Re: Hello [long]

[Dan hursh <hursh@sparc.isl.net>]

On Thu, 24 May 2001, Marcello Missiroli wrote:
> Il 22:30, mercoledì 23 Maggio 2001, scrivesti:
> 
> 
> Hi Dan. 
> I read with pleasuer your mail, though it seems a nice example of Zen writing 
> - you say everything and it opposite. 

  I like the idea, so there has to be something wrong with it.  :-)

[cut eye candy comments]
> >
> > > * It will force them to interact with non-teaching personnel (that's you,
> > > of course) and use English as a working language
> >
> > Is that really doing them a service?  We haven't been very talkative for a
> > while.
> 
> Well, you are. ;-)

No fair you baited me.

> > > * It will force them to use "standards took", such as gcc, GTK+, CVS and
> > > more
> >
> > By who's standards do you define standard?
> 
> Standards in this context means nonproprietary and open. More specifically, 
> it means Qt, GTK+, gcc, make, doxxygen etc.

  Qt and GTK+ is a border skirmish in a larger holy war.  gcc is as
standard as any compiler, but these days it seems everyone need to know
windows compilers.  *sigh* make is a safe bet, but there are still the gnu
extentions that everyone loves.  I don't know if I would call doxygen a
stantard.  It does bring to mind a cruel assignment.  Documenting the code
would force you to understand it. 

[cut lamentations over basic]
> > > Contra reasons
[cut them too]
> I was thinking, at firs, to add localization (Italian in my case, but once 
> the road is paved it will be easy to add more. Some guys will be interested 
> in changing the graphics. 

cool.  Folks are too used to making english only programs.  
(no, not me, honest)

> Your idea of giving them a minimal version looks good, but, won't be a waste 
> of time to create a stripped down version? Unless you have some very old 
> version to start with (maybe version 0.1??) it will be difficult. 

  I know the sound could be removed easily.  I would think that other
features like animation could be cleanly removed.  It give the students
less to noise when making changes.  
  You could also give them a rough version of a removed module to complete
and integrate.  Of course they could go online and cheat in this case.

> All in all, you seem to tell me to go on with this... However, I still have 
> some unanswered questions:
> 
> * Someone told me that you were thinking about (radically) switchin 
> environment, from GTK to SDK. It would be better to know it beforehand, in 
> order not to waste time on something that's gonna thrown away

  That discussion did happen, and I'm not sure were it is going.  Given
the time, I would like to replace the current sound code (which I should
be ashamed of) with SDL_mixer.  Now I'm leaning toward OpenAL, but that's
not standard on most Linux boxen yet.
  SDL also feels a little more portable than GTK+ to me, but we seem to
be most interested in *nix like systems anyhow.  
  When it comes to learning, I don't think throw away code should be a
concern.  Not that I'm against having your students helping in the future
of xarchon nor do I think anyone else is.  I just don't know how advanced
your students are and a few toy projects code help them become familiar
with the codebase.  Ofcourse, if they already know how to do their on
curses bases tetris, then I am probably under estimating there abilities.
A lot.

> * Are the people responsable for the various modules able to respond to 
> silly/basic questions by either my kids or me?

  I can't speak for anyone else, but I'll be on the list.  Xarchon was an
experiment for me to force myself to program some sound.  I liked archon,
and Linux could always use another game.  The current sound code was just
a quick hack I threw together so that the game had some sound, while I
learned to do something better.   I also had to learn the xarhon structure
better so I could find places for sound hooks to start and stop sounds
for walking and weapons.  I just need to label where the events are in the
code and handle them.
  I'm afriad I got sidetracked by fatherhood though.  I'm still reading up
on things, but that doesn't take the place of real coding, so it would be
fair to question how responsible I am for my piece.  And since this was a
learning experience for me, I couldn't call any questions about my work
silly.  Just be kind.  I have a delicate ego.  :-)

Dan