- A simulator. It renders meshes and simulates physics. Rigid body dynamics to be precise.
- A simulator server socket API. The simulator listens to external commands.
- I'm embedding a Python 3.4 interpreter into the application. I'm running it in a separate thread, so to the user the Python script will appear to be "the main application."
- A Python API to communicate with the simulator. The API uses sockets to communicate with the simulator.
- The main interface for the user is a syntax-highlighted Python editor. And a run button.
The on-board Python stuff is only intended to be used if you're on a bus or a plane. It's awkward to create stuff on the iPad and even worse on the iPhone, and that goes for programming too. Typing on the soft keyboard sucks ass. I built this part so that you can tweak your game on the go, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be misunderstood as an awful development environment.
The main purpose of the iOS version of Trabant is to act as a simulation server for you application running on a PC. Or possibly Mac, if I get around to it.
The computer version of Trabant is pretty similar to the iOS version, but nothing's embedded, so the editor, the Python interpreter and the simulator will be separate processes. The normal workflow will be something like this:
- Build a small game prototype on your computer.
- Press F5 to test it on your computer.
- Fix the bugs.
- Iterate above. When you're done, you move on to test on iOS:
- Start the Trabant app on your device.
- Press F6 on your computer to run your prototype on a remote device. This step also synchronizes the source code to the device.
After step 6 you can put your iPhone in your pocket and continue tweaking on the way to work and back. When you get home you press F6 on your computer to synchronize your tweaks back onto your hard drive.
For those who "get it," it will be a joyful and instantly gratifying way to do rapid prototyping. The first few weeks I'll leave it for free on the App Store, after that I'll charge plenty for it. These days "plenty" means $4 or so. Which means nobody will buy it anyway.
It's a bit saddening that we've come to a point where few months of hard work is hardly worth even a dollar for anyone, but that's where we've arrived. (And believe me it is hard work; you can't imagine the plumbing required to get all of this working.) I'm no different. And it's hard to see how we're ever going to get out of it unless we start charging what we think our work is worth.
Please wait while super-charging...
