Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
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Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
If there's something specific you'd like to discuss that doesn't involve being massively lazy and requiring me to link you to stuff that's already right there... please let me know.
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
If Argh had followed my advice we would already be a good length of the way there, argh would have a site with a good size more traffic, and he would have a greater reputation, as well as a nice hub of information to draw on.
Instead this advice has been lost in forum discussions and politics as time has gone on because of the stubbornness and ignorance of one individual forum poster who has decidedly wasted an opportunity to present his work and skills to over 2000 unique visitors per day by chasing after a static active audience of 1000.
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
So, you're back to circular arguments. All the answers to everything aren't there, therefore they must be in a mysterious, obscure Argh thread. It's absurd.
I am not the only person asking questions here, and most of my answers *are* documented in the Wiki... or were so specific that it's unreasonable to expect them to be there, or eventually turned out to be an engine bug, or were addressed by adding a new feature or fix. If you'd care to discuss an example where this isn't so, please feel free.
I can't be expected to write a Wiki article every time I hit a problem. You might as well bash CA's guys and S'44's team and zswzg and KDR and Smoth, since we all know how to do stuff that the average user can't and won't get to for many months of learning-curve.
You might as well accuse us all of having a "cabal of knowledge"... and you'd be right, except that, as a general rule, we all share that knowledge with people, if they ask, and quite often even when they don't (i.e., example code and peeks at WIP projects, etc.). Which is considerably more cuddly-fuzzy than places like OGRE, where you don't have to share your source, and I'd be very surprised if the high-end developers bother answering many questions at all.
Lastly... wtf does the state of the Wiki have to do with writing a book? I feel like we're totally wasting time here. You aren't actually interested in fixing the problems you're moaning about, and you're wasting my time pointing a finger vaguely in my direction, when you can't even give us an example of this amazing Argh lore that the Wiki's so incomplete without
From where I sit... somebody who actually knows what they're doing could write a good book pretty easily, and ask questions along the way, if they hit an area of a chapter where the Wiki's weak.
I am not the only person asking questions here, and most of my answers *are* documented in the Wiki... or were so specific that it's unreasonable to expect them to be there, or eventually turned out to be an engine bug, or were addressed by adding a new feature or fix. If you'd care to discuss an example where this isn't so, please feel free.
I can't be expected to write a Wiki article every time I hit a problem. You might as well bash CA's guys and S'44's team and zswzg and KDR and Smoth, since we all know how to do stuff that the average user can't and won't get to for many months of learning-curve.
You might as well accuse us all of having a "cabal of knowledge"... and you'd be right, except that, as a general rule, we all share that knowledge with people, if they ask, and quite often even when they don't (i.e., example code and peeks at WIP projects, etc.). Which is considerably more cuddly-fuzzy than places like OGRE, where you don't have to share your source, and I'd be very surprised if the high-end developers bother answering many questions at all.
Lastly... wtf does the state of the Wiki have to do with writing a book? I feel like we're totally wasting time here. You aren't actually interested in fixing the problems you're moaning about, and you're wasting my time pointing a finger vaguely in my direction, when you can't even give us an example of this amazing Argh lore that the Wiki's so incomplete without
From where I sit... somebody who actually knows what they're doing could write a good book pretty easily, and ask questions along the way, if they hit an area of a chapter where the Wiki's weak.
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
It isn't circular because you never addressed it.
You yourself have answered in the past when asked why your answers are so extremely verbose, it is because you want to document and want to make sure it is explained in its entirety and that in future it will be reduced to a more concise form.
Your answers are so large and voluminous that they are in effect already larger than the wiki articles, blog posts, or pdfs that would have been required to have written, and can easily be converted into such format with minimal changes there and then.
Yet you have completely ignored this point in the past, and tried to sidestep it whenever possible. Such as your attempt to shift this onto a cabal of knowledge secret sauce type accusation.
This as a result has been a huge missed opportunity for you, which would have done wonders for your development and marketing of P.U.R.E, resulting in real financial gains, if not from increased P.U.R.E sales, but from the demonstration to potential employers that you sat down and took it seriously to a higher level than you've demonstrated so far, and that you can document what you do. It would be a demonstration of expertise as such, reggardless of how many people on this site claim it to be questionable.
