The End of PulpCore

[David Brackeen]

Hi guys,
Well this probably won't come as a surprise to anyone, but I've
decided to officially end development of PulpCore.

(The other bad news is I'm going to delete the project and close the
group in the next few weeks, so if you need the code, grab it now.)

First, I wanted to apologize for all the promises I made that never
happened. There were lots of plans, and not all of them made it. I'm
sorry! And thank you to the folks who contributed code - you made this
thing better.

Second, I thought I'd state my reasons.

1. Applet support has gotten pretty bad.
+ Mac OS X no longer ships with Java, and now Safari turns off
applets by default.
+ Chrome shows that annoying yellow banner.
+ Making players jump through these hoops might be okay for mid-
core and hardcore games like Minecraft or Gaikai, but not casual 2D
games like Milpa.
+ Applets will never, ever exist on post-PC devices like tablets
or smartphones.

2. But HTML5 support has gotten really good, and will get better
+ All browsers have pretty fast VMs now (not as fast as HotSpot,
but pretty good).
+ Hardware-accelerated Canvas is becoming more and more common.
+ WebGL and WebCL are very, very cool.
+ You don't have to code in JavaScript - alternatives exist.

3. (As an aside, PulpCore was originally started waaaaay back in 2005,
when things were very different. Applets were good, and post-PC
devices hadn't taken off yet.)

So anyway, now you can create HTML5 games without extra plugin
installs, security popups, etc.

So, where to go form here? People have made suggestions on this board,
and I agree with them. Try PlayN or libgdx for those familiar with
Java. (From my personal observation, PlayN seems to have better HTML5
support, but libgdx seems to have better Android support). Haxe is
another good choice. And there's always Flash. Personally, I've worked
with PlayN, and while it has its quirks, I like it.

Also, my work on porting PulpCore to HTML5 was very, very close. But
the fact is the API was very different from the "old" PulpCore, which
would require you to learn a new API. If you're going to learn a new
API, you might as well learn PlayN or libgdx. They are already doing
the same work, so there didn't seem to be a good enough reason to
duplicate it.

I can't guarantee I'll re-release parts of PulpCore, but if I do, I'll
do it as smaller libs, and I'll do it on GitHub.

In closing, I'll say that I really had a lot of fun with this project.
It was a blast figuring everything out, and getting everything to work
correctly, and working with others on it. I learned a lot, and became
a better developer because of it. No regrets! In all, good times.

-David

[Seth Hetu]

Much thanks for all your work on this project over the years. It was
one of the first game libraries that I learned, and it was super
awesome (even more awesome back in 2005, given the alternatives.) All
the best of luck on your next project.

-->Seth

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[Dorian Cussen]

Thanks for all the work you put into it - learning pulpcore kick-started my whole career i think so massive thanks!!!!!! Good luck :)

--

Dorian Cussen

Android Developer

www.doridori.co.uk

[Nouknouk]

Hi David,

needless to say that It is not a surprise.

Amonst other, I really enjoyed 'playing' with PulpCore for personal purposes. Seven years ... already !

Above all for me, I must thank PulpCore for the good ideas the framework embeds.
I re-used (and sometimes enhanced) several of your good concepts (stage, groups, inputs, properties, assets, ...) in a framework I wrote myself for the first version of my game Bouncebox (available on a french TV set-top box).

I also made lot's of internal little proof of concepts with PulpCore:
- from an 2.5D isometric engine (http://nouknouk.free.fr/)
- another 'pure' 2D map engine (http://nouknouk.free.fr/tileTest/)
- a test of integration into Swing (http://nouknouk.free.fr/bazar/pulpcore-jpanel.jnlp)

- and the most popular one: the 'Web Edition' of my game called 'BounceBox' (http://www.bouncebox.fr/bouncebox-web-edition/), with thousands of players and games played every day.


Anyway, cheers, all the best for the next, hold the line and ...

... thanks for all, David.


Regards,

Nouknouk.


PS: About the Javascript alternatives you mentionned, I have two comments:

- Javascript is really a GREAT programming language, if you already have good knowledge of OO programming and good 'OO practises' when writing code. It's one of my preferred languages now, given the flexibility it provides. More and more of my personal projects rely on a javascript intepreter for all non critical and chaging parts of them.

- but Javascript ecosystem in the context of a browser have one enormous pitfall for game development: obfuscation of the code is nearly impossible compared to other solutions (including Java), and for closed-source projects, it can be a huge problem (especially for multiplayer networked ones, where you don't want to give the opportunity to hackers to hack your game too easily)

[Sisso]

Thanks for all the fun and learning that we have using its api. 

