[Scummvm-devel] Dreamweb code (+ general ScummVM focus/vision)

[Filippos Karapetis]

Albeit I think it's some nice demo of the asm->c conversion I do not think
> that is what we want in ScummVM. ScummVM is about reimplementing the game
> engines or at least supporting them with the help of original source code.
> This means to me the code should be at least somewhat proper
> reimplementation
> of the original logic in C++.
>

I agree on this. However, there is a lot of hardcoded logic in there, so
that's not an
easy task.


> Dreamweb definitly is not like that. What we have with dreamweb is what I
> would
> call a "precompiled emulator" right now. I.e. we precompile parts of the
> original assembly to run in an runtime enviorment which is partly emulating
> an
> x86. Other parts, as I understand it, mostly hardware/file access level,
> are
> reimplemented though. This is IMHO fundamently different to our goals in
> ScummVM. Sadly I had no time to voice my opinion when the merge discussion
> happened, one of the reasons why that other mail about a new merging
> procedure
> is on -devel now.

Also like Max, I have the feeling that people are discouraging that we
> reimplement it properly due to it being a "waste of time" and having a big
> chance of causing "regressions". That is IMHO bad too, we want a proper C++
> reimplementation IMHO.
>

I agree on this too. Although it's cool that the game is completable, I feel
that the
source should be converted to proper C++ in order to make it available for
release
and mark it as complete/stable.


> Thus before other people will start to use similar techniques in their
> engines
> and hope that we will include them too, I wanted to express that I think we
> should not accept any of this in the future. And honestly we should not
> have
> accepted it in the case of dreamweb too IMHO.
>

I'm a bit torn on this one. The game is completable, but its source is still
in a
bad (IMHO) state. I believe that its inclusion in the tree wasn't a bad
idea, given
that the game is completable, as more people will have the opportunity to
work
on it till its source is rewritten in a proper C++ fashion before it can be
included
in a stable release.


> I do not say we should remove it from master right now! We should rather
> talk
> about what we really want with ScummVM (or in ScummVM). IMHO the merging
> shows
> that we really do not live up to our standards anymore when it comes to
> supporting new games.
>

Well, the game isn't supported yet, so I feel this is a moot point right
now.
I certainly would NOT want it to be supported if its source is in that
autogenerated
state.


> So is this the new way to go? Should we really accept code like this in the
> future?
>

That is certainly a good question. This is a very special case, (a
completable game
with a very cool script to convert its source to C++) so I do think that we
acted
correctly in this case when it got added in the tree (though, as I said, I
wouldn't
want this to be released in a stable version in the autogenerated state that
it is now).

And also what are we going to do about the dreamweb code? Personally I think
> we should not support it officially till we have reimplemented it properly.
>

As I said above, I fully agree on this one.

Regards
Filippos
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.scummvm.org/pipermail/scummvm-devel/attachments/20110620/9373fbcb/attachment.html>