[glob2-devel] Evolutions vs Revolutions

[Stéphane Magnenat]

Hi,

I know that most people think that we should make lots of rewrite in Glob2. 
Indeed, some people even think we should rewrite it entierly, they think we 
should make a Great Revolution.

While I'm not opposed to this, and would be very happy to see it happen, it 
won't come from me, at least not on a large scale (mini-Revolution can and 
will occure). The two main reasons are very simple:
- I do not have enough time.
- I specially do not have big continuous period of time to invest on Glob2, as 
I had while student (no more long Summer holidays). Such big period are 
required for an efficient rewrite.
So my personnal plan is to progressively improve HEAD, by fixing bugs, 
cleaning things, perhaps by rewriting some subsystems. I might also help 
people on specific rewrite in branches.

My purprose is not to depress you, but rather to present the real work force 
we have. But of course, feel free to code what you like :-) (but not in HEAD 
if it breaks everything).

This said, Glob2 could become a lot better with fast no code rewrite. For 
instance, map editor's GUI is a big joke, but the underlying code is ok. No 
rewrite needed. With some nice icons (specially for brush types: units, 
buildings, delete, ...) and a tabbed right menu (as the one in game), Map 
editor could be very good. Also, when I code, sometimes I do not have time to 
add the strings, you can contribute to Glob2 by adding them yourself. No 
recompilation is needed. Same for new unit graphics.

As a conclusion, I would say that our engine, although not perfect, is not 
that bad, and if we do not have the ultimate killer game it's only very 
partially his fault. We need a game, and that's where my efforts are focused 
now.

Steph