[7] RE: [CF-Devel] Starting Suspended Animation Process

[Joris Bontje]

First of all, some comments on the quoting style. RFC 1855 has some rules on quoting in
email messages and newsgroups. See for more information 
     
     http://www.rfc1855.org/
     
     
Important things:
- keep it a logical story (comments under the original stuff)
- delete text you dont comment on
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On Thu, Jan 03, 2002 at 03:13:57PM +1100, David Hurst wrote:
>
     
      On Wed, Jan 02, 2002 at 04:51:49PM -0800, 
      
      kevin at ank.com
      
       wrote:
     
     >
     
      > I think what Yann really needs is a stable branch; or perhaps Tim
     
     >
     
      > needs an unstable branch.  I've worked on some very large projects
     
     >
     
      > and you really have to be able to destabilize the tree at certain
     
     >
     
      > points to make any progress.
     
     
I remember the idea of 2 branches, a stable and an unstable one, beeing
discussed somewhat like a year before. Conclusion was: we don't want it
it causes too much overhead.

>
     
      > Overlays sound like a very useful feature for the large map work
     
     >
     
      > that is going on.  But that obviously shouldn't destabilize an
     
     >
     
      > active server like 'mids'.  By branching the CVS trunk at some
     
     >
     
      > point it would be possible to continue patching problems in the
     
     >
     
      > stable branch while adding more dangerous but also more exciting
     
     >
     
      > changes to the main branch.  Porting patches back to the main
     
     >
     
      > trunk can become a bit of a chore, but ultimately when the next
     
     >
     
      > stable version is branched it will stabilize regardless of whether
     
     >
     
      > the patches have all been moved or not.
     
     
I think that we don't have enough coders too keep up 2 branches, maybe
I don't understand the work involved completely but merging those two
branches together after a new release looks like black magic to me.

>
     
      Hmm this is a reasonable idea. That problem stems mostly from the fact 
     
     >
     
      that mids server is very popular, and yet is running the cvs which is 
     
     >
     
      generally regarded as unstable. I think alot of problems begun here, 
     
     >
     
      firstly because we a relatively small group it takes a long time to 
     
     >
     
      release a new version sometimes, this can make server admins and players 
     
     >
     
      want to run the cvs just to take advantage of these great things. The 
     
     >
     
      problem lies in that while the cool new stuff which is bug free is 
     
     >
     
      there, so to are all the unbug free cool things! We could step up the 
     
     >
     
      speed of releasing new version, but I suspect we would start to release 
     
     >
     
      lesser quality code (this is my opinion, it is open to arguement).
     
     
Ofcourse I could run two server. But there will be some problems:
technical:
- metaserver doesnt support 2 servers with different ports on 1 ip/hostname
- my server can't handle the load, I wil have to use my workstation as a testing
server (I have done that before with iso maps and scriptfire/plugins)
non-technical:
- we don't have enough players to fill all those servers!

>
     
      Secondly, we don't have a great deal of beta tester like people, so the 
     
     >
     
      only way a big change can get tested is by releasing it on a server that 
     
     >
     
      people play. It does mean we get feedback very fast ;), but at the same 
     
     >
     
      time we may upset lots of players. Perhaps it might be made clear that 
     
     >
     
      the cvs tree is really for those who enjoy new things, but at the same 
     
     >
     
      time are prepared to risk losing it all by accident. I did notice mids 
     
     >
     
      talking about running two servers on one machine, firstly it might be a 
     
     >
     
      good idea to have a stable and cvs server at mids.student...... ? but 
     
     >
     
      then again, i suspect players will all group to the cvs server because 
     
     >
     
      more people will be there?
     
     
The bleeding edgyness of my server is a 2 cutting sword (cliche). Maybe
it is one of the reasons that my server is quite popular. But with the
latest gadgets you also have the latest bugs. 
Quite some bugs are captured on my server, simply because they require
lots of people with too much time, lots of players, luck, etc.
Therefore I will keep running the 'unstable CVS' server. If some of you new
code crashes my server I might be angry, but nifty stuff keeps my box popular
and playing fun for the users.

Regards,
Joris Bontje / mids

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