New Desktop Development Environment reaches out
Posted by Steve Revill Fri, 21 Feb 2020 22:39:00 GMT
Last year’s London show saw the snappily titled DDE29 becoming generally available.
Packing in some 300 changes, the main highlights are:
- Latest Norcroft C compiler
- Code generation now tailored to use ARMv6/v7/v8 extended instructions where possible
- Optimisations to substitute selected code sequences with ARMv6/v7/v8 media instructions where possible
- Inline assembler updated to accept ARMv6/v7/v8 mnemonics
- Literal pool reductions where available and enabled through use of MOVW+MOVT
- New intrinsic functions to get access to operations not normally accessible from C
- ABC (the BASIC compiler) now supports hexadecimal entered in mixed case
- Revised User Interface Toolbox and ABC manuals plus detailed change logs for all the provided tools
- Library improvements to the TCP/IP library adds RFC2553 supporting functions, part of the TCP/IP bounty work getting ready for IPv6, and stronger type checking for all functions in the Toolbox library
- DDT (the desktop debugger) now uses the same disassembly engine as other tools, and can step the new instructions which the compiler emits
- Technical enhancements to AMU, CMHG, and ABC’s command line processing
Longer cycle
The previous major release, DDE28, ran from October 2018. During this time 4 updates were released to every DDE28 developer. Accordingly, we’ve changed the previously stated 6 months of inclusive updates to be 12 months going forward.
CC-BY: Kai Hendry
We’ve emailed out copies of DDE29 to all developers now lassoed by the extended cycle, anyone wishing to bring their copy back up to date can do so for half normal price by simply quoting their developer number (which starts ‘DEV07’).
Hungry to get developing?
Are you a new developer wanting to work on the RISC OS source code? If the thought of buying a copy of the DDE is putting you off, perhaps we can help? ROOL are giving away a number of copies of the NutPi version of the DDE, to get your copy just
- Check that you have a Raspberry Pi running RISC OS 5, for example the RISC OS Pi distribution or from NOOBS Lite
- Send an email to the ROOL tools address stating
- Your name
- What your keys skill(s) are – one paragraph maximum
- Which bit(s) of RISC OS you’re interested in working on – one parapgraph maximum
Please note: this offer applies to new developers only, existing registered developers can upgrade via the usual channels.
Future directions
The Desktop Development Environment is under continuous development, and we’re already thinking about DDE30. If you have any questions about this first check our FAQ, or if you’re stuck please get in touch with us.