Instead such suggestions fall into the category of posts that Argh routineless deletes and ignores if he can, censored and avoided at all costs, and those costs are high.
You yourself have answered in the past when asked why your answers are so extremely verbose, it is because you want to document and want to make sure it is explained in its entirety and that in future it will be reduced to a more concise form.
Your answers are so large and voluminous that they are in effect already larger than the wiki articles, blog posts, or pdfs that would have been required to have written, and can easily be converted into such format with minimal changes there and then.
Yet you have completely ignored this point in the past, and tried to sidestep it whenever possible. Such as your attempt to shift this onto a cabal of knowledge secret sauce type accusation.
This as a result has been a huge missed opportunity for you, which would have done wonders for your development and marketing of P.U.R.E, resulting in real financial gains, if not from increased P.U.R.E sales, but from the demonstration to potential employers that you sat down and took it seriously to a higher level than you've demonstrated so far, and that you can document what you do. It would be a demonstration of expertise as such, reggardless of how many people on this site claim it to be questionable.
Instead such suggestions fall into the category of posts that Argh routineless deletes and ignores if he can, censored and avoided at all costs, and those costs are high.
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
This isn't about me.
This is about whether a reasonably-useful book can be written about the engine.
This is not whether I am going to do it; while I'd be happy to provide some review support, should anybody want to do so, I am quite sure that Packt couldn't afford the kind of advance I'd require to do a book of this kind, since (unlike many of the CTO-types that write their materials) this wouldn't boost my career prospects, etc.
IOW, I think you're very confused, AF. All I've said about this topic is that I think it can be done and that it could be potentially useful to the Project.
This has been an utter waste of my time.
This is about whether a reasonably-useful book can be written about the engine.
This is not whether I am going to do it; while I'd be happy to provide some review support, should anybody want to do so, I am quite sure that Packt couldn't afford the kind of advance I'd require to do a book of this kind, since (unlike many of the CTO-types that write their materials) this wouldn't boost my career prospects, etc.
IOW, I think you're very confused, AF. All I've said about this topic is that I think it can be done and that it could be potentially useful to the Project.
This has been an utter waste of my time.
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
Again you fail to deal with the point.
This point was only raised because you had the audacity to take a pot shot at my personal character.
In response I took a perfectly valid related question you have been avoiding for years and put it to you and you spent hours and hours pussyfooting around trying to avoid it. It would easily take 30 seconds to type a direct answer.
This point was only raised because you had the audacity to take a pot shot at my personal character.
In response I took a perfectly valid related question you have been avoiding for years and put it to you and you spent hours and hours pussyfooting around trying to avoid it. It would easily take 30 seconds to type a direct answer.
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Spawn_Retard
- Posts: 1248
- Joined: 21 Dec 2006, 14:36
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
In what way? All I said was that there are always excuses to wait, and that I don't think they're worth delaying anything for. It isn't personal; it's how I feel about all efforts to "promote Spring", and it's the position I've had for several years now.This point was only raised because you had the audacity to take a pot shot at my personal character.
A direct answer to what question in particular? I'm very confused here. You've made a number of statements and implied a lot of things, but I can't recall you bothering to ask a question at all.In response I took a perfectly valid related question you have been avoiding for years and put it to you and you spent hours and hours pussyfooting around trying to avoid it. It would easily take 30 seconds to type a direct answer.
Ask a question... hint, they involve a question mark, and it's bad form to make them long, compound sentences... in English, they're requests for information, i.e., "Argh, what type of sandwich do you like best?"
If you need more than one question, to satisfy the requirements of good form, break it up, we have two hours of my time I've allotted for people to waste today.
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
Argh
Given that your posts are made verbosely for future documentation purposes, and their content is very similar to an article or blog post, requiring minimal changes to do so, it has been suggested you write them instead as blogposts, mini howtos, or articles to avoid being lost or buried under newer posts.
