Conspiracy against me?

quester · #1 11-27-2002, 11:36 AM

Is there some conspiracy to keep any of my fixes or additions from making it into the emu? Just read the release notes on 3.13 and noticed, again, not a single one of my fixes/additions is in there :(

Sigh.. oh well

Trumpcard · #2 11-27-2002, 11:53 AM

Dont feel bad, some of my changes made it in, some didnt..

Lythic · #3 12-04-2002, 11:00 AM

Hi everyone,

I have to say that I am encouraged about what is being undertaken here.

Can any of you gentlemen direct me to the documentation of the policies involved when deciding if something gets "into" the emu and what will not?

If there is no written policy anywhere, could you explain how it is it decided? And who makes those decisions?

I am sure there has to be strictly enforced QC, but as with many projects open to public assistance, there is surely some documentation on those QC policies?

I was considering helping out, but with comments like the above, which seem to indicate that code may or may not "get in" for unknown/mysterious reasons... I'm not sure if I have time to devote to this if my code will be discarded, and thus, everyone's time wasted. This is why I am asking about quality control policy.

Trumpcard · #4 12-04-2002, 11:27 AM

Currently theres not an official policy, being as this has been a pretty loosely set up open source project. I've been involved with the project since pretty much it's beginning, and one of my big gripes has always been lack of commitment to ensure community changes get rolled in. As far as the decision to roll something in, thats a decision thats made by indivudual developers. I want to formalize the process a, as I really want to make sure that everyone's voice is heard, and even if you make a 1 line bugfix, if its a good fix, Im going to do my best to roll it in.

Now that I've come onboard as a developer, thats something I plan to make sure is kept up in the future. Good additions, modifications, bugfixes will be incorporated.

Questers changes are getting rolled in, I've been communicating with him via email, and once he gets his changes to a 'ready to go' spot, i'm going to merge it in. The proc support is a great change, and support for npc types will be a valuable addition for customization. Bear in mind that just because you make code changes so that all spell casters will agro each other so you can watch them fight, that doesnt mean it's going to be rolled in. Common sense should be a general rule.

I promise you though, if the code is good and clean, and it adds a useful feature to the emulator or fixes something, i'll do everything i can to roll it into the baseline, with the approval of the other developers of course.

Post full cpp files , even if you post diffs. When working out of cvs code, source lines dont always match with what you've been working on, it's easier to diff them off on this side. If you're changes are really involved, I'll send you a cvs version of the affected files and ask you make the changes to them yourself and send them back to me.. Then i'll diff them off, compile the code, verify the funcitonality and run it through some testing, and if it checks out ok, merge it into CVS.

Also, I'd like to see if anyone is interested in being a part of a TESTING team to help us track down bugs, and apply fixes. We use to have a test team, and I thought it was great. We'll need a dedicated TEST TEAM LEAD that can devote a little bit of time with the releases before we roll them out, and can run through simple test cases to ensure we dont break anything from release to release.

My general guidelines of code submissions would be this.

1) COMMENT YOUR CODE!
2) Wrap cout's you use for debugging in #ifdef DEBUG
this is a good coding practicing so when troubleshooting we can do a DEFINE DEBUG and track down errors more easily.
3) Make your changes as customizable as possible, for instance, I am against hard coded calculations, I think formulas for calculating backstab damage,critical hits, loot drop frequencies, etc, should be able to be modified through a database variable rather than having to make a change in the code and recompile. This isnt a directive, but it's nice and makes the code more flexible.

Also, come by IRC and grab ahold of one of us if you have any questions. I generally leave myself logged into IRC most of the time, so pop me a note or send me your email address and I'll make sure to reply to your question.

Everyone let me know your thoughts on this, I'd appreciate your feedback, concerns, or suggestions.

Lythic · #5 12-04-2002, 11:56 AM

That's an excellent reply. I appreciate your time.

It seems as if you are filling an ambassadorial role, on top of your developer task list. Both are critical, as you are obviously aware.

Formalization is always a pain (love to hate it), but I've found that it increases the depth of the pillars which support open source projects.

I have a circle of several friends who are all professional developers. They have at least as much experience as I do and, being psychotic mmorpg fans, I know they would be interested in this community.

If I could ask you just a couple more questions...

How many developers are already involved?
How did you get involved in an official capacity as a developer?

Trumpcard · #6 12-04-2002, 12:09 PM

New developers and people to help are always welcome, it's just a matter of expressing interest, and showing a little bit of technical saavy. I want to bridge the gap between the development efforts and the eqemu community.

I agree though, a normalized process is necessary, even though it may be a necessary evil..lol...

Currently , the development team is between 5-10 people, not all are actively involved at the moment, all of us have real lives so were here and there.

To become involved as an official developer, the best option is to come to IRC and talk to one of us (look for ops and halfops in #eqemu). Show us some of your code changes, what you'd like to do, etc., and we'll set something up. To me, the most important parts of making a good team aren't necessarily what you know, but what you are willing to learn, and attitude is 200% in my book.

Honestly, i'd like to see the developer channel opened to the public (under VERY STRICT GUIDELINES! If you spam, talk way off topic, or come in asking for troubleshooting help on logging into a server, you immediately get a kick/ban, thats what #eqemu is for).