What tools are you currently using to makes games with these days? - 2013

[LP]

About the results from a survey which has been made recently about different computer devices:
Survey had only been taking into acount the number of sold devices but didn't take into account the average lifspan for each device. So if you have two different devices where average lifespan of one is 2 years (mobile phones, tablets) and a lifespan of other device is 5 years (desktop computers, laptops) greater sales of first one doesn't necessariely mean that now more pepole is using it.

Well, the usage numbers tell otherwise: Usage share of different OSes. If you look into current trends and forecasts, number of Android and iOS units will greatly surpass Windows + Others. In other words, we will have more phones than desktop units. If what you say about average lifespan is true, then it is another minus for desktop development as the innovations/upgrades will be more focused on mobiles.

And since most programers still takes into account sentance "No optimization is best optimization!" they are having huge problems when they are trying to develop programs vor various mobile devices.

Yes, this is called Premature Optimization.

I agree that on mobiles you need to rethink how you program stuff, especially if you want to achieve similar scalability as on desktop. It's difficult to beat native code there, which I why I'm inclined against Java and HTML5 based alternatives. I think they are okay for business, accounting and some other basic stuff, but for games where you need to use all of the device's resources, they may not be the best choice.

[SilverWarior]

Well, the usage numbers tell otherwise: Usage share of different OSes.

There are some strange numbers I see there. Acording to Net Market Share there is decrease of usage of WIndows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 but increase in Windiows 8 and other versions of Windows. And here I wonder what are theese other versions of Windows. Don't tell me that pepole started instaling older Windowses like Windows 2000, Windows 98, etc.

If you look into current trends and forecasts, number of Android and iOS units will greatly surpass Windows + Others. In other words, we will have more phones than desktop units.

We already have more mobile phones than desktops but since most of them are just plain simple mobile phones and not Smart Phones they werent compared with computers in the past. Therefore the reason for them quickly gaining market share. It would be nice to see comparison between the number of all mobile phones and computers and the trends of each.

If what you say about average lifespan is true, then it is another minus for desktop development as the innovations/upgrades will be more focused on mobiles.

Why would that be minus?
Sure it seems that in mobiles there is much faster advancment but in reality most of the technologies currently present in mobiles are just existng technologies from desktop world being ported to mobiles. And it is the rate of how fast theese technologies are being ported to mobiles which actually creates mobiles lifespan so short.
Most notable technology used in SmartPhones is TouchScreen capability. Do you know that first Touch Screen was developed in 1965? So this is nothing new. The only reason why it gained so much popularity recently is the fact that production cost had became much much lower as they were in the past. I still remember when I was dreaming of having touch capability on my computer back in 1998 when addon for my monitor which would alow me touch capability costed almost as much as my whole computer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen

The second most noticable technology in SmartPhones is Digital Camera. And this one isn't new. First digital camera was invented back in 1975 but become more popular in recent years due to image sensors becoming smaller and cheaper every year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_camera

Third most noticable technology in SmartPhones is GPS navigation which was developed in early 1940's and again become more popular when the production cots lowered considerably.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System

The fourth noticable technology in SmartPhones are motion sensors. When have they been first invented is hard to say as there are so many different types of them. But I must admit that Smartphones are first devices which masively make use of them. Before that they were only used for scientific purposes.

Multicore processors which are used in newest SmartPhones have been used in desktops for several years now. So nothing new here.

Infact if you take a look there isn't any technology in Smartphones for which you could say this is new and uniqe.
This means that all new technology advancments are still being developed in destop world. And until it is so desktop computers won't die out.

And if I go back to device Lifespan I can say that longer lifespan is actually better for us programers. Why? We all know that if you want to make some really good software it would take you athleast a few yeasr for that. So if device lifespan is shorter than that it means that before you will manage to develop such software the device for which you has been devloping the software for would already be obsoleete.
In other words this means that you will need to keep redeveloping your software to make sure it is compatible with latest versions of such devices. This would increase the overal development time and even development costs.
And this is by my opinion a great MINUS of mobile devices. The overal development is too fast for us developers to follow.

[phibermon]

Third most noticable technology in SmartPhones is GPS navigation which was developed in early 1940's and again become more popular when the production cots lowered considerably.

GPS uses satellites which hopefully, were not orbiting the earth in the 1940's. I believe you're referring to earlier technology used in shipping where multiple radio signals encoded with a timecode were triangulated to give the ships position (a technology still in use today by the russian and american navies, although only as a backup to GPS) and I don't believe this tech either was available in the 1940's. Radar certainly was and operators could radio the pilots to help them through foggy conditions etc

Edit : I really need to think before I write if I'm on topic. There's forums on the web where you get burnt alive for that kind of thing.

[LP]

Why would that be minus?
Sure it seems that in mobiles there is much faster advancment but in reality most of the technologies currently present in mobiles are just existng technologies from desktop world being ported to mobiles. And it is the rate of how fast theese technologies are being ported to mobiles which actually creates mobiles lifespan so short.
[...long list...]

I wasn't referring to accessories like camera and GPS, but CPU and GPU. I think these will be receive most innovations, while on desktop they are becoming somewhat stagnant. Worse, if desktop market is going to shrink considerably, it may have repercussions on major players like Nvidia or AMD.

I really need to think before I write if I'm on topic. There's forums on the web where you get burnt alive for that kind of thing.

I don't think you should worry about it. I'm myself am used to... err... controversial responses, when state my opinion.

This comes into mind...

[Daikrys]

personally i use delphi for coding and make the android ports with FPC, for graphics i use inkscape, spriter, photoshop and glueit
for my gamedesign docs i use the good old pen and paper