cazfi wrote:nef wrote:If no developer wants to work on a particular issue then why bother with a ticket?
OTOH: If something is not worth filing a ticket for you, why would a developer bother to work on it?
Yes, this is the 'other side'. One factor in considering this is the question of using, or not using, gatekeepers. As I said, I'm not familiar with the dynamics of the development community, so I am not well placed to make a definitive judgement. As for "why would a developer bother to work on it?" I think the issue should be judged on its merits, rather than where it was posted.
Even if some request is not feasible at the moment, having it in the ticket system allows one to easily find it later. As lua API as the example, my recent query about tickets with component "Scripting API" does not bring up much. It's going to be much more work to start going through forum posts to see what people have said in the past.
A gatekeeper could raise a ticket with little more than a reference to the forum post with your own work being examples if not exemplars. Personally, I have kept my ticketable issues localised to just a few threads for this precise reason.
There obviously is a problem with Lua scripting in that nobody seems to have a vision about it (except maybe ihnatus who has been submitting some good tickets). As I've not had time to play much with it, I don't have first hand experience about the pain points. So there's just minor additions to the scripting API, and ... .
Just ask. Seriously though, I think a paradigm shift may help. I see enormous parallels between Lua scripting and artwork, but you wouldn't know it by looking at fc The fundamental similarity between the two (compared to the c coded engine) is that both can be submitted and used in real time, rather than having to wait for a release cycle, and to me, this is what makes it worth while. I`m afraid I don`t have your patience. If I have an idea I want to use it as soon as I cut the code.
So as examples that come to mind of what can be done are (a) to have a forum that is similar to that for artwork and (b) require attribution in the script. In the latter case I have been ambivalent in my own submissions (for a couple of reasons), but I do lament the lack of attribution in what is provided in the distro. I imagine this is in github and/or gna (etc.) but this is work I can do without when a few letters at the beginning of each file would do just fine. In the former case (a) we have a chicken and egg problem. A primitive api means little Lua code. Little Lua code means little imperative to improving the API. Back to the 'Just ask'. I could provide a steady stream of requests, but mostly they arise from current projects. I need them for fc 2.6. Waiting for 3.x is beyond my planning horizon. A much faster (and less ambitious) release cycle may have other merits as well. Artwork has an advantage here because the API has been established. For Lua we may have some work to do to get the ball rolling. Lua can be used for two distinct purposes that I imagine: a) more or less direct replacement or complement to c code, and b) end user scripts such as those published by Ignatus.
That was contributed to freeciv, so you can hardly say that what you refer as "the developers" (I'm not sure what is your criteria of including people to that group, and leaving other members of the community out - but you say that you're not a developer yourself even though you have provided some lua script snippets for the rulesets) spent time on wrong thing in doing it.
I`m not sure I understand most of this. What does "That was contributed to freeciv" mean? By "developer" I mean someone who supplies a patch to github so that the material will (or could) end up in a distro. As for me and those who supply artwork, maps, modpacks and maybe even scenarios even just constructive comments, I would use the word "contributor". But there are more: there are users. Snippets? Granted that fcdb Lua is substantial but who knows about it, who uses it (LT?) I would suggest that the two versions of hut enter code, plus replacements for listenv() and _freeciv_state_dump() are non trivial. "spent time on wrong thing in doing it". Are you referring to where it was submitted, or what was submitted? I disagree on both.
cazfi wrote:nef wrote:the particulars were provided in tolua then I know of at least one person (likely two) who WOULD have written the Lua, customising it for different rulesets (and/or usage). There is a resource out here that you are not using. And if Lua support was better then there is the prospect of that resource growing in number.
Do you know people who could do that engine side work?
No one interested in fc. But I would have thought Ignatus might consider a commission or two. Do you have enough Lua programmers? I still have projects to work on so I`m easy either way.
I'm still not convinced that effectively copying content of each new (feature) ticket opened also to forums for having the discussion in two places at the same time would be a really sane way to go.
As I said previously, references are quite sufficient and you have already shown various ways to do it. (Often)
And I disagree that it would serve as an announcement - discussion still doesn't imply that the feature really got pushed in to the repository in the end.
Not intended to be quite so literal - abandonment, or even indefinite deferral would always be alternative outcomes.
btw. Should note that part of the reason I'm not that eager to spend resources on developing things towards these forums is that I'm not so sure we can keep these forums going for a very long time.
This is a worry. The Civ I and Civ II fora lost A LOT of valuable material. But I might also ask - how does one comment on a gna ticket?
So when People document gets updated for 2.6.6, you're going to be listed as a developer. Or do you specifically want that your name will not be listed there?
Not fussed either way. I might make a distinction between developer and contributor, but if you use developer for all then that`s ok with me.