The advantages are numerous ranging from improved site traffic, by inference sales, employability, community development & reference, and personal benefits such as improved reputation, less repetition of information, and gratitude from the community and developers from the wider community.
Despite this you have ignored all suggestion and avoided the subject. Why do you ignore this subject this? and why do you not do this despite the tremendous advantages and savings it would afford you?
Given that your posts are made verbosely for future documentation purposes, and their content is very similar to an article or blog post, requiring minimal changes to do so, it has been suggested you write them instead as blogposts, mini howtos, or articles to avoid being lost or buried under newer posts.
The advantages are numerous ranging from improved site traffic, by inference sales, employability, community development & reference, and personal benefits such as improved reputation, less repetition of information, and gratitude from the community and developers from the wider community.
Despite this you have ignored all suggestion and avoided the subject. Why do you ignore this subject this? and why do you not do this despite the tremendous advantages and savings it would afford you?
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
My answers to that are:
1. There's little interest in posting something very technical / arcane in a blog-post. For example, posts about P.O.P.S. aren't of any interest outside this place.
To make it un-boring to Average Joe, I would have to spend considerable time making short movie presentations with voice-overs or screenshots. IOW, a more polished version of that short clip I made to demonstrate how building-death is being done. But a polished version takes somewhere around an hour, minimum. You can't just fire up the engine and talk a bit; you have to take some clips, edit them, decide what you're going to say, record the voiceover, check it, etc.
This eats into development time, and unlike, say, Wolfire, I don't have a crew I can hand these duties to (or keep coding while I handle the marketing hat). If I did, that'd be another matter entirely; I could say, "yo, marketing guy, I built a kewl particle effect today, here's the current source, maek video", or hand off polishing a new particle effect, debugging a shader, etc.
It's one of the biggest disadvantages of not having a budget, tbh. I'd love to be able to delegate chores off my plate, frankly, and concentrate on the things I'm best at.
Not having that kind of resource is a major problem for me, but I don't have any good solutions available. I do know that whatever I do next... I will either go get a proper budget, or keep it very small and focused, so that I don't have giant periods when it appears that it's dead, but really I'm having to do something fun like write pages of particle system descriptors, etc.
2. I avoid talking about this subject with you in particular because you keep saying the same thing without giving me any practical way to solve it. I entirely agree that it would be good to spend more time marketing; but in the end, I have to choose what to spend time on, and development has to be the priority or this version of the game will never get done. It's already waaaaaaaaay overdue, after all. But there's only one of me, and I decided to tackle a few things that weren't originally on the schedule, and that's that.
More to the point, I've expressed all of this to you, multiple times, just as bluntly as this, and you've managed to not understand that I actually mean it
Maybe this time you will get it: I really do have to choose what I do; I can't spread myself any thinner than I'm already spread. If you think that something is worth blogging about to the Spring community in particular, maybe we can post it on Forb's service, and reach a few more eyes. If it's something that really needs a marketing touch, not just a nerd-audience treatment... I just don't have time right now, and won't until the game is ready.
1. There's little interest in posting something very technical / arcane in a blog-post. For example, posts about P.O.P.S. aren't of any interest outside this place.
To make it un-boring to Average Joe, I would have to spend considerable time making short movie presentations with voice-overs or screenshots. IOW, a more polished version of that short clip I made to demonstrate how building-death is being done. But a polished version takes somewhere around an hour, minimum. You can't just fire up the engine and talk a bit; you have to take some clips, edit them, decide what you're going to say, record the voiceover, check it, etc.
This eats into development time, and unlike, say, Wolfire, I don't have a crew I can hand these duties to (or keep coding while I handle the marketing hat). If I did, that'd be another matter entirely; I could say, "yo, marketing guy, I built a kewl particle effect today, here's the current source, maek video", or hand off polishing a new particle effect, debugging a shader, etc.
It's one of the biggest disadvantages of not having a budget, tbh. I'd love to be able to delegate chores off my plate, frankly, and concentrate on the things I'm best at.
Not having that kind of resource is a major problem for me, but I don't have any good solutions available. I do know that whatever I do next... I will either go get a proper budget, or keep it very small and focused, so that I don't have giant periods when it appears that it's dead, but really I'm having to do something fun like write pages of particle system descriptors, etc.
