[Freeciv-Dev] Re: unit flags/capabilities

[Raimar Falke <hawk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 12:21:31PM -0500, Andrew Sutton wrote:
[snip]

For planning you need to know how much man power is available and how
many time you have.

> i mean really, what's so scary about changing a core mechanic if it
> doesn't break existing code and provides a framework that's easier
> to maintain and implement new features - even if it does result in
> more code. it's a tradeoff.

More code has to be avoided. More code means more maintenance. What do
you think is the primary force behind the canvas unification? And you
want two parallel implementations of almost the same thing just for
the sake of extensibility.

> extensibility for efficiency. what's more important? some might say
> efficiency, and i agree for something that didn't need to be
> modular.

My personal list:
 1) correctness
 2) maintainability
 3) performance
 4) maybe extensibility

If you see that the current system/implementation isn't capable f
handling a new case:
 - take a step back
 - look at the big picture
 - think about a solution
 - refactor (or whatever you call it) (and do this without duplicating
 too much code, removing is even better)

You just want to add extensibility without a problem. You don't know
in which direction you should extend.

> if anybody is REALLY interested in improving freeciv, take a look at what 
> needs to be improved - the ability to add features, the ability to 
> generically deal with new features. the rest will fall into place.

This is a level to general. You have to list problem you want to
address. And we will all together think how these problems can be
solved (using the current system or changing it).

        Raimar

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