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PPL 1.30 updates
Moderators: kornalius, bmanske, PointOfLight
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kornalius
Fri Jul 27 2007, 10:27am


Registered Member #1
Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 08:25pm
Posts: 2783
 Hi,

What a week! We have been working hard on the Nstall and PPL. Nstall is the installer that PPL 1.30 will be using to install itself on your PocketPC/Smartphone device. We still have to figure out one last thing on the WM5 and WM6 OS concerning the uninstall process. We hope to find the solution soon on this one.

Concerning PPL now... We have optimized the core system in the past to gain amazing speed. That was all gone except that when you optimize for speed you have to sacrifice memory requirements. This is something you cannot go around. This week we have worked very hard on reducing the memory requirements of PPL. We have made terrific progress, here is a break down of the areas we have optimized:

1. The PPL core takes 2mb less to load now.

2. The .ppc internal bytecode memory footprint has been reduced by more than half. This will make a huge difference.

3. List elements use to take a whooping 116 bytes per element. So each list element you were adding to your PPL list variable was taking 116 bytes of memory minimum. Now we have reduced this number to 40 bytes for regular list elements. For structures, we are talking 56 bytes and for arrays 104, for arrays of structures element it is around 120 bytes. Most people use regular list element or structures.

There has been other optimization here and there, so many we cannot list them all.

We are now testing to make sure these optimizations don't break anything.

So expect an amazing release (if something is broken, don't worry we will issue a patch very shortly after). For us it is like releasing PPL all over again, so much has changed.
Regards,
Alain Deschenes
President and programmer
ArianeSoft Inc. (http://www.arianesoft.ca)
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quangdx
Fri Jul 27 2007, 02:46pm

Registered Member #87
Joined: Mon Oct 02 2006, 07:34pm
Posts: 157
this is me, mucho excited.
the science of play
www.asobitech.com
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Andrew Beery
Sat Jul 28 2007, 10:10am

Registered Member #10
Joined: Sun Jun 18 2006, 09:41pm
Posts: 107
 Very nice... my beta testers for SereneSceen Phone are groaning because it requires 25MB+ of free program RAM on their Pocket PCs... sounds like this will help alot... will there be a new beta soon or are you going directly to a production release of 1.30?... happy either way!

[ Edited Sat Jul 28 2007, 10:12am ]
Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth -- 1 John 3:18
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kornalius
Sat Jul 28 2007, 12:00pm


Registered Member #1
Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 08:25pm
Posts: 2783
 We plan on going production very soon. No new beta on the way. If you want to contact me via email we discuss trying your app on the latest 1.30 code to see if it improves your memory requirements (support@arianesoft.ca)
Regards,
Alain Deschenes
President and programmer
ArianeSoft Inc. (http://www.arianesoft.ca)
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matteo.m
Sat Jul 28 2007, 04:47pm

Registered Member #8
Joined: Fri Jun 16 2006, 05:40am
Posts: 367
 Hi Alain this time the release soun the best of all the time. When you think it will be deployed?
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kornalius
Sun Jul 29 2007, 01:15am


Registered Member #1
Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 08:25pm
Posts: 2783
 Next week, I will be working on fixing a weird bug that was introduced last Friday while working on the memory optimization for the lists.

I need to finish off the Nstall uninstaller scripts for Windows Mobile 5 and 6. They don't use the same procedures as in WM3 and PPC2000, 2002.

I am hoping to release within a week or two.

I won't be adding more, it just never ends. So in terms of new features I am done, I just need to fix these two things and a few more things and we are all set.
Regards,
Alain Deschenes
President and programmer
ArianeSoft Inc. (http://www.arianesoft.ca)
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Heinz
Tue Jul 31 2007, 07:47am

Registered Member #114
Joined: Tue Oct 24 2006, 01:40pm
Posts: 202
 Sounds great!! Thanks a lot Alain!
regards,
Heinz
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kornalius
Wed Aug 01 2007, 12:30pm


Registered Member #1
Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 08:25pm
Posts: 2783
 Here is another update:

I have decided to let the installer project down. It is too complicated on WM5 and up and the process is not documented at all.

I have changed the old installer to support ARMV4 processors instead of the old PPC2003 value I was using. Apparently this will fix support for Smartphones with the old installer.