2. I avoid talking about this subject with you in particular because you keep saying the same thing without giving me any practical way to solve it. I entirely agree that it would be good to spend more time marketing; but in the end, I have to choose what to spend time on, and development has to be the priority or this version of the game will never get done. It's already waaaaaaaaay overdue, after all. But there's only one of me, and I decided to tackle a few things that weren't originally on the schedule, and that's that.
More to the point, I've expressed all of this to you, multiple times, just as bluntly as this, and you've managed to not understand that I actually mean it
Maybe this time you will get it: I really do have to choose what I do; I can't spread myself any thinner than I'm already spread. If you think that something is worth blogging about to the Spring community in particular, maybe we can post it on Forb's service, and reach a few more eyes. If it's something that really needs a marketing touch, not just a nerd-audience treatment... I just don't have time right now, and won't until the game is ready.
Last edited by Argh on 07 Mar 2010, 02:59, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
I feel I must suggest to everyone to stop reading and especially replying to AF's posts.
Argh; AFAIK, indeed, no new COB additions of late. A good how to guide for CEGs would be nice, hint hint.
As for a cabal of knowledge, heh. My Spring ABC idea is supposed to help in this area, including a full documentation of everything, though I've now switched my focus to examples - because
1. as you point out, the wiki, while lacking in certain areas, is actually pretty solid. And on top of that this is an open source project, which means, surprise surprise, you can always go check UnitHandler.cpp in GIT. I've been telling the people i've been helping lately to bookmark it (and WeaponDefHandler), it's fairly straightforward to understand what is a tag and what type of field it is (although the wiki article(s) are pretty good for this too) and
2. People want examples more than anything. As you said, Argh, factory, builder, walkscripts as well as transport scripts are the most arcane knowledge for budding modders, or at least the most arcane that will be used in 99% of mods (MoveCtrl is fairly specialist for example).
This feels like a good time to make another request to neddie that Mods & Games gets a resource/tutorial subforum like Art and Mapping so we don't 'lose' precious information (Perhaps AF's most valid point)
(Oh and I still think that lua forum should be moved under content subsection and not development)
Who knew it would take epic AF trolling to stop me trolling Argh
Argh; AFAIK, indeed, no new COB additions of late. A good how to guide for CEGs would be nice, hint hint.
As for a cabal of knowledge, heh. My Spring ABC idea is supposed to help in this area, including a full documentation of everything, though I've now switched my focus to examples - because
1. as you point out, the wiki, while lacking in certain areas, is actually pretty solid. And on top of that this is an open source project, which means, surprise surprise, you can always go check UnitHandler.cpp in GIT. I've been telling the people i've been helping lately to bookmark it (and WeaponDefHandler), it's fairly straightforward to understand what is a tag and what type of field it is (although the wiki article(s) are pretty good for this too) and
2. People want examples more than anything. As you said, Argh, factory, builder, walkscripts as well as transport scripts are the most arcane knowledge for budding modders, or at least the most arcane that will be used in 99% of mods (MoveCtrl is fairly specialist for example).
This feels like a good time to make another request to neddie that Mods & Games gets a resource/tutorial subforum like Art and Mapping so we don't 'lose' precious information (Perhaps AF's most valid point)
(Oh and I still think that lua forum should be moved under content subsection and not development)
Who knew it would take epic AF trolling to stop me trolling Argh
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
I might find time for this... but... I am pretty much out of interest at this point.A good how to guide for CEGs would be nice, hint hint.
P.O.P.S. does a lot of things that are impractical with CSimpleParticleSystem; while I haven't developed a replacement for Spike or GroundFlash, I probably will be doing so.
I honestly would like to see you folks in particular give it a whirl when I release the new version (with a texture atlas) soonish, I think you will find that it can greatly enhance realism.
I entirely agree about the animation examples. I can't even imagine what it's like for nubs staring at certain things, trying to figure out why their brains are melting. There are probably a few more things than those four, but those are all big ones where really simple code with a walkthrough about concepts (esp. walkscripts) would be nice.
