[Freeciv-Dev] Re: release plans

[Artur Biesiadowski <abies@xxxxxxxxx>]

David Pfitzner wrote:

> 
> http://www.complete.org/mailinglists/archives/freeciv-dev-199909/msg00041.html
[...]
> Currently there is one path/variable used
>by the client and/or server.  Under the above scheme should
>there be two paths, or a single path with client and server
>subdirs?
[...]
>Currently modpacks can mostly just create a new subdirectory 
>in the data dir (installed data dir or ~/.freeciv) and put 
>stuff there, but with this scheme they would have to put stuff 
>separately in the client and server areas, which would be a
>bit more awkward.
[...]

And what if there are rules modifications without changing tiles ? Or
tiles change without changing rules ? (as it is with trident tiles now)
You have to specify different directories anyway.

I'm thinking about freeciv mainly as about multiplayer game. Fact that
server and client can run on same machine is just a coincidence.
So let's get this example with modpack. Freeciv will support png soon I
hope, but I suppose that xpm compatibility will stay. Which format
should the modpack mantainer include with his modification dir ? Both ?
A bit unfirendly on net traffic. I would see it in form of

somemod-rules.tgz
somemod-client-png.tgz
somemod-client-xpm.tgz

Of course again, it can be as well done with current layout. What I'm
trying to show is not that my layout allows things impossible with
current one, but that it is easier to understand.
You know, we could have everything in one directory, with just prefixes.
So for example we would have

engels.units.xpm
trident.units.xpm
civ1.units.ruleset
helpdata.txt
kaboom.wav
Freeciv
default.tilespec
....

Fortunately some of this things were put into subdirectories and now we
have
civ1.serv
default.tilespec
classic_terrain.ruleset
intro.xpm
....

which is still a mess of server and client.

I'm not quite sure, but it seems to me that currently there is not way
to make separate client and server packages (like rpm or deb) which
would work independent of each other and could be both installed without
conflicts at same time. Why ? You have to decide which one will include
entire data dir. 

Anyway, I think that with growth of freeciv current 'flat' directory
scheme will become unmaintainable. But it isn't showstopper for any of
my projects - including scripting and java client (I will just put more
server files in common data dir in first case and extract needed files
by hand in second case). So it is up to you, I've stated my opinion. 


> So let me get this right:  There was one format used by freeciv,
> and you didn't like it so you made a different one, and now you
> are saying we should just have one format?  ;-) ;-)

Generally yes :)


Artur