[Scummvm-devel] [Scummvm-cvs-logs] SF.net SVN: scummvm:[55130] scummvm/trunk/configure

[Paul Gilbert]

On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 4:41 AM, Max Horn <max at quendi.de> wrote:

>
> Except for a brief time after it was merged, I see no activity on the Sword
> 2.5 engine at all. None to address the various known issues with it, either.
> It makes me wonder whether it was a good idea to merge it ? *sigh*
>
>
> Bye,
> Max
>

For me at least, as I mentioned at an earlier date on my blog, the engine is
more or less working, so I figured my time was better spent, and more
enjoyably for me, on working on the RE of the new games, and leaving further
work to any other interested party. If all the other developers have other
priorities at the moment, I don't think there's any major problem with it
'idling' for a bit, so to speak.

I guess this also highlights something where I'm at odds with Max. Back when
I originally became a ScummVM developer, it was because I had gotten
interested in reverse engineering and implementing Lure of the Tempress.
When my engine was first added to the public repository, it was little more
than a glorified movie player for the introduction sequence. All further
work at implementing the engine was done on the main repository, and was
thus more visible to any interested parties.

In recent years, perhaps in part due to the fact that several of our engines
were based on original sources provided, and thus had to be kept secret
until they were reasonably refactored, it seems like, more and more, there's
an implication that an engine shouldn't be added until it's
semi-completable. And this I think is a pity.

I understand that there are those who have started work on a game engine and
then abandoned it (or put them in indefinite hiatus), but I personally think
any engine showing a significant development should be added to the
repository. Especially recently more so than even in the past, since we now
have the advantages of Buildbot, helping to ensure that code is written in a
properly system-independent manner. Plus, working on the main SVN means that
all past commit history is already present; transferring external commit
history from other SVN's seems to be a cumbersome process, from what I've
seen in the past.

If I might use a concrete example, my Tsage (Ringworld) engine has already
reached a point where you can walk around and do basic actions in the first
scene. In people's opinions, has it reached a point where I should/could add
it to the main repository, or it should it wait to some future date when
it's more completable? Certainly I could have benefited from Buildbot - I've
already had emails of problems compiling it under Linux that I then manually
fixed - with Buildbot, such issues could have been immediately identified
when I first wrote the offending code, and reduced the amount of code fixes
I then needed to do later.


On a related topic, this also ties into an ongoing discussion about grouping
together all the in progress, abandoned, and miscellaneous engines into a
single centralised set. As I understand Git, it's been proposed that we
could have all these engines in a single main separate fork from the main
trunk, which could then be kept for the completed games. This may be an
optimal solution for keeping them all centralised, and removing the need for
ever transferring commit histories. It would be an excellent bonus if
Buildbot could also handle both that as well as the main branch.

Paul.
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