[CF-Devel] Iso CF start phase

[Mark Wedel]

 A few clarifications/thoughts.

 I realized after I sent my last message it may be taken in the wrong way (ie,
my leaving crossfire).  What I really meant to say in that is that if crossfire
evolves into a game that I don't want to play (only isomorphic view), then its a
pretty sure bet that I won't develope for it anymore.

 I also just wanted to make it clear that IMO non isomorphic view should
continue to be supported.  If nothing else because I think it is going to take
quite a while for the isomorphic view to get completed (in terms of maps and
images).  This is from prior experience on crossfire.  Now I may be wrong about
this - it wouldn't be the first time I am wrong about something.

 Note that MT never said that the overhead view was going away.  I just want to
hopefully be clear that his changes do not remove that support for 'traditional'
play. 

 Re CVS freeze (or non checkin - amounts to the same thing):
Now its only my opinion, but IMO I just don't think its good for development. 
Part of CVS is anyone being able to do updates at most any time.

 And that said, the normal cvs process is:

1) cvs update
2) make changes
3) cvs commit - if you have modified files that are not current in CVS, cvs
won't let you commit them, so continue on to step 4 below - if other people have
modified files that you have no modified, no problem
4) cvs update old files
5) may or may not need to do hand merging
6) compile, run quick test (quick test may not be much more than verify it does
compile and runs, presuming that more thorough testing was done before)
7) cvs commit again.

 Now to me, the idea of making a 'non commit except for me' phase is that its
basically saying the other guy should do steps 4-7 and not me.  I just don't
think thats good for a community project.  As a coder, it basically says to me
that perhaps I should wait before starting any changes, otherwise I'll most
definately have to do step 4-7 because someone else is doing a big check in,
even if my changes may be smaller and I could get them done before that other
checkin is done.

But if we agree its OK (which it sounds like we do), then I'll start using it in
the future also (like when I start on the map tiling).  Not having to do steps
4-7 will probably save me some amount of work.

 Now perhaps MT overstated the amount of freeze really needed, but from the
message:
** PLEASE don't touch the CVS until i do the release today or next day**

 This suggest to me that no change no matter how small should be made to CVS.

 As said, if we agree that developers can 'freeze' cvs for times while they work
on big projects, I can live with that.  I just wanted to state that I think that
will be bad for development in the long run - especially if it starts to get
overused.