#DICE Anyone?
10 messages in this thread
Well, now that this forum is set up, I would like to know who has actually
received their copy of DICE.
How is your product compared to SAS-C? Just curious, And Thought it looked
kinda sparse here!!!!
-Tom-
Yeah! I second that request. I haven't seen DICE in quite a while.
What's the new commercial version like?
Sparse? I guess only 2 days in existance will account for that 🙂
DICE and SAS/C are targeted at slightly different markets. SAS has done
an excellent job at dealing with the VERY high end optimizations and large
system development. We have concentrated on the user interface and
development productivity. To accomplish this, we have created a visual
Make environment and tightly integrated that into a number of editors.
This environment directly connects to RCS to automatically check in/check
out your files as necessary. Most importantly, VMake creates a DMakefile
which can be used from a CLI (although I haven't dropped back to the CLI
for building anything in over a year).
The big winner with this environment is the ability to customize it to
whatever you want. In fact, I have customized a config file to allow me
to invoke the SAS/C compiler instead of DICE for a couple of programs.
Dice does NOT do high-end optimizations such as global optimization, 68040
code generation, and inlining of functions. It does do very good local
register optimization which makes the executables be reasonably compact
without significant optimization. When compared in the european
magazines, several programs compiled were actually smaller than SAS/C (but
I would not expect this as the norm).
As far as features in the language, we support all of the standard SAS
keywords and pragmas except for #pragma tagcall. DICE allows for
registerized parameters and __asm functions. In fact, we put a lot of
effort into DICE to ensure SAS/C language compatibility.
DICE includes source code for just about everything EXCEPT the compiler
itself. This means the libraries, VMake, options program, and all of the
auxillary tools as well as a bunch of samples that are ready to build by
just clicking.
Very interesting.. Sounds like you have a good product.. Is it big $$ or
smaller $$?? See already you have messages here!
-Tom-
The pricing is a little interesting, but here it goes:
List price is $150.00 but we have a few discounts available:
. $65 for Student upgrading a registered version of DICE
. $75 for anyone else upgrading a registered version of DICE
. $85 for a Student purchasing DICE outright
. $95 for an owner of Manx or SAS/C
I've been looking to get into Amiga C and I'd like to know how DICE compares to
SAS C. I understand that DICE started as a shareware compiler and now it has
turned commercial. How is its Integrated Development environment, 68040
support, does it have any incompatibilities with AGA machines. Further info on
the product would helpful here.
Look to the previous response, but a couple of other answers:
It does not have direct 68040 support, we have chosen to focus on a highly
integrated environment for productivity.
To my knowledge, there are no AGA problems with DICE. In fact, the VMake
program shipped will take advantage of any screen resolution, font
selection, public screen, and screen size automatically.
John,
I received my copy of DICE a day ago. Install went well and I like the
first 25 pages of the manual (all I've read so far), especially the "this
page is not blank…." comments! And I thought only DoD contractors did
that blank page stuff 🙂
I tried the TurboText editor definitions by loading them through the
TurboText prefs menu item and received 2 error messages — one reported an
error on line 71 and the other on line 72. I looked at those lines in the
TTX_DICE.dfn file but didn't recognise their usage, so I guess I'm going
to have to find my TurboText manual to look them up… I'm running TTX
version 1.02 if you're curious.
I just looked at Vopts and VMake and I can't find the button to
"generate super impressive spreadsheet" — bummer, I guess I'm going to
have to learn to program after all 🙂 DICE looks great so far and has
inspired me to learn how to program for the Amiga. Full report to follow
after I complete "Hellooooo World!!!"….
EdV
The "super impressive spreadsheet" button is right next to the "compile
everything 1000 times faster" button. Ooops, I think that I forgot to
include the source for that. Well, you can improvise I am sure.
As for the two error messages, I am curious. We got 1.03 from OXXI, I was
not aware that there was more than one version. Perhaps a quick side step
into the OXXI forum next door is appropriate. All those lines are doing
is setting up the numeric keypad keys to do more scrolling for you. I
will note the problem for our database. Thanks for pointing it out.
Thanks for the good comments on the manual, although you didn't comment on
the artwork. We have yet to come up with a reasonable name for the
"surfer dude", so any suggestions are welcome.