[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Development Strategies

[Daniel L Speyer <dspeyer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Not just a reply to Per I. Mathisen, but to various similar comments as
well.

On Mon, 3 Dec 2001, Per I. Mathisen wrote:

> On Mon, 3 Dec 2001, Daniel L Speyer wrote:
> > The current system of flags *hasn't* worked for getting all sorts of
> > interesting rulesets, so let's try changing it.
> 
> A lot of things _can_ be done with the current ruleset structure, but very
> little _has_ been done. Why? I don't think the answer is as obvious as you
> try to make it appear.
> 
> The one biggest problem with the current rulesets is, IMHO, that the
> number of improvements is still fixed, along with some improvement
> effects that are still hardwired (which is why the number is fixed). If we
> fix that before the next version and get some decent isometric tiles and
> some music+sound, I think this would give a lot more interest in writing
> rulesets for the effort we put into it.

OK, so the flags per se may not be the number one issue, but flags,
limited improvements, hardcoded wonders, etc. are all part of the
overly hardcoded nature of the rulesets.  The extent to which you can
really create your own units is very limited, unless you're willing to
get into the C ad hack at the core, and I really think that's discouraging
customizers.  It's certainly discouraged me.

One place that Freeciv could really pull ahead of enslavedciv is
customizability and, as a result, variety.  It would be extremely cool to
have the full works of Tolkien and Pratchet as FreeCiv modes and it could
be done if we had a good, abstracted way of adding complexity to the
units.

I still believe that this requires a compact, dynamic, newbie-friendly
garbage-collecting unit definition language.  Among existing languages, I
think Python and Javascript are probably the best choices, but I haven't
studied the problem very thoroughly, so I wouldn't hold that strongly to
this.

--Daniel Speyer
"May the /src be with you, always"


> 
> I'm sceptical of a full rewrite of everything. It is a bit too massive
> effort for one person, and design by commitee doesn't work for open
> source. I'm afraid all that talk is going to melt into thin vapour. I
> think there are some people here (not naming names!) who are taking their
> CS classes too seriously. Head over to KernelTrap and read Linus on
> software development instead :)
> (http://www.kerneltrap.org/article.php?sid=398&mode=thread&order=0)
> 
> Oh, and if _I_ were to rewrite something, I'd go for an SDL+OpenGL client
> with libuta and various SDL support libraries (PNG,mixer,etc)...
> wooohooo, now we're talkin'!.... instantly multiplatform, even!
> 
> Yours,
> Per
> 
> Man: "God! At last we have found you! Now tell us, please... WHY ARE WE THE 
> WAY WE
> ARE? WHY ARE WE HERE?"
> 
> God: "I dunno. I created you to eat the lions, and you just kinda got out of 
> hand"
> 
>  --- Seen on slashdot (so it must be true!)
> 
> 
> 
>