Deeper, harder, faster! ;)

As you all know, thanks to B4A's external library support, we've been able to write our own Java libraries for a while now. This is such an incredible feature, but since I was never familiar with Java, whenever I needed something really specific, I was always dependent on someone else's good will to write some code for me.

I was, however, familiar with the C language, so last summer I decided to give JNI a try. After some (many) NDK/JNI tutorials, I was finally able to take my first steps on creating native-based B4A libraries.
Happy with the result, but unhappy with the JNI syntax (which is horrible, btw), I created a helper tool which allowed me to write regular C/C++ code and have a B4A library generated in seconds.

Unchained from having to carefully craft JNI functions by hand, my productivity was immensely increased.
Soon I realized, from a game designer perspective, B4A and C++ is a match made in heaven! The possibilities are endless. The friendliness of Erel's IDE and B4x syntex, powered by natively written functions.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any faster, I discovered that C/C++ has inline support for assembly commands. Of course, one has to be very careful because when using those, since they're quite hardware specific.

At this point it really feels like I've reached the core. I'm as close to the hardware as humanly possible.
I started to measure my cycles and loops in nanoseconds. Suddenly now, a millisecond seems like an eternity.

So there you have it, if you have a mad scientist spirit like me, I'm here to let you know that, you can write Assembly code, using C/C++ inline functions, compile it into an .so library to be used by a Java library which can be wrapped into a B4A library.

tl;dr:

...and that's how we can go deeper, harder and faster, at least in terms of coding.

You'll be soon creating SKYNET or worse... The Matrix....
May EREL be our NEO Connor!

wonder said:

So there you have it, if you have a mad scientist spirit like me, I'm here to let you know that, you can write Assembly code, using C/C++ inline functions, compile it into an .so library to be used by a Java library which can be wrapped into a B4A library.

tl;dr:
B4A --> Java --> C/C++ --> Assembly
B4A <-- Java <-- C/C++ <-- Assembly
Yes, we can.
...and that's how we can go deeper, harder and faster, at least in terms of coding.

Click to expand...

It's like some kind of drug. Once you have tasted it....you will want more, and more....

Once on the NDK side, don't forget NEON and openmp if you want to further boost performance

JordiCP said:

Once on the NDK side, don't forget NEON and openmp

Click to expand...

I'll sure look those up!

wonder said:

you can write Assembly code, using C/C++ inline functions, compile it into an .so library to be used by a Java library which can be wrapped into a B4A library.

Click to expand...

It's not enough, for me. I want to develop in binary, then:

Binary --> Assembly --> C --> Java --> B4A

LucaMs said:

It's not enough, for me. I want to develop in binary, then:
Binary --> Assembly --> C --> Java --> B4A

Click to expand...

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10821875/how-could-i-write-hello-world-in-binary

That Hex Edit reminded me of when I used to FF all my floppys when they returned bad sectors... LOL

Cableguy said:

FF all my floppys

Click to expand...

Cool! I'm about to learn something new! Please go on...

The old floppy disks, were about 25€/pack (equivalent) in the early 80's, which was very expensive for that time, so whenever a floppy disk gave me bad sector, I would edit it with an HEX editor, and FF all the non FF contents ( formatting filled the disk with FFs), then I would retry the format, and a few bad sectors would go away at each format/edit.

Wow, I didn't know that was possible! That's really cool!!
I still remember the pain of have the Windows 3.11 9th disk giving me the CRC error.

LucaMs said:

It's not enough, for me. I want to develop in binary, then:
Binary --> Assembly --> C --> Java --> B4A

Click to expand...

I would start from transistors and solid-state physics..
Transistors --> SSI --> MSI --> LSI --> ULSI --> MCUs --> Binary --> Hex --> Assembly --> C --> Java --> B4A.
Only this way I can know what exactly I am doing when I use B4A

writing or editing code the hex way was common and it still is if you are into patching pc programs or coding on cheap minimal electronics processors.

every coder who knows assembler well should be able to insert common (patch) commands like ret, nop, jne/jnz/jz, mov ax/ah/al/bx/bl/bh/cx/cl/ch/dx/dl/dh, call/jmp ...
as their hex values.

Here's an example on how to do it on a C64. (notice the Q/A typo... we use azerty here in Belgium so I needed to adapt again to qwerty )