Tasklist?

crouton · Post by **crouton** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 9:43 pm

I wasn't talking about you, chuck. And it looks like any attempt at a release is on the backburner. Adios.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:09 pm

Best of luck and thanks for the help! *hugs* release wise... well usually people who download the "big" file have a full working copy, custom executable and all.

charlieg · Post by **charlieg** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:23 pm

chuck_starchaser wrote:you basically threatened to release without the sounds, on the basis of some imaginary rush

Releasing without sounds would have not been a 'rushed release'. The problem with most OSS projects in their early stages is that they don't release often enough, not giving their users access to the developing software. Developers are afflicted by perfectionism, not wanting to give out incomplete works.

There would have been nothing wrong with releasing without sounds. It's better than what WCU currently has; no release at all.

Early and often. Most projects that get abandoned or take time to gain momentum do so due to lack of releases. Better to give out something incomplete with a big fat "WARNING! INCOMPLETE!" sticker than to give out nothing at all.

smbarbour · Post by **smbarbour** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:41 pm

I kinda agree there. A lot of people want an easy way to get the current state of development to get a feel for the project. I'm not saying there will be a rush of developers by releasing an unfinished product, but I'm sure there will be some that come with an idea of what they can add to the project.

charlieg · Post by **charlieg** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 2:39 am

At the very least it will bring a few more bug reports from players. There's nothing like end users for exposing fundamental problems! At the moment the only people playing WCU are probably the developers themselves because the effort and intimidation factor against people getting involved or advertising the project by proxy.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 7:31 am

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... p_id=52085 -- get wcu071705.zip

OR:

http://www.spiritplumber.com/priv_remake/wcu-devel.zip

The "release" has been there for a while, I just never heard from the kitty who was supposed to do the web page anymore

I hope you like it. The next upload will have a custom .exe with a few more options if you're flying a capship.

Post by **klauss** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 2:44 pm

Crouton: I do understand the need for management, deadlines, well thought schedules and all. But, perhaps, what you're missing is that this is not a commercial project. People will often put their own jobs before WCU schedule, so things are bound to get behind schedule, if you create a tight schedule. Perhaps loosening it would release the pressure.

It's obvious that your problem with chuck begun with too much pressure: saying that we should release as soon as possible put the pressure in - he, and I, wanted to include the sounds, so releasing without them is quite a lot of pressure, we'll rush in to have them ready before you release, for the simple reason that we want the release to have them.

Anyways, if we were voting, I would vote for you to keep trying to organize things. I grant it's not easy, and the way you're trying to do it is probably not the right one, given all the problems it brought up. But organization is good, we just have to find the right organization for this project.

Someone, a few pages ago, said that programmers have a problem implementing things they don't want to. That's almost right. But it's often the hard ones the ones they don't want to implement. So, without a little pressure, the project will be a collection of nice, small patches, and no big design or anything like that. That's why, I think, pressure is important. But in an OSS project, putting too much pressure will often push people away. After all, the project is a hobby. Noone makes a living out of it, AFAIK, so you can't put too much pressure. But just the right amount of it, to get big changes going.

And it's not always about getting things done, sometime it's about stopping things from getting done in a rush. What I see most OSS projects lack is a propper design phase. Things should be well thought out before implementing them. Most of my own projects have a huge comment section where I write everything I'll do, just to have a chance to think about it, and detect design issues. I will often have a lot of plans, sometimes titanic, and no code. It's not bad. I've stopped myself from doing a mess more than once by doing this, detecting serious design issues before coding, so when I do code, the resulting code is clean and correct, with every feature I wanted there, and no need for dirty patches. That, partly, would the task of a manager for this project: forcing the others to have a well thought design before coding.

I'll stop now, I'm ranting. So... what do you think?

crouton · Post by **crouton** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:24 pm

People will often put their own jobs before WCU schedule, so things are bound to get behind schedule, if you create a tight schedule.

Understandable, this isn't a commercial project as you pointed out. But as of this moment, there is no schedule, much less a 'tight' schedule. mkruer came up with a rough framework which was an excellent start. And we have numerous tasklists, right? Let's set a hypothetical 0.1 release date for Dec 31, 2005. That's a good 6 months away, right? Do you know what you want in that release? What about what you have to have in that release? What will be finished by then, what won't? Is there a general consensus on anything I just stated?

You're spot on about planning before coding, but that time has already passed. I'm concerned about coding without thinking of the big picture.. because it's all too easy to get in the mindset of 'If I fix the small things, the big things will fall into place.' That's only true if the big things are planned out already. And I see no plan for the big things. Admittedly I should come up with a plan rather than complain about the lack of one. But would anyone follow it, especially if their input wasn't taken into account? I don't know what you (plural) think is important or not.

So. It's a team effort to come up with a plan that everyone will agree with and pursue. I'm willing to write it, if you guys & gals are willing to come to a consensus on where the project is and where it will be going. If you need a framework for that, let me know. But I can't pull everything from my arse, even if I read all the threads on this board. And besides, you'd think I was managing a commercial project or something.

smbarbour · Post by **smbarbour** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:46 pm

Here's an idea I'll toss into the mix. How about a contstant release schedule? Say a release will occur every two weeks (as long as something changes). If you have changes you want in the release, submit them and they will go in the next release. No real hard deadlines, just release when something is added.

For example, lets say spiritplumber has some new AI code she wants released and klauss and chuck_starchaser are working on some sound code. spirit's changes are ready, klauss and chuck's changes are not. Should we wait to release until everyone is done working or release what we have with a note of what changed and what is still being worked on? I would think a release would be better.

In this case the project manager is more like a "release editor"

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:00 pm

Agreed with on the release editor ^_^; i have been trying to upload ever other monday....

crouton · Post by **crouton** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:32 pm

smbarbour: That's what should be happening already with the CVS system.... but I see your point, and it is a very good one. I'm looking into the Subversion (SVN) system as it may be easier for everyone to understand and use. A check-in deadline is a very good thing to have later for debugging and testing, so getting in the groove now would be beneficial.

That still leaves us with the 'where is this project going?' consensus. There's a lot of things that could be resolved with a minimum of fuss... and would greatly flesh out where we want to be. I'll putter about and see if I can work up something amenable.

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 2:25 am

What I would like it to happen is all of us getting together on irc or on IM (i have ym but can use also aim and msn) and talk ^-^

crouton · Post by **crouton** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:06 am

IRC should work, pick a time

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 6:11 am

today (saturday), about any time works for me.... early afternoon EST would be best

Post by **mkruer** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 7:40 am

im game

spiritplumber · Post by **spiritplumber** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 10:57 am

irc.beyondirc.net

#wing-commander