This is the mail archive of the xconq7@sourceware.cygnus.com mailing list for the Xconq project.


Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

[Fwd: Re: What to do with Xconq]


The original seems to have been bounced... -s

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: What to do with Xconq
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2000 18:18:19 -0500
From: "A. Rick Anderson" <arick@pobox.com>
To: shebs@shebs.cnchost.com
CC: xconq7@sourceware.cygnus.com
References: <0FPB006B9WQCC8@gkar.cc.vt.edu><0FPN00IVPCZZOF@gkar.cc.vt.edu><4.1.20000216220151.009767d0@pop.starpower.net>

At 07:35 AM 02/17/2000 -0800, Stan Shebs wrote:
>So every technology idea needs to be evaluated in terms of what it does
>for making a good strategy game.  A change of implementation language,
>or a reimplementation in a new language, is a huge step and a lot of
>work to make happen, so it needs a correspondingly high payoff.

Yes and No.  I would agree with Jessen that all projects/products have a
life-cycle.  Periodically, you are better off stepping back, taking the lessons
learned, and re-writing from ground level up, similar to what you did when
moving xconq from 5.x to 7.x.

>I've looked at Java twice now.  While the language has a lot of good
>features - it might even be called "Lisp done right" - I don't see that
>the payoff is high enough to make it worthwhile to convert.

IMHO, the language itself isn't all that exciting.  Java's strength is the
breadth of the libraries that come with the language and the ongoing
innovation that is happening around and with it, just as cross-platform
sound and image manipulation.

The ready accessibility to development tools on just about any platform
is another delightful feature.  Cross-platform development goes down by
an order of magnitude.

Locale and internationalization becomes a runtime, extensible, resource-file
issue,  not a compile-time issue.  To add support for a new locale, you just
add an additional text file.

>Xconq has performance-critical areas; not for the standard game on a small
>map, but when scaling up to larger games.  How much slower will a Java
>version be?

No offense intended, but IMHO, this is a red-herring.  If we take the worst
case scenario, that no amount of tweaking on the performance-critical
areas turns out to be fast enough, we can always fall back to:
1) Java Native Interface (JNI) - take existing C code and wrap it,
2) Generate platform-specific native code for the major platforms, such
Win-Doze, Linux, AIX etc.  With VisualAge, I can do this with the
touch of a button.

>Will being in Java attract lots of developers?  I don't know.  I do know
>that the most active open-source game projects - FreeCiv, NetHack, etc
>are all in C, and I don't know of any large Java game projects.

I can't debate this point.  For any number of reasons, game developers
seem lucky to have made the move from assembly to 'C'.  Object-oriented
isn't even in the vocabulary!

>I *have* found for Java is a couple of dead strategy game projects that
>seemed to start out well, but then broke down - not clear whether it was
>the language or the developer, but not encouraging in any case.

Another excellent point.  Could you point me out where these are.  Maybe
I'm just a gawkier,  but one of the hallmarks of open-source is starting from
a previous base of work.  I'd like to check these out.

>So as I said to you in our previous discussion, what I think we need here
>is a prototype testbed.  Make a program that does nothing but put up a
>hex map and scroll it around; steal algorithms from kernel/ui.c, images
>from the library.  It should take about a weekend for somebody who knows
>Java, if it takes longer than a week, that's a danger sign.

I know Java, but I am not a UI-type person by any stretch of the imagination!
I've been looking over ui.c and ui.h and it reminds me why I am not a UI
person :-)   However, I'd be glad to work with someone who is.

>To be brutally honest, I don't see that any of the major contributors to the
>big open-source projects work on them to enhance their resumes - they do it
>because they're interested in the project.

I agree.  I guess I was projecting my own feelings.  I am very interested in
several projects, but I am too sensitive to the limitations on my time to be
willing to spend a lot of time chasing technologies that I have no other
compelling interest in, like tcl and C.  I've done all my undergraduate work in
C, and extensive commercial work before C++ came out.  I have also done a
reasonably complex project in tcl.  They both remind me of doing metal-work
using a one-inch, copper-head, soldering iron :-)

On a different, more pragmatic note, with Redhat not being interested in
supporting game development on Linux, what happens to the website?

Index Nav: [Date Index] [Subject Index] [Author Index] [Thread Index]
Message Nav: [Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]