On Lua... I really think we need a Lua forum just for Gadget development. Widgets and Gadgets are very different animals, and it'd be nice if work on that stuff wasn't getting constantly buried by "metalfinderV3.4X" posts.
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Spawn_Retard
- Posts: 1248
- Joined: 21 Dec 2006, 14:36
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
I'd be totally against someone writing a book like this.
the site is out to make money and theres no way we'd cover the costs.
As this site is open source i think its only right that the book should be made as a collective entity not one person who thinks he knows it all.
I see good suggestions on the forum that are shot down everyday, i cant bleieve some people are considering doing this?
Make the wiki better, not waste money on a book 3 people may or may not buy
the site is out to make money and theres no way we'd cover the costs.
As this site is open source i think its only right that the book should be made as a collective entity not one person who thinks he knows it all.
I see good suggestions on the forum that are shot down everyday, i cant bleieve some people are considering doing this?
Make the wiki better, not waste money on a book 3 people may or may not buy
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
Argh, its not that it isn't being read, its not that I think you dont mean it, its that my points are either utterly ignored, or nothing is done about them.
Most people also fail to see that I am not repeating, else I would just quote a previous post. If I have a point, the correct way of disarming it is to explain. Blindly stating something without explaining how or why it is relevant to my point is the same as talking about potted plants and whales in a discussion of motorbike engines.
Its not hard, if presented with an answer to the question 'why' that is logically sound, that is all that is necessary.
But eitherway, all of your post can be rebutted by these two simple thoughts:
edit: Since the blogs nature is not one that you read on a daily or routinely basis but as and when its needed, in a huge block, or as reference, the usual timing thoughts on blogs need not apply.
Most people also fail to see that I am not repeating, else I would just quote a previous post. If I have a point, the correct way of disarming it is to explain. Blindly stating something without explaining how or why it is relevant to my point is the same as talking about potted plants and whales in a discussion of motorbike engines.
Its not hard, if presented with an answer to the question 'why' that is logically sound, that is all that is necessary.
But eitherway, all of your post can be rebutted by these two simple thoughts:
- You cant say you don't have the time or resources, because part of the point is that you already spend above and beyond the resources writing it, the only thing that I'm suggesting you change is the location it is written and the context
- Your answers are not aimed at the average joe, so why would putting it up as an article change this?
edit: Since the blogs nature is not one that you read on a daily or routinely basis but as and when its needed, in a huge block, or as reference, the usual timing thoughts on blogs need not apply.
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
Spring wouldn't have to contribute financially afaics.Spawn_Retard wrote:I'd be totally against someone writing a book like this.
the site is out to make money and theres no way we'd cover the costs.
As this site is open source i think its only right that the book should be made as a collective entity not one person who thinks he knows it all.
I see good suggestions on the forum that are shot down everyday, i cant bleieve some people are considering doing this?
Make the wiki better, not waste money on a book 3 people may or may not buy
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
I disagree. There's like two callins to know for each, and the rest can be freely improvised.FLOZi wrote:As you said, Argh, factory, builder, walkscripts as well as transport scripts are the most arcane knowledge for budding modders
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
Says uber animation developer of ten years
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
What I mean is that it's very important to document the call-ins, their arguments and return values.
But there's little sense into documenting how to make a walkscript because there isn't one set way.
But there's little sense into documenting how to make a walkscript because there isn't one set way.
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
Noobs are not going to freely improvise the trig calls for transports. But yes, it's all about documenting the callins (and get/set callouts)zwzsg wrote:I disagree. There's like two callins to know for each, and the rest can be freely improvised.FLOZi wrote:As you said, Argh, factory, builder, walkscripts as well as transport scripts are the most arcane knowledge for budding modders
Re: Author Spring RTS Book-Packt Publishing
Er... not really. You really have to have a lot of experience before you're going to do stuff "off the cuff".I disagree. There's like two callins to know for each, and the rest can be freely improvised.
Remember that most people are still using variants of MotionControl(), for example, even though it's not even slightly necessary (or, in my opinion at least, a good idea).