[RFD] Roadmaps and other coding stuff

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Hellfire
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[RFD] Roadmaps and other coding stuff

Post by Hellfire »

Problem: we have no coders. (Actually, we have one coder, who is temporarily available)

Problem: The Transport Empire Coding forum is hidden for outsiders, hence, progress can be barely seen.

Solution: I think we should make at least the roadmap public. There are currently three tasks on the roadmap. I've taken the liberty of completing tasts 1 and 2 and I've started with task 3, but only a couple of people can see the progress.

Once the roadmap (and the progress) is public, people (== potential future developers) might get interested and join us.

What do you all think?
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Arathorn
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Post by Arathorn »

Before we want to make anything public, we must make sure we can generate enough news so people want to stay interested.
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DominionSpy
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Post by DominionSpy »

I think it's a good idea. I didn't think there was much reason to have the forum hidden in the first place (the basic reason was that since people can't post there, they may as well not see it).

As for the first problem, I will try to make time to contribute what I can, however I just recently got a full-time job (ie until now I was the jobless programmer, but had no motivation :(, now I see there is hope in the project but I'm not jobless any more :().
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Post by Purno »

Stupid question probably, but what's a/the "roadmap"?
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Post by DominionSpy »

Purno wrote:Stupid question probably, but what's a/the "roadmap"?
The roadmap that uzurpator came up with for the start of development:
uzurpator wrote:This is a roadmap of the project - stages we are going to go through on the road to perfection :) or more specifically - to completion.

---

1. Create two apps
2. Create network classes that will communicate via tcp/ip
3. Create client/server classes that will use the earlier mentioned protocol to communicate with each other (the basic info being date).
Server will run at 20 frames/second

ETF: End of october 2005
Guy in charge of these: Uzurpator

4. TBD
Notice the "Guy in charge of these".

PS uzurpator has a strange interpretation of "frames/second", he really means "updates/second".
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Hellfire
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Post by Hellfire »

DominionSpy wrote:As for the first problem, I will try to make time to contribute what I can, however I just recently got a full-time job (ie until now I was the jobless programmer, but had no motivation :(, now I see there is hope in the project but I'm not jobless any more :().
Heh... My full-time job will start on April 1st... But I'll try to contribute what I can. One thing that went terribly wrong lately was the dependency on the "Guy in charge". ;) As far as I know, uzurpator hasn't released any sources, preventing every other programming to work on them. (That's why I've posted the result of each milestone of task 3)
Feel free to contact me over Email! My current timezone: Europe/Amsterdam (GMT+1 or GMT+2)

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Hellfire
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Post by Hellfire »

DominionSpy wrote:The roadmap that uzurpator came up with for the start of development:
uzurpator wrote:This is a roadmap of the project - stages we are going to go through on the road to perfection :) or more specifically - to completion.

---

1. Create two apps
2. Create network classes that will communicate via tcp/ip
3. Create client/server classes that will use the earlier mentioned protocol to communicate with each other (the basic info being date).
Server will run at 20 frames/second

ETF: End of october 2005
Guy in charge of these: Uzurpator

4. TBD
In the (hidden) Coders' forum, I've been posting my progress on realizing stage 3 of the roadmap that uzurpator posted six months ago.

The sources of the code I've written are available in the Coders' forum. I can email them to people who would like to take a look, but who don't have access to that forum. I can do the same for the binaries, which I consider too large to post here (The client and the server are 800KB each). Here's a list of things that "my" code can do:
  • Send and receive packets. Somewhere down the road, DominionSpy mentioned RakNet and I decided to use it for network communication.
  • The game data consists of a 16x16 map. Each tile has only one attribute: Height. This might seem too simple, but it's for demonstration purposes only.
  • The game data is stored and generated in the server application
  • The game data is requested by the client application
  • The received game data is cached at the client application. I.e. if some part of the game requests data that is already present, there will not be any communication with the server.
  • The server can handle up to 16 clients (or more if one constant value is changed :roll: )
The three stages uzurpator mentioned are not bad choices. In fact, I think that stage 4 should also be about networking, communication and synchronization.


I think the following things need to be done for stage 4:
  • Building two applications (or refactoring the ones I made) for the client and the server. Each application is represented by a class (mine are just a main() function with everything in it.) Each application has an easy-to-maintain section (e.g. a group of methods or even a dedicated class, if this is desirable.) where incoming packets are processed.
  • Design and implement a simplified version of the client-server synchronization.
  • Data storage. Ditto: easy to maintain (extend), because we can't do much with a 16x16 map. ;)
  • Start using the Sourceforge.net CVS
  • Hopefully, working with more than one programmer. ;) :bow:
  • Use automake/autoconf or some other Makefile generator. If I add a class (i.e. 2 files), I also have to edit at least two Makefiles... :(
As you can see, we have enough to do. ;)

I'll leave this here for a few days. After that, I'll just start working on it and hope that others are interested enough to join in. ;)
Feel free to contact me over Email! My current timezone: Europe/Amsterdam (GMT+1 or GMT+2)

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Zuu
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Post by Zuu »

Hellfire wrote:
  • Hopefully, working with more than one programmer. ;) :bow:
    Dam, that sounds so interesting.. but I got hundreds of other things to do.. :/ [edit: such as going to bed]
    Hellfire wrote:
    • Use automake/autoconf or some other Makefile generator. If I add a class (i.e. 2 files), I also have to edit at least two Makefiles... :(
    [/list][/list]
    Unless you're good at automake I'll suggest some of the newer alternatives with more inutive syntax. But since it is you who do the job currently I don't think I have the right to decide that.
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    Hellfire
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    Post by Hellfire »

    Zuu wrote:Unless you're good at automake I'll suggest some of the newer alternatives with more inutive syntax. But since it is you who do the job currently I don't think I have the right to decide that.
    Such as?

    I'm very, very not good at automake. Alternatives are more than welcome, although the code in the CVS works reasonably well with autoconf/automake.
    Feel free to contact me over Email! My current timezone: Europe/Amsterdam (GMT+1 or GMT+2)

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    Zuu
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    Post by Zuu »

    One I have been sugested to use by others is http://www.scons.org/ their "Makefiles" are actually Python scripts. Which works quite okay even if you don't know Python. As far as I know, Scons is actually a fork of Cons ( http://www.dsmit.com/cons/ )

    I don't know how good Scons handles bigger projects, but most people that more or less disslikes automake seam to prefere scons. (not sure about that, but it apears like that.)
    My OpenTTD contributions (AIs, Game Scripts, patches, OpenTTD Auto Updater, and some sprites)
    Junctioneer (a traffic intersection simulator)
    Hellfire
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    Post by Hellfire »

    Thanks! :D

    I'll look into those two.

    Topic locked, please continu in this topic (12112006).
    Feel free to contact me over Email! My current timezone: Europe/Amsterdam (GMT+1 or GMT+2)

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    Under construction...
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