[Freeciv-Dev] Re: connect dialog ver 3 (PR#1911)

[Vasco Alexandre Da Silva Costa <vasc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Daniel L Speyer wrote:

> There's no real reason the end-user *should* have to worry about the
> server.  Certainly they are welcome to, and it is still possible to invoke
> the server manually.  And there's definately no reason the end-user should
> need to touch a command line.  In recent distribution reviews, the
> benchmark of user-friendliness was
> mean-time-between-needing-the-commandline.  It would be highly embarrising
> for a fundamentally graphical game to drag those figures down.

Just because you need to start a separate server process doesn't mean you
need to touch its commandline. Also, if commandlines are so horrid, why is
it that the end all be all game on the PC - Quake - has a console?

I agree somethings which are not GUI controlled now could be.

> That's not the only problem with civserver.  First of all, centralizing
> like that is a *bad idea*.  Civserver is pretty stable, but it's record is
> far from perfect.  And what about people with good internal networks, but
> whose outward internet connection is phone-modem, or unreliable, or
> absent?

They can launch a server - like they do now.

> Also, civserver has weaknesses besides saving.  It cannot play
> home-written rulesets.  It keeps current, and one day will surely forbid

Yes that is true.

> 1.15 clients to connect because all server processes are 1.16.  It is a

I actually like this. It forces people to test the code.

> fundamentally public space, not nessesarily what is wanted.  Finally (I
> suspect) it does not have the resources to run all the games that would go
> through it if it were massively easier than running your own server.

It is a shame we have no proper statistics regarding this matter. Maybe we
should run a poll on it?

> > Sure it will involve extra coding but so does what you people are proposing.

> It would require a *lot* of coding (game-saving is straightforward (though
> a large problem), but game *loading* requires a fundamental change in
> archetechture -- and authentication is worse).

There is a load command in 1.14.0... Check the beta :)

As far as the rest... I estimate it to be less than 250 lines of code.

We can probably make do in less than 100 lines of code. I can knock
something up in less than a week to demo the full functionality bar
security features.

> Adding multi-player support to the connect patch requires *no* coding,
> only the resyncing of the existing list-opponents patch, stylifying it,
> and perhaps a little debugging.

---
Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa @ Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa