Re: [RANT] What's up ???

[Christian Reiniger <warewolf@mayn.de>]

Matt Slot wrote:
>> BUT DO NOT JUST STAY QUIET!!
> > I can't help it - If I don't get any feedback on this issue I have to
> > assume that you're either dead or not imterested anymore and thus I have
> > to continue PP as my personal little project!
>
>Here's my feedback as a lurker:
>
>While open source projects are based on teamwork of alot of folks, you'll
>find that most of them are *driven* by one or two people who make the hard
>design decisions, establish the framework, and implement the first pass at
>functionality. Only then do they draw "lots" of helpers and users.

Right. I know that, although I didn't see that fact until recently.
But the reason that I ask for comments here, that I wait relatively long
for responses is that there are several people in PenguinPlay who actively
contributed to it, wo realy shaped it, who were with the project long
before I joined. 
PenguinPlay is not a project I try to start from scratch now - it has been
around for quite some years. So a big change such as this one can only take
place with backing from the active members.
With emphasis on "active".  :(


>I think that both Christian and Bjarke are actually making good progress
>cleaning up and giving the project good direction -- they have the time

Thanks.

>and the vision. It doesn't seem that anyone else has the time or interest
>yet to work on the project. This is unfortunate but par for the course.

It seems so, but I want to be sure. At least Peter seems to be active and
Jan is more or less active as well. Propably Christof, but I'm not sure.
And I'm still worrying about Adrian - he always was one of the most active
persons...

>There may be other people actively working on the other portions, but with
>so little discussion, they sound like they are languishing. I think that
>ppFile and ppNet, aka Zombie, are probably the most functional aspects of
>the project.

PSound seems to get there as well.

>Decisions need to be made about which 3rd party tools (Crystal Space,
>libGGI, SDL) the project will adopt and build upon -- so that ppFile can
>be labeled "good enough" and people can start working on something else.

[...]

>Since PPlay already implements high-level services like file and network,
>I'd strongly consider leveraging the SDL services and building a high level
>C++ framework on top of it. SDL already has a modest following, and has
>shipped as part of several successful Linux ports.

No. I strongly believe that writing yet another complete game SDK is the
wrong thing. Look around - there are plenty of game libraries out there,
many of them are really good.
The right thing now is to bring some order (expr?) into this mess of
libraries, to gather information about which library is good for what, what
library provides what kind of functionality - and what functionality is not
offered by any library yet. And writing only this part instead of
reinventing the wheel.

>Basically, for the first time I feel that PPlay may be worth using at some
>point. You've got alot of momentum, and you should run with it. Now that
>ppFile is functional, move on and get something else working instead of
>optimizing and rewriting.

I wish it were functional - you should look at my TODO list ;)
PFile needs some time (weeks, perhaps even months) to become really stable
and mature, and then it will be usable. But not finished. But of course
that doesn't mean that we can't start work on other libraries for the
entire next year ;)

>People aren't likely to start volunteering until they have something basic
>that works. Once you have a workable demo (graphics, sounds, file, and
>network), then you'll see people start taking notice. Of course, using SDL
>will earn you a captive audience from the start. It's not just a design
>decision, but a political one as well.

Well, my "political" decision is not to use SDL. That is not to "use" in
the sense you mean. Instead I want PenguinPlay to become a kind of
collection of the existing libraries, where game developers can make a
really informed choice about what libraries are best for their game. SDL
will be part of it - but as one option out of many.


	Christian

PS: Thanks for this comment. If you have more ideas, suggestions or just
some feeling about the plans please raise your voice.
--

Drive A: not responding...Formatting C: instead