Optimizing developer experience

GP Extensions Developing GP Extensions
1

I have jumped into the process of developing a Gig Performer Extension. What is the optimal way of working? Right now my process is this, but there must be an easier way. (I am using Visual Studio)

  1. Change code and add some scriptLog’s to find out what is going on
  2. Close Gig Performer
  3. Build the code
  4. Start Gig Performer to pick up the new code
  5. Check the log
  6. Repeat

Isn’t there a better way to do this? Running the code directly in Visual Studio with debugging enabled would of course be optimal.

2

I’m not aware of a way to use the Visual Studio debugging tools for a dll being run by GP. I agree that would be ideal, though.

3

So I take it, you are going through the same cycle as I do. I guess, I will just have to proceed the same way then :slight_smile:

By the way, I am using your SL_MK3 project as a sort of template for my development. Since I have nu experience with C/C+, I have to learn that while developing. So thank you for that. I see that your build is getting the GP-SDK from Github, but it seems, that it is not current anymore. Is that method still viable?

Also, Every now and then, I make very small changes to the code, and suddenly it will not load inside GP. It just hangs, and I have to shut GP down the hard way. And I even have to restart my pc, since the dll file is locked by some process. Are there any logs available, that can tell me what the problem is, when that happens?

4

Yes, I’m going through that same cycle. I’m not a real coder or developer either. The first time I ever used Visual Studio, C++, or GitHub was for this. For me it was a lot of copying other people’s stuff and asking google for help with error messages.

Pulling the SDK from GitHub should still work. There is a long hex string in that pull request that tells it which version to pull. It should still be pulling the correct one using that hex code.

Regarding the crashes and figuring out why, I don’t know of a good way to debug those. Maybe somebody here who does this kind of stuff for a living will chime in if there is a better way.

5

The problem is exacerbated because the release version of GP detects debuggers and terminates immediately. We may need to have some kind of process in place to provide extension developers with versions of GP that allow debugging while ensuring that such versions don’t get disseminated

Something to discuss.

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