Re: Netrek config utility source code

Hey Joe,

Can you please explain what its purpose is, what this does in some more detail, why anyone would want to use
it, and how it works? Documentation tends to be notoriously bad in Netrek -- almost like a sore thumb or a
poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Thanks,
-bd

>Source code is available at:
>
>http://www.playnetrek.org/netrek-config-source.html
>
>Written in VB and there is plenty of room for improvement if you have the
>time.  Also feel free to use the code to create a config utility for another
>OS.  The logic for the keymap config took some time to put together,
>shouldn't be too hard to transfer the code to a different compiler for use
>on a different OS.  Hopefully can save someone some time.
>
>Link to this page is only available from the links section of
>playnetrek.org.  I am told this code will also be placed in the CVS
>repository.
>
>-Joe 

--

-- 
___________________________________________________
Play 100s of games for FREE! http://games.mail.com/

Re: Netrek config utility source code

On Monday 01 May 2006 15:54, . . wrote:
> Can you please explain what its purpose is, what this does in some more
> detail, why anyone would want to use it, and how it works? Documentation
> tends to be notoriously bad in Netrek -- almost like a sore thumb or a poke
> in the eye with a sharp stick.

I don't mean this to be flame-bait, but it will sound that way....

The documentation is the code.  With that said, I agree the documentation is 
poor for Netrek, but if I had to pick, I'd rather have people writing code, 
then writing documentation.

A smaller FOSS projects like netrek do not (usually) get the luxury of having 
both.

My recommendation, see if you can get the author in irc and talk with him and 
write the documentation yourself. Why? Most devs, like myself, would write 
techno-babble documention which the end user wouldn't find all the useful 
anyways. 

--

-- 
Bob Tanner <tanner@...>          | Phone : (952)943-8700
http://www.real-time.com, Minnesota, Linux | Fax   : (952)943-8500
Key fingerprint = AB15 0BDF BCDE 4369 5B42  1973 7CF1 A709 2CC1 B288

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Re: Netrek config utility source code

Hey Bob,

I didn't insult Joe's Mom, but I don't agree that code is documentation or vice versa. However, when I see
either of you on continuum, I plan to insult your mother.

-bd

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bob Tanner" <tanner@...>
> To: "Netrek Development Mailing List" <netrek-dev@...>
> Subject: Re: [netrek-dev] Netrek config utility source code
> Date: Mon, 1 May 2006 16:06:35 -0500
> 
> 
> On Monday 01 May 2006 15:54, . . wrote:
> > Can you please explain what its purpose is, what this does in some more
> > detail, why anyone would want to use it, and how it works? Documentation
> > tends to be notoriously bad in Netrek -- almost like a sore thumb or a poke
> > in the eye with a sharp stick.
> 
> I don't mean this to be flame-bait, but it will sound that way....
> 
> The documentation is the code.  With that said, I agree the documentation is
> poor for Netrek, but if I had to pick, I'd rather have people writing code,
> then writing documentation.
> 
> A smaller FOSS projects like netrek do not (usually) get the luxury of having
> both.
> 
> My recommendation, see if you can get the author in irc and talk with him and

Re: Netrek config utility source code

Folks,

I'm putting an edge to this, but not meaning anything personal. Accept my appologies if you felt offended.

-bd

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: ". ." <msucka0xff@...>
> To: tanner@..., "Netrek Development Mailing List" <netrek-dev@...>
> Subject: Re: [netrek-dev] Netrek config utility source code
> Date: Mon, 01 May 2006 14:11:21 -0800
> 
> 
> Hey Bob,
> 
> I didn't insult Joe's Mom, but I don't agree that code is 
> documentation or vice versa. However, when I see either of you on 
> continuum, I plan to insult your mother.
> 
> -bd
> 
> 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Bob Tanner" <tanner@...>
> > To: "Netrek Development Mailing List" <netrek-dev@...>
> > Subject: Re: [netrek-dev] Netrek config utility source code
> > Date: Mon, 1 May 2006 16:06:35 -0500
> >
> >
> > On Monday 01 May 2006 15:54, . . wrote:

