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

[Max Horn]

Am 20.06.2011 um 09:01 schrieb Vladimir Menshakov:

> So the point is that *you want me to reimplement the game*. Or who? The code now opensource. Go on. 
> As I said before I have neither time or motivation doing that. 

That's perfectly understandable, of course. But this sounds awfully like the old "go and code it yourself if you don't like it". While that iss of course one alternative, it is not the one that would be preferred here. Usually, it is "go and match our standards before your code gets included" ;). Alas, in this case, we (a) already gave our OK, and (b) apparently we can't quite agree on what our standards are, which is what makes this more complicated :)


>> Am 20.06.2011 um 10:18 schrieb Vladimir Menshakov:
>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 20.06.2011, 12:05, "Max Horn" <max at quendi.de>:
>>>> Am 20.06.2011 um 09:13 schrieb Vladimir Menshakov:
>>>> 
>>>>>  20.06.2011, 11:03, "Bertrand Augereau" <bertrand_augereau at yahoo.fr>;:
>>>>>>  I quite agree with the philosophy of having everything reimplemented in proper C++, but wouldn't it be a shame not allowing people to play Dreamweb in ScummVM if it is completable and supported properly?
>>>>>  Let's face the truth - noone except engine authors will fix bugs except trivial/generic ones.
>>>> 
>>>> But how does one become an engine author? The barrier with dreamweb is right now quite a bit higher than with other engines. One needs to know x86 assembler, *and* be familiar with the ASM->C converter. Then you need to determine whether to fix the ASM source; the converter; or whether to turn some ASM code into a hand-written C++ method (once you discovered that this is possible, and how).
>>> For rewriting you will need all that skills. You cannot rewrite something written in assembly without knowing it. "ASM-> C converter skill" consist of running one python script. So this does not make much sense.

Oh, but it is *exactly* my point: Do we want to have such code in our repository, then?

It is possible to contribute to engines that have been converted from ASM to C++ without knowing any assembler, simply because it suffices to understand the C++ code. In fact, it is still possible to contribute to Dreamweb based on dreamgen.cpp, and to cleanup individual functions: Again, because this is C++ code. Alas, any fix made this way would be lost.


Anyway, let's face the two questions that are the primary problems for me in Dreamweb:

1) The quality of the generated code: Do you plan on improving it by adding logic that detects at least simple loops, if/else, switch etc. constructs, in order to make the code more readable? 

2) If people wanted to convert individual functions to C++ code manually: Would you agree with this? So far, my impression was that you dislike it, and make fun about people who want to do this. 



Bye,
Max