Re: [Adonthell-devel] Sign of life

[Chris Frey]

On Sat, Jun 02, 2012 at 11:51:48AM +0200, Kai Sterker wrote:
> > Plus, each release is an excuse to announce your project again
> > on places like Freshmeat/Freecode, which can increase potential
> > users, and therefore contributors.
> 
> I strongly dislike this kind of attention-grabbing behavior, but I
> guess it can be quite effective :-). The more active a project
> appears, the more additional interest it attracts.

I dislike it too, but I think my dislike is based on the mistaken assumption
that such announcements are unwanted spam.  But I think the truth is
closer to the idea that there are people out there who really want to know
about this project, and want to know when something new is available,
and they use RSS feeds and Freecode and various other methods to find it.

In other words, the announcements are in the users' interests too.
Sometimes they just might not know they are interested yet. :-)  And regular
announcements can help with that.

I don't think that a new release and a Freecode announcement once a month
is annoying or spammy.


> But your general idea brought me to consider splitting engine and
> test, as noted above. There's also still the idea of demonstrating
> stuff in videos instead of releases, too. Easier on people to just sit
> and watch for a few minutes than download and compile for an hour,
> then test the new feature for half a minute. Maybe combine the two,
> though. Have the "lazy" option for the broader masses, and the code
> release for those with actual interest in all the details.

If the videos are easy to make, yeah, that would be worthwhile. :-)


> The question then is, should WE be put aside for a while and instead
> other aspects of the engine get the focus? Item/inventory GUI and
> world integration comes to mind. Crafting afterwards. Pathfinding in
> the 3rd dimension would also be a candidate, which would also be
> useful for WE. Then, when those features gained the required
> attention, WE could be finished much more quickly and additional
> features required by DB would already be complete.

That all sounds good to me, but I'm not sure I completely understand it
all. :-)  I'm more concerned that a release target date is picked, one
of those features is completed, even into a semi-useful state, and then
the release is made.  I.e. the release cycle should be the "when" driver,
and the functional strategy should be the "what".  Both done together
should help get users, popularity, and hopefully contributors, because
it satisfies the needs of everyone: users, developers, and newbies who
don't know about us yet.

I'm a developer, so I know all too well how easy it is to let the "what"
govern the "when", when it should be much more of a partnership between
those two release drivers.  When the "what" and the "when" are in unison,
then user feedback can start coming in, and help refine the "why".

- Chris