[Wesnoth-wiki-changes] WesnothPhilosophy

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Index: WesnothPhilosophy
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RCS file: /home/wesnoth/cvsroot/wikiroot/WesnothPhilosophy,v
retrieving revision 1.3
diff -u -r1.3 WesnothPhilosophy
--- WesnothPhilosophy   20 Jun 2004 11:42:19 -0000      1.3
+++ WesnothPhilosophy   8 Sep 2004 01:16:51 -0000
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+||Wesnoth Philosophy||
+
 The 18th of December will mark six months since the first version of Battle 
for Wesnoth, version 0.1, was released.
 
 At this time, I feel it is appropriate to respond to something Bazarov said in 
another thread:
@@ -160,5 +162,56 @@
 This is the cornerstone of KISS: what is laughably easy for a programmer to do 
is going to result in high quality,
 bug-free software. What is 'simple' for users, or 'elegant' for designers, but 
not easy for a programmer is not going to
 result in high quality software.
+
+David
+
+||Wesnoth Philosophy II: An Update||
+
+I've been asked by Steelp (and others) to write something on where we plan to 
take Wesnoth next. So here is my opinion
+on where we should take Wesnoth next, as at version 0.8:
+
+I am now happy with Wesnoth's game rules. I think it is a good, fun, simple, 
and addictive game. A game that is fun to
+play, and challenging.
+
+I don't think we need any more game rules, or any game rule changes. The game 
has met and exceeded most of its original
+design goals.
+
+We have met many challenges during Wesnoth development, but we now have a new 
challenge: making Wesnoth a polished and
+high enough quality product to declare it 1.0, and show it to 'the world at 
large'.
+
+I think that we have a very real chance of failing. That we can continue 
adding features, debating changes, going
+sideways, and end up with a product that is too large, too bloated, too 
unstable to make it to 1.0. With a development
+team that is too burned out on adding features and debating insignificant 
changes to polish and debug the program enough.
+
+I think we have to accept that version 1.0 need not have every feature 
imaginable. That we will in fact have to leave
+out good ideas in order to deliver a finished product.
+
+I want to start moving aggressively toward a version 1.0. I think the longer 
we delay, the more developers and users
+will become frustrated at slow progress. My feeling is that the time is now to 
finish off all engine features, or decide
+that they will be left until after 1.0.
+
+IMO the engine is now feature-complete enough for a 1.0. It'd be nice to add a 
few more features, but it has enough
+features to ship a 1.0 already. gettext support would be especially nice, but 
I don't think it's absolutely necessary.
+
+I think that I would like to declare a feature freeze sometimes within the 
next few weeks. Features that are not added
+in this time will have to wait until after 1.0. I think we've been waiting 
long enough for this already, and I am
+unwilling to wait much longer. We have stayed in the very dangerous '90% done, 
10% to go' state for far too long now. It
+is time to move toward 1.0.
+
+To ensure that 1.0 is a stable program, we will take a number of measures. We 
will have a fairly long beta-testing
+period, in which time bugs will be hunted down and squashed. We will take a 
more rigorous approach to squashing every
+minor bug we can find than previously.
+
+During this time, campaigns will also be completed, as will graphics, sound 
and music. Translations will be finished,
+documentation written, and balancing done.
+
+I will discuss this further with developers, but IMO, campaigns that are not 
completed by 1.0 should be removed for the
+1.0 release. 1.0 should be an entirely finished product, with no 'loose ends' 
at all.
+
+After 1.0, I still don't think that we will have too many game rule changes. 
However, I would like to put some effort
+into making Wesnoth more flexible, to allow people who want to make forks to 
make their own projects.
+
+Personally, I am mostly committed to getting the project to 1.0 at the moment. 
After that, we can decide what will
+happen next.
 
 David