There are a few annoying bugs when using sub-projects in Xcode that build dependencies for the “master” project, particularly for frameworks or shared libraries that have header files and that need to be embedded in the final product (built by the “master” project). This is the case for MHKKit and Riven X.
My solution to those [...]

Quoting from a reaction to Brent Simmons’s recent entry on large Cocoa projects:
As noted by Michael Tsai, NSNotificationCenter is a singleton, and thus essentially is one big honkin’ global. Globals are bad ™.
This was posted by Andy Finnell echoing Michael Tsai.
But in fact, NSNotificationCenter isn’t a singleton. You can create as many as you want. [...]

Jeff Johnson recently posted an entry about using NSError in Cocoa to dramatically improve error handling. I wholeheartedly agree with the idea, and in fact adding NSError “variants” during MPQKit’s refactor was one of my top priorities.
That being said, there are a few annoyances with using NSError, one of which is constantly having to check [...]

The wowsv Python module exports a single function, aptly named wowsv, to load World of Warcraft saved variables Lua files into Python.

That implies computing a new depth value whenever an element is enabled, and eventually a complete re-quantization of all enabled elements when you reach the upper bound of the dynamic range of your depth values.Finally, depth testing doesn’t solve the what to render problem entirely. Indeed, depth testing can be used to filter out “too far” objects, but you need to define your “far plane” or “depth clipping value” and initially set the depth value of all your primitives to that cutoff threshold.The texture problemIf you recall from the previous entry, one of the big advantages of depth testing is the ability to render a large number of primitives in one OpenGL operation (using vertex arrays and the likes of glDrawArray) that share common state properties…. Typically, a 3D model will be made of a few sub-sections, each of which is made of n primitives and one texture (or a few with multitexture) that will be applied to all the primitives using each primitive’s texture coordinates.

Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software fame wrote an entry today about warnings and how we dutifully ignore them. I share his concerns wholeheartedly. There is nothing more frustrating than compiling a project (of seemingly good quality on the web) only to be bombarded with all manners of warnings to the point the important stuff just slips by unnoticed.

If one reads the Riven X project page, one can read “but I expect something barely playable in November”. Obviously, that’s not going to happen. Without going into boring details, let’s just say it’s been one hell of a semester.

It’s time for Report-an-Apple-Bug Friday, even though it’s not going to be about QTKit. Indeed, the bug I was reporting earlier on is far more complex than I anticipated. Read the full post for more details and for my weekly bug!

About Report-an-Apple-Bug Fridays - it’s a good thing!

A simple shell script to backup Subversion repositories to a remote server.