[crossfire] 2.0 release, was Re: Code restructuring

[Mark Wedel]

  To me, the issue for targetting this for a 2.0 release is timing.

  We can come up with a huge list of things that should be done before a 2.0 
list.  And we could attempt to do them all, but then 2.0 probably won't be 
released for 5 years or the like.

  The discussion for a 2.0 release probably needs to be done.  Several questions 
need to be asked & answered:

1) What is the target date for a 2.0 release?  It can't be 'when all the cool 
stuff is done', as then it never happens - always something new to add, etc - 
some general date has to targeted.  I had previously mentioned shooting for end 
of this calendar year.

2) What are the 'must have', 'nice to have', and 'not really important' features 
to target for that release?  The wiki - 
http://wiki.metalforge.net/doku.php/dev_todo:cf2.0 - sort of covers that by 
high/medium/low priorities.  Does code restructuring fall into high category? 
There is a code cleanup which is high, but I had envisioned that to be a bit 
more modest than what is being talked about now.

Depending on the timeframe would determine how many can really be done in the 
targeted time.

  Bugs, both new and current, also need to be similarly prioritized - fixing 
bugs is great to do, but can also be a big time sink.

3) Who commits to working on these changes?  The wiki above has lots of things 
to do, but very people signed up to do them.  If there are only a few people 
actively working on making code changes, that certainly limits number of changes 
  that can be done for a release.

  So all that said, if we think end of the year is a reasonable target date, I 
think that limits us to trying to take on somewhere between 2-4 decent sized 
projects.  If we look at the wiki, taking things currently marked as high, that 
would be:

Character creation - new character creation method
Game balance - fix various balance issues
improve client ui
code cleanup (but have to be careful this doesn't lead to rewriting huge 
sections of code)
change password command

  Of which, none of those currently has anyone signed up to do them (I was 
personally planning to look at the character creation sometime soon)

  I'd also say that generally speaking, any of these big changes needs to be 
completed at least a month before the targeted release date, simply so there is 
sufficient time to find bugs, make fixes, then run the fixed code to see if it 
works, etc.

  The end of the year date for next release was somewhat arbitrarily chosen, but 
some date is needed.