[]s,

Sisso

2012/5/17 Nouknouk <nouk...@gmail.com>

[Julio Cesar Cachay Perez]

i want to thanks David for all the great work, i use part of the framework for my thesis and got a very nice review of my jury like 3 years ago, right now i'm using libgdx but all the basic stuff i learned was because of your book and the framework, thank you very much!

2012/5/17 Sisso <sis...@gmail.com>

[Adrien Quay-thevenon]

Thank you David, this was a very user friendly lib !

2012/5/17 Julio Cesar Cachay Perez <juli...@gmail.com>

[Mark Kreitler]

Thanks, David. PulpCore was a great applet engine, and I'll miss
working with it.

Good luck on your next endeavor!

On 5/18/12, Adrien Quay-thevenon <adrie...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you David, this was a very user friendly lib !
>
> 2012/5/17 Julio Cesar Cachay Perez <juli...@gmail.com>
>
>> i want to thanks David for all the great work, i use part of the framework
>> for my thesis and got a very nice review of my jury like 3 years ago,
>> right
>> now i'm using libgdx but all the basic stuff i learned was because of your

>> book and the framework,* thank you very much!*

>>
>>
>> 2012/5/17 Sisso <sis...@gmail.com>
>>
>>> Thanks for all the fun and learning that we have using its api.
>>>
>>> []s,
>>> Sisso
>>>
>>> 2012/5/17 Nouknouk <nouk...@gmail.com>
>>>
>>>> Hi David,
>>>>
>>>> needless to say that It is not a surprise.
>>>>
>>>> Amonst other, I really enjoyed 'playing' with PulpCore for personal
>>>> purposes. Seven years ... already !
>>>>
>>>> Above all for me, I must thank PulpCore for the good ideas the framework
>>>> embeds.
>>>> I re-used (and sometimes enhanced) several of your good concepts (stage,
>>>> groups, inputs, properties, assets, ...) in a framework I wrote myself
>>>> for
>>>> the first version of my game Bouncebox (available on a french TV set-top
>>>> box).
>>>>
>>>> I also made lot's of internal little proof of concepts with PulpCore:
>>>> - from an 2.5D isometric engine (http://nouknouk.free.fr/)
>>>> - another 'pure' 2D map engine

>>>> (http://nouknouk.free.fr/tileTest/<http://nouknouk.free.fr/>
>>>> )

[Andres Martinez Quijano]

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

PulpCore allowed me to do some multiplayer games that were played
thousands of times, and in turn were a showcase that landed me other
projects, so thanks for everything David (and too bad we missed each
other on GDC '09!)

what's your github account so we can follow you?

[David Brackeen]

Hey guys, thanks for sharing all your stories! I didn't expect such a
positive response.

You can find me on GitHub here: https://github.com/brackeen

[ramy daghstani]

Thanks for the work David, I just wanted to say that pulpcore helped
me learn a lot and that it was still very fun to use and to learn.

good luck and have fun with future projects

r.d.

[abecam]

Many thanks for this amazing API. I used it for two project, then got
no time anymore, but the second one had some success, and it's thanks
to the quality of Pulpcore! Now I have to learn LibGdx :), or go back
to pure 3D engine (currently using Rajawali on Android). But I will
never forget Pulpcore, such a clear, simple (to use) and amazingly
good library!

All the best to you David!

[John Dexter]

Hi David,

Sorry to hear development is ceasing but far more concerned and
confused that you're planning to delete the project and the group -
could you explain the thinking behind that please? There are
commercial in-development games using PulpCore...so letting people use
the group and download the code - maybe even contribute since it's
open-source - seems the more obvious answer but maybe I miss some
history here?

John.

(side note of my own: I didn't even know you were allowed to kill a
Google Code project!)

[David Brackeen]

> Sorry to hear development is ceasing but far more concerned and
> confused that you're planning to delete the project and the group -
> could you explain the thinking behind that please?

Because it's the most effective way to discourage its use.

Of course, the code is BSD, and still available, so if anyone wants to
fork it for public or private use, they can.

If anyone plans on creating a public fork on their own account, and
would like to take over ownership of the Google Group, send me a
private email.

But, IMHO, using and contributing to other projects I mentioned is the
far better option, both in the short term and in the long term.

[Mark Smith]

Hey David -

Just thought I'd give a shout out for gratitude of this project as
well. I used Pulpcore to bring Tetris into Facebook for our first
iteration of an online social Tetris game. While we eventually had to
move to Flash and I wish that wasn't the case, I did love every second
of using this project.

Best of luck!