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Today was all video games and attempts at Javolin release-engineering. Wading around in Java code is one thing, actually trying to package the stuff up for public consumption is quite another. The thing about Java applications is that their end-products have so many different morphologies; we may end up releasing, all under the same version-number banner:

• a .jar file containing only the Volity project's original code & resources


• a .jar file containing both original stuff and third-party libraries


• a .jnlp file that will magically do the right thing via Java Web Start (I have my doubts about this; I've rarely seen it work right on a Mac!)


• a Mac .dmg file, containing a Mac OS X-ready application


• a Windows executable (though I personally have no clue how to make these)


• a Linux executable (? or maybe the jar file is enough)

At any rate, we're inches away from the first Javolin release. While it's still far from fit for use by the casual gamers we see as our core userbase, it is complete enough for game developers to start using, and that's really cool.

Once this has floated I plan on starting to write a development tutorial. I sorta wrote one last year (currently online as the Volity Developer's Guide), but I don't think I went far enough with it; it was more of a narrative than the step-by-step-with-figures-and-exercises deal that I'm envisioning now. It will be a challenge; I've never written something like that before. Everything I write tends to turn into a windy narrative, no matter how technical a mindset I try to wear.

I need to draw something.

Give me a cartoon topic/situation/challenge.

(no subject)

Is your LJ comment-to-email notifcation thingy broken too, or is it just me?

Stop the presses! Er, I mean...

A random discovery: The New York Times is carrying comics! Except only sort of! Well, yes, but a regular smattering of full-color, full-page, hoity-toity stuff from the likes of Chris Ware and... oh, well, that's it so far; the other things are text with spot illos. And the PDF of the Ware comic is scanned at a sufficiently low resolution that his tiny obsessive draftsman's text is barely legible.

Dammit, New York Times! If you're going to break tradition, break it!