Re: [tsc-devel] On the Continuation of TSC

Chris Jacobsen | Thu, 21 Sep 2017 03:05:36 UTC

> since I retired from the lead position, there has not been much move
in TSC's development; taking a look at `$ git log' for `devel' proofs
that.

> FWIW I *have* been doing some work on trying to make AppImages, though
I got stuck at finding a hosting provider that would handle ~200MB
Travis-generated images...

As Kirbyfan64 said, he's been doing development on AppImages.  It's in
another branch.  There hasn't been any cpp development recently, though
there probably would have been some cpp changes in a while.  The
AppImages changes are much needed -- someone complained on a YouTube
video I posted about just how hard it is to build Secret Chronicles.
Release 2.1 would have alleviated many of the issues, but AppImages will
be a big win for less technical users, from what I understand.

The development is slower than it was when Quintus was on board, though
it is not dead.  Quintus was a bit more aggressive than the average
developer when he developed.

> I have often enough made my position towards the current codebase
clear and have been met with opposition by people who are now not
working on materialising their view of TSC. I feel the desire to
experiment with something new. My suggestion is that therefore, I will
start the previously mentioned rewrite.

Yes, I was a proponent against a complete rewrite.  As I said, if you
would in any way spend more time developing with a complete rewrite,
that would be better, as your help is greatly needed.  I was concerned
at the time at the number of years it will take to complete.  As you
said, some sort of serious development is better than slower
development, so starting a complete rewrite is a good idea.  I do expect
such an effort to take years, but it is possible with at least one
dedicated person and time.

> Someone is going to point out that this is fruitless effort, as I
don't have the time I used to have and a rewrite takes time.

Nothing is fruitless if you enjoy it.  I am sorry for effectively
overturning a decision before, as doubling back on decisions tends to be
counterproductive.  We could at least see how the rewrite goes and
discuss it as it progresses.

> I want to blow some fresh air into the stalled development.

Any additional activity is good.

At some point it would be good to finish release 2.1, or the time we
spent on it will go to waste.  There are about 34 bugs open now.  Some
can probably be closed as unreproducible (or irrelevant in the current
build), but it is still a good amount of work, especially considering
the unknown and unlogged bugs.

The team should probably discuss what they want to do as a whole.  If
Quintus's rewrite is likely to become the future codebase, feature
development doesn't make much sense in version 2.1.  As for art, I know
that Bugsbane wanted to clean up existing graphics anyways.

I'm tied up developing my own game (and writing my book) and will be for
quite a while.  I've also been working some overtime at my job recently.
 Thus it's questionable how much I could help with either effort right
now.  I expect I would not get heavily involved in a rewrite, but I
might make small changes at some point down the line, much as I did in
the old TSC codebase.

-datahead










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