[Scummvm-devel] ScummVM 0.12.0: Missing builds

[Max Horn]

Am 08.09.2008 um 00:14 schrieb Neil Millstone:

> Max Horn wrote:
>>
>> Am 04.09.2008 um 09:47 schrieb Neil Millstone:
>>
>>> Max Horn wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Am 02.09.2008 um 22:32 schrieb Neil Millstone:
>

[...]

>> [...]
>>> The thing is, I tend to assume that the engine authors may not be
>>> interested in fixing bugs which only show up for low-memory/low-CPU
>>> devices.  For an example, see the discussion on the thousands of
>>> fopen calls for Kyra. That was fixed in the end, but the team's
>>> initial response was to handle it in the backend, even though other
>>> ports were affected.
>>
>> What? Wow, that's quite different from how I recall things... :) So I
>> just went back through that thread ("Kyrandia engine loading is slow
>> on the DS"), and read it, and I really don't know how you come to  
>> that
>> conclusion -- maybe you can tell me what exactly there made you feel
>> as if you were left alone? Let me briefly sketch how that thread  
>> looks
>> to me:

[...]

> Well, maybe I misread things there, but it did seem like the general
> view was that it should be fixed in the backend, something I didn't
> agree with.

Well, that didn't really answer my question -- I am seriously sorry  
that it came across to you, but I still do not see what everybody  
could have done/said differently to not give you the impression?  
Seriously, I'd appreciate constructive suggestions as to what was bad  
about our communication, and how to improve it. But of course it would  
also be helpful if you could be so generous and assume as baselines  
for any conversation that one of us wants to annoy you or work  
*against* you. Rather, we all want ScummVM to be great on all ports,  
that includes the DS.

But this only works if both sides, core team / engine authors and  
porters work together. We (core API folks) keep asking for feedback  
from porters, but we rarely get any. Only "gee, you broke XYZ for me",  
but usually only a couple months after we asked whether it was OK to  
change it :-((((.


[...]

>> Aye.
>>
>> Look, man, I understand it's frustrating to have to chase after
>> ever-growing engine binary sizes, and all. But I really thing it's
>> rather unfair to claim that this is because engine authors are
>> unwilling to help. Rather, it seems to me that there is a certain  
>> lack
>> of communication by porters, who don't tell us about problems. Maybe
>> fearing the report will be ignored, or no solution will be  
>> possible...
>> But actually, my experience is that those issues get fixed quickly,
>> *if* they are reported. Sadly, they often are not :(.
>>
> Well, I do remember having emailed people about issues and receiving  
> no
> response in the past, although I can't find the specific mail now (it
> was quite a while ago).

Please dig it out, it's worth the time. Two remarks: In general, don't  
email single persons, email scummvm-devel. A single person easily  
forgets about stuff, or might be too busy, or might not know how to  
tackle a certain issue; on -devel, the whole team can join in.  
Alternatively, report such things on our trackers. That way, they  
can't be lost, and are out in the open, so again everybody can try to  
help.

BTW, I still have two or three patches for the DS I sent you which  
were never commited... So it seems to go in both direction :)



> The thing is, my time on ScummVM is almost entirely taken up with
> responding to changes in the rest of the code in order to get a build
> working,

I know that must be annoying. However, we do want to help you with  
that. For example, I setup a DS cross compiler on my system in January  
already, and do test your build with it, so that it at least compiles.  
E.g. trunk does compile just fine right now (and I even sent you a  
patch today which backports all 0.12.x changes to trunk -- I just hope  
it won't get lost in the shuffle like those other patches :-).


> and then trying to get the RAM usage down, and it feels like
> I'm slowly losing this battle.  I think some of the common code is
> getting a little bloated and I think some effort could go into  
> reducing
> this, because otherwise there will only be a few more versions that  
> a DS
> port is practical.


You don't have to fight the battle alone, but you have to ask for and  
accept help, i.e. work in the team. If you notice bloat, tell us. If  
you are unhappy about an API, tell us. If you are missing  
functionality, tell us. If a change causes you serious headaches, tell  
us.

This goes to all porters, BTW. I occasionally find source code  
comments in ports which say "it would be so nice if the core did XYZ",  
and then I think "it would be so nice if had been told that XYZ would  
be nice, because then we'd have implemented it months ago" :-)


Cheers,
Max