I need someone with a Smartphone to contact me at support©arianesoft.ca so that I can find out if it works or not.
Regards,
Alain Deschenes
President and programmer
ArianeSoft Inc. (http://www.arianesoft.ca)
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kornalius
Wed Aug 01 2007, 09:38pm


Registered Member #1
Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 08:25pm
Posts: 2783
 A little more on the installer issue...

I will use the same installer as before except that I will have three separate downloads per release.

1. PIDE (PPL Integrated Development Environment) with PPL for PC.
2. PPL for PocketPC Edition (PocketPC 2000, 2002, WM2003, WM5 and WM6)
3. PPL for Smartphones Edition (2003 and 2005).

There will be a new edition of PPL coming out next September, the Desktop version only. It will be priced cheaper a bit and will target the PC crowd only. I will post more on this edition soon.
Regards,
Alain Deschenes
President and programmer
ArianeSoft Inc. (http://www.arianesoft.ca)
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matteo.m
Thu Aug 02 2007, 10:30am

Registered Member #8
Joined: Fri Jun 16 2006, 05:40am
Posts: 367
 I just bougt a HTC s710 that is a smarphone with wm6 so it will be interesting to try ppl on that
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kornalius
Thu Aug 02 2007, 10:51am


Registered Member #1
Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 08:25pm
Posts: 2783
 Oh great, please contact me at support©arianesoft.ca I will have you try the installer.
Regards,
Alain Deschenes
President and programmer
ArianeSoft Inc. (http://www.arianesoft.ca)
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kornalius
Thu Aug 02 2007, 10:55am


Registered Member #1
Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 08:25pm
Posts: 2783
 I have decided not to include the Main, Editor and VFB in the Smartphone version by default. Since Smartphones don't have a touchscreen and most of them don't have a keyboard, it is not considered a development platform like the PocketPC is. It is always possible to add these programs manually from the PIDE RUNTIME folder.
Regards,
Alain Deschenes
President and programmer
ArianeSoft Inc. (http://www.arianesoft.ca)
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kornalius
Fri Aug 03 2007, 03:47pm


Registered Member #1
Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 08:25pm
Posts: 2783
 Here another update for the weekend:

We are getting very close to the release now, next week that is. We just need to finish testing the Smartphone installer and we are all set.

Wow, it has been more than 4 months since the last official release. This one is a big one. Lots of new things and speed / memory enhancements.

We will focus our time on PR and bug fixes until September. I am getting married in August so, I won't be starting new projects until mid-September. I plan on releasing a bug fix version (1.3.1) if necessary within the next 2 weeks., then I am gone for a little while. Don't worry there will be support during this time.
Regards,
Alain Deschenes
President and programmer
ArianeSoft Inc. (http://www.arianesoft.ca)
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MagNet
Sat Aug 04 2007, 03:29pm

Registered Member #9
Joined: Fri Jun 16 2006, 07:56am
Posts: 170
 I hope it fixes my problems, can't wait.
http://magnetpwnz.com The site's a WIP right now but it shouldn't take long to get it done.
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kornalius
Sat Aug 04 2007, 10:24pm


Registered Member #1
Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 08:25pm
Posts: 2783
 Hey Mag, it has been a while, glad to see you are still around.

What are these problems?
Regards,
Alain Deschenes
President and programmer
ArianeSoft Inc. (http://www.arianesoft.ca)
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kornalius
Sun Aug 05 2007, 09:28pm


Registered Member #1
Joined: Wed Apr 19 2006, 08:25pm
Posts: 2783
 Some more updates:

We will be fixing our Smartphone Edition installer early this week. We will check a few more things to shrink down in memory comsumption.

We have developed a new ULTRA fast memory management system which will save memory while analysing, parsing and compiling, the speed gain here will be immense. We will offer new functions in PPL to access this new memory management system.

Here are some of the functions planned:

HeapCreate(BlockSize$) -> HeapHandle$
HeapAlloc(HeapHandle$, Size$) -> handle$
HeapFree(HeapHandle$, Handle$);
HeapDestroy(HeapHandle$);

They look like standard heap management routines from the Windows API but they are not. The names might change not to confuse people but these are just to show you how easy this new system will be to use.

We will later integrate it with the Lists, Arrays and Structures, internally without ever changing your codes. This will probably be in 1.4.

More on this new system by mid-week.
Regards,
Alain Deschenes
President and programmer
ArianeSoft Inc. (http://www.arianesoft.ca)
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