Some of the devs appear to think that because somebody is working on it, it's getting better. The fact that cheat.c has gained like 90k does not suggest that the cheat engine is being simplified ("because it's a mess" to quote one dev). Quite the reverse, with the abortion of how he's mangling the cheat format as well as anything else it looks like the XML format is being favoured - which will frankly be a nightmare for maintenance. But on the plus side when SP see's all the buggy non-conforming cheats that will be spread in individual XML files his head will explode
I've frankly had enough of all the politics, like I said if I knew the cheat engine was such a big issue I would have tackled it myself. I think a limited cheat engine for most users which would just allow enabling/disabling cheats and setting activation keys along with a cheat.idx file so the entire cheat file doesn't get parsed to load the cheats would have been a possible solution. With the full cheat engine just a drop in for self-compilers.
But it's all too late now. I am going to halt any work on the cheat file and have currently no intention of touching the MAME cheat engine either, probably until at least next year. If things are no better by that time it will probably be for good. Been at this over 10 years and that's probably long enough for anybody....too long for Shimapong's liking that's for sure.
I will try and keep the old cheat.c working as long as possible, even if I have no intention of using it in anger.BTW, thanks for still compiling the old one (with required ajustments) as we REALLY need it