Thoughts about the Source Code distribution (4-24-2005)

[adeveloper.clan-sy]

I saw TaSpring on Slashdot, so I decided to download the latest source code to test how well it compiles and links and to mess around with the source. I had a trouble getting the projects to compile, but after a little hacking I was successful.

I think the raw source code distribution (4/26/2005) needs better documentation concerning what you really need to do to get the source to compile and link. I had to download many external tools to get some of the projects to compile correctly. I also had to set the correct include paths to pull in the correct header files. I also had to set the correct lib paths to correctly link to the correct libs. One project in particular "unitsync" was missing some headers and I had to copy in some of the missing headers from the "springserver" project and then remove and re-add some of the files from the solution.

I noticed that the binary only solution does not exactly match what is produced by the source only solution. I think maybe the developers have some pre-distribution scripts to rename/group some of the files, for example renaming SpringServer.exe to Spring.exe.

It would be nice to add another downloadable distribution consisting of the support files (maps, shaders, configuration files) so that other developers can easily test the source distribution. I had to manually download the support files from the binary-only distribution and copy it into the source directory.

I am looking forward towards the next source code distribution. I hope some of the issues I have described have been solved by then; I would hate to go through that hacking process,(again!) just to get the source to compile and link.

Thanks for doing a good job so far! I really like this project. I will go over, again, what I had to do to get the source distribution to compile and link and then I will post my procedure on this Forum in a few hours so that other developers can at least get the source to compile and link.