about certain "internals",
>> I guess that's what is called "developer tools" in this discussion.
>>
>> // Johannes
>>
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>
>
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