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ScummVM plugins - The new task

Hello! This week, I got started with my new task - "Moving detection features to the executable".

What is the task?

ScummVM has over 50 engines that support many - many games. Currently, when compiled - these engines can either be compiled directly inside the scummvm executable (statically linked) or packed inside small packages of external libraries that can be loaded on demand (dynamic linking)

So, why would we even opt for external libraries? Wouldn't packing everything into the executable give the best performance? Well, yes. But the thing is, ScummVM has a lot of platforms it supports (ScummVM Platforms) over 30! It's very portable, which is one of the really amazing features of ScummVM. With dynamic plugins, the executable sizes are lowered. Because of this, when we need to detect games - each engine is loaded by one and the relevant detection happens. This is slow.

The main purpose of this task is to move the detection related features to the executable, i.e statically link them. The main advantage of this will be that users could be able to detect games without loading an engine. This would make game detection faster and not dependent upon the external libraries.

So, that's the task.

This week:

I got started, but I haven't made much progress yet. I would say that this task is more complex than the previous two, but slowly and step by step I am understanding more things.

I also learned many things about build automation and particularly the "make" system. The GNU Make manual is a pretty good resource that I learned a lot from. ScummVM has a pretty neat and modular design of makefile ranging over several files, and I enjoyed looking around and seeing how everything tied together.

On Thursday, I had a video chat with John - one of my mentors. I haven't really video-called much before so I was a little nervous. On the other hand, John was quite comfortable and relaxed, and talking with him made me relax too! We introduce ourselves, talked about my new task, and so on. I have no idea how an hour or so went by, but it was fun!

As a side note, this chat also made me realized that I had something to work on constantly. It has been on the back of my mind, but I haven't really put much thought into it. In my day to day life, I read-write-hear English and consider myself decent in it. However, even though I know how to speak - I don't really speak much. Thus, I don't really have the practice to speak well. I mean, I don't think I speak terribly, but it could surely be better and I should speak more often and get more practice.

Anyways, that's it for this week! I hope to have some progress to share with my mentors by next week, because this week has gone by without me doing anything. Honestly, there are many things about the task I still don't understand, but I'm getting there. Okay, see you next time!

Thanks for reading!

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