[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#13334) [Patch] Unit class structure with move parameters

["Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa" <vasc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=13334 >

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Benoit Hudson wrote:

> <URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=13334 >
>
> On Mon, Jun 27, 2005 at 01:10:54AM -0700, Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa 
> wrote:
> > >   More general code is not always more complicated, it may avoid some
> > > unnecessary special case handling.
> >
> > Yes.
>
> Except that then we get to debug the weird and wonderful things people
> decided to do with freeciv :)

I am partly to blame for this. I think I pushed some things to CVS HEAD
some months ago too soon. Generalized requirements (e.g. for build deps,
etc) being one particular issue. I commited changes to lots of code in
several places which I doubt will be error free. The resulting code was
spaghetti loops in several places (Unless someone fixed those while I
have been inactive). I also handled the reqs/nreqs merger poorly. It was
not properly finished and the code for that was left in a transient state.

Other things like Small Wonders, etc, I think were somewhat better
achieved. More generic effects was also good, even if the declaration
format may be suboptimal.

Generalized requirements are a major good feature to have in the code, it
is just that the implementation sucks a bit, partly because the
pre-existing code was so hardcoded and complex.

The cause: I knew I was not going to have a lot of free time to code
shortly, so I rushed most longstanding codebase renovation projects meant
to make the engine more flexible to rule changes.

> Generally, I'm in favour of more freedom despite this.  The more freedom,
> the more people will want to modify the game, the more potential debuggers!

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