Re: Netrek config utility source code

Read this for a good laugh:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,1759298,00.html

Zach

On 5/1/06, . . <msucka0xff@...> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I'm putting an edge to this, but not meaning anything personal. Accept my appologies if you felt offended.
>
> -bd

Re: Netrek config utility source code

On Mon, May 01, 2006 at 02:11:21PM -0800, . . wrote:
> I didn't insult Joe's Mom, but I don't agree that code is
> documentation or vice versa. However, when I see either of you on
> continuum, I plan to insult your mother.

Good code is good documentation, for good code readers. Especially
code that will change, as people seem to have difficulty updating the
comments to reflect the code changes. It's no good at all to have a
barely accurate or useful comment, possibly mis-describing the very
accurate code. I find that unless the code is impossible to read
(yuck), I'll read the code first, and only if I have questions, will I
read the comments, to try to understand what in the heck the author
was thinking when he wrote it.

As to which of the three (more than one?) are lacking - I'll leave you
to decide. 

More seriously -

The netrek code of 10+ years ago - when I actually wrote additional
code for it client-side and server-side, was quite poor. Obviously
the work of a few University grads in their spare time. I found it
really hard to follow.

The last time I looked at it - porting some of my changes back up to a
more recent version, there was a great deal of improvement that I
immediately noticed. I think this included ANSI-C, a re-written
network/packet layer, and some nicer simplification in the daemon.
I'd say this switched it from poor to average or better quality.

Re: Netrek config utility source code

On 5/2/06, mark@...
<mark@...> wrote:
> I haven't looked recently to offer my condescending judgement for
> 2006... 

NetrekXP development has been going at a mile a minute, and Vanilla
has been granted new features lately, including automatic LAN server
discovery and new effects when one side wins.

When you have time to look and make comments, remember, patches accepted.
--
Stephen Thorne
Development Engineer

email for Stas?

I am trying to contact Stas but his email is failing:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

    keyos@...

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 8): 550 5.7.1 Rejected: 64.233.182.185
listed at bl1.netvision.net.il

Zach

Re: Netrek config utility source code

>>Written in VB and there is plenty of room for improvement if you have the
>>time.  

I do wish it was developed in a language that at least has a shot of being
ported to a different operating system. 

Yes, we can follow the login in VB, but then we have to maintain 2
code-bases, 2 patches, 2 testsuites, 2 installations documents, 2 HOWTOs,
etc...

--

-- 
Bob Tanner <tanner@...>          | Phone : (952)943-8700
http://www.real-time.com, Minnesota, Linux | Fax   : (952)943-8500
Key fingerprint = AB15 0BDF BCDE 4369 5B42  1973 7CF1 A709 2CC1 B288

Re: Netrek config utility source code

Java would be ideal language for such a task. You can run the utility
as a web app or standalone on the host machine. Will only have minimal
effort to run it on a wide variety of platforms.

Zach

On 5/3/06, Bob Tanner <tanner@...> wrote:
> >>Written in VB and there is plenty of room for improvement if you have the
> >>time.
>
> I do wish it was developed in a language that at least has a shot of being
> ported to a different operating system. 
>
> Yes, we can follow the login in VB, but then we have to maintain 2
> code-bases, 2 patches, 2 testsuites, 2 installations documents, 2 HOWTOs,
> etc...
>
>
> --
> Bob Tanner <tanner@...>          | Phone : (952)943-8700
> http://www.real-time.com, Minnesota, Linux | Fax   : (952)943-8500
> Key fingerprint = AB15 0BDF BCDE 4369 5B42  1973 7CF1 A709 2CC1 B288
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> netrek-dev@...
> http://mailman.us.netrek.org/listinfo/netrek-dev
>