Current Status?
Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 19:05 UTC
What is the current status of the code? Which branch is the furthest along? What needs to be done to get it functional again?
- Monk
- Monk
Code: Select all
APACHE: v2.4.7
PHP: v5.5.9
MySQL: v5.5.47
Awesome!tjmonk15 wrote:I downloaded the latest revision of the code from SourceForge and was playing around with it. I poked around, and ended up using the "original" branch. The only issues I had getting it up and running were getting IIS to behave.
In a word, no. (Sadly).tjmonk15 wrote:I was able to create the universe, login as the admin and play around a bit without any issues. Is that branch the most current? Besides email problems, does it work/behave?
Email and activation not working is a server admin problem (mostly, there are some things "we" could do to help that, but ultimately if wordpress can just use the server settings, so can "we".)thekabal wrote:...
Email and activation, as you noticed, are problematic. There are also some non-trivial DB issues with ADODB, several of which were never fixed. The AI ("Xenobes") are horribly broken also.
...
They are also, unfortunately, code issues. The email and activation process needed a serious overhaul, and my initial attempts (at least on the Advanced code base) made things substantially worse. TMD deserves credit for noticing and pointing it out to me. He kind of rocks.tjmonk15 wrote: Email and activation not working is a server admin problem (mostly, there are some things "we" could do to help that, but ultimately if wordpress can just use the server settings, so can "we".)
I'm sorry to hear that. I know that I've tried to be more welcoming, especially in the last few years, but I am human. There are (a lot) of examples in the past of folks that have had less than stellar intentions, but I honestly try to expect the best in people. Personally, I extend my apologies if I was not welcoming in the past.tjmonk15 wrote:I say "we" because I have been here to help before in the past, and even in the dev board was mostly treated as a server host(ie. someone looking to host the game for others to play, not a seasoned PHP/Web dev with 10+ years of experience making a living off of my "hobby", ie. programming)?
I respect your opinion, and don't find it to be confrontational at all. Its valid and constructive feedback that I personally will factor in going forward.tjmonk15 wrote:I don't mean to be confrontationel, but that's how i felt/feel with these responses. I remember both of you (TMD and thekabal) and i remember having significant discussion in the previous incarnation of the boards.
The pain points that I would identify are probably different than what TMD would, and others. Also, the answers are going to be very different for Classic v. Advanced.tjmonk15 wrote:I want to help but I need a bit more info to know what the pain points are that I could work up a patch for.
I would hazard against statements that estimate the time to complete. By way of example, in Advanced, with a crew of about a dozen developers and about 30 testers, we managed to convert about 1/3rd of the game to use the Smarty template system. It took us over two years to accomplish that much. It CAN be done, but it is not by any stretch "easy". Also, it will lead into a different discussion about technology choices. TMD initially favored an XML templating system, while I favored staying with Smarty. If I were to tackle it from scratch today, I might consider Twig instead. Maybe. Which also leads to the "which branch do you want to work on" question.tjmonk15 wrote: If it's the haphazard templating system, I can fix that (and would like to, as well as, make the UI responsive at the same time) and that is easy.
Yes. Very much yes. We've begun moving to pure PDO, but it is a VERY long process that requires a staggering amount of testing. It also uncovers major, major bugs throughout the game when done correctly. Adding in parameters to queries and defining what returns are supposed to be (within ranges) exposes really old, really sloppy code that didn't care about errors.tjmonk15 wrote: If its ADODB, I wouldn't be suprised. It's old, and barely classifies as an ORM (Object Reltional Mapper, ie. how all major frameworks deal with DBs)
The AI is definitely a good place to dig in. Its complex, but not overly so. It operates mostly independently of the rest of the game, so it won't have a ton of side-effects.tjmonk15 wrote: If it's JUST the AI, thats most certainly the most interesting problem (to me) and I would love to help with that. But, I have limited knowledge of how they should work. Give me some pointers and expect a patch in a week (pending any work overflows)
Classic is by far more functional at this point. However, the TKI/Advanced code on Github has more potential. Its a PITA to get installed and running, but those are relatively minor issues when you factor in all the work done to improve the DB calls, and clean up in general in the code.tjmonk15 wrote: I would love to say I can fix it all, but I simply don't have the time to do everything, hence I am asking for "What is the biggest issue right now?" as well as, "Am I looking at the 'current' code?".
This part, sadly, is going to be less friendly.tjmonk15 wrote:P.S. Also, not supporting IIS is a joke... It's due to a reliance in the code for very VERY old versions of PHP.
NOW that may be true, but I can personally tell you that back in the day, it wasn't. I tested releases on Apache, Nginx, and IIS, and IIS was 100% of the time the biggest PITA for me to work around.tjmonk15 wrote: If you target recent PHP (5.4+ or 7.0) it will work out of the box in IIS. Assuming you use a decent autoloader and/or use DIRECTORY_SEPERATOR instead of '/'. (My code always defines DS to be DIRECTORY_SEPERATOR, which makes it much easier for devs to use)