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Equiredox
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Joined: 29 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 8:45 am    Post subject:  OpenSun Project Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well, you haven’t heard from me in a long while in regards to OpenSun. Basically for me, it was an embarrassment. Cowboy coding and virtually ignoring the entire Software Process doesn't help. Having a 60KLOC program released in 3 years with only a couple of programmers working on it, is near impossible. Given how many Function Points OpenSun had, it is beyond laughable (sad), given the fact that we did not have many resources at all.

Basically, to fully guarantee the successful completion of OpenSun in 3 years with a geographically dispersed developed team will take around 16 developers. That’s quite a bit of staff according to COCOMO.

Anyway, OpenSun is going to be started from the ground up, once again. In the next couple of months, I will be performing Requirements Elicitation / Analysis and producing SRS documents. Also, we will dedicate some internet resources to CVS (our SCM system), a new forum / website and IBIS (an online inspection system).

We will attempt to use an Iterative Development Process (such as Spiral), but due to the nature of OpenSun, I am also leaning towards Big Up Front Design.

The new approach to OpenSun will involve community support, but suggestions involving very unrealistic requirements won’t be considered only into further iterations in the development life-cycle.

Anyway, you will see a total switch from our last approach to our current approach. It will be implemented at a professional level, take advantage of practices, models and methodologies defined in the software process, and it will be realistic and feasible. The disadvantage is that it will require competent programmers with an adequate background in UML, software patterns and other software engineering areas, not just good coding skills.

We are looking at using a LISP dialect (such as Scheme), or C / C++. Portability will not be an initial requirement, but may be considered later.

I am posting this message up to inform you guys that we will be looking for developers after the first SRS document is released in the next couple of months. I wouldn't be suprised if nobody wants to help out due to what happened the last time, but hopefully our new approach will impress quite a few people.

- Jon (OpenSun Lead Software Engineer)

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Bittah Commander
Defense Minister


Joined: 21 May 2003
Location: The Netherlands

PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 9:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I think it would be a lot more productive if you would just assist Judeau with his "TS Open project" instead. Having 2 TS remakes seems a bit pointless to me anyway...

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Equiredox
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Joined: 29 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 10:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

My calculations show that it is basically impossible to get any Tiberian Sun Open Source project off the ground with less then 10 programmers working on it. Sixteen will 'guarantee' that it is successful and that it gets released within a satisfactory period of time (3 yrs from now).

It is just not feasible. I think our approaches are just not right. We might be able to code all the components of the game in our mind, but it will just take two much time to make it a reality with little staff.

Basically, producing an open source TS project will involve breaking some records and boundaries that nobody has been successful at before.

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Renegade
Cyborg Artillery


Joined: 21 May 2006
Location: Hamburg, Germany

PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well, with all due respect, from what I gather from the first post, your calculations didn't get you far yet, did they?

From what I gather, you're planning everything through in a lot of fany words and acronyms, but don't even have the required amount of staff to fulfill your own calculations.

Maybe the "just do it" approach is the better one for a project of hobbiists? I mean, what are you gonna do if you get 16 people, but 8 of them don't work for a month because they don't feel like it? Fire them? It's not like people are queuing up to help you.

Sure, your description sounds great for PR, and for a corporate environment, it'd be great - but if you don't know if the people you're planning with will even be there next week, there's no use in strict-planning more than the implementation of the next featureset.

Set milestones. Set coding guidelines. Start coding.
Why would anybody join you if all you have is an idea and programming paradigm?



Edit: Them -> you

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Last edited by Renegade on Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:48 pm; edited 2 times in total

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Clazzy
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Joined: 26 Nov 2002
Location: Algae Colony On Mars

PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Why 16 people? Games of comparable complexity have been made with less. Darwinia and the other Introversion games have been working with 2-3 programmers. Other indie games companies are most likely the same, it's just that Introversion is the most well-known one I know.

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gufu
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Joined: 22 Dec 2004
Location: Tiberium Research Center N27

PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 1:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

This all depends on the engine...

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Kiith-Sa
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Joined: 26 Oct 2004

PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 1:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Just one note: If you want to get some people from the community, defifitely don't use any kind of LISP-like craziness only every 1000th coder can use. Alse, as Ren said, you have no possibility to pull this off like a typical commercial organised project. Also, there are many Open-TS sized projects showing fast proggress just in Czech Republic/Slovakia only, I have no idea about other countries. TS Open is showing pretty fast proggress too, it's not as if everything was going to be made perfect with Unreal like- Reinvent everything from scratch- style work. Coders will join during the process, as the project show success. If it wont, it'll die. Stucuk also made right point there. Go. Start coding. Or join Open TS, if you're as good coder as you claim to be and don't mind to not be head of the team.

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Equiredox
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Joined: 29 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 9:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Renegade wrote:


Set milestones. Set coding guidelines. Start coding.
Why would anybody join you if all you have is an idea and programming paradigm?

Edit: Them -> you


I don't expect people to start coming in, only until some progress is demonstrated later on in the track. Also, I prefer to use a predictive approach, rather then an Agile approach, since the development team will be composed of people of mixed experience and skill - and also because we are geographically dispersed. Setting milestones is one thing, but setting realistic ones is another (no offense). But as you pointed out, I make the assumption that I have the available staff - so your method may be best.

Last edited by Equiredox on Wed Jun 20, 2007 9:39 pm; edited 1 time in total

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Equiredox
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Joined: 29 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 9:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Clazzy wrote:
Why 16 people? Games of comparable complexity have been made with less. Darwinia and the other Introversion games have been working with 2-3 programmers. Other indie games companies are most likely the same, it's just that Introversion is the most well-known one I know.


It is taking into account that people won't be able to work full time on it, may leave, that OpenSun is expected to be somewhat bug-free and fully tested by that period of time and that our ideas and requirements may change during the development.

Ten to sixteen programmers is unrealistic, in an open-source project setup, I know. But (as a worst case setup) this involves building the engine from the ground up, and using little available open-source and over the shelf products. Typically, most of the time will be spent designing and testing rather then coding, and building solid, fully documented and reusable code. This also aims to have the full functionality completed by 3 years.

This is worst case anyway.

I don't know if this will work, most likly not. The major downfall is the number of staff. But as I see it, it is worth a try.

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Equiredox
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Joined: 29 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 10:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread


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m666
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Joined: 09 Apr 2005
Location: South Carolina

PostPosted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

WTF. Edit button. That's 3 posts in a little bit more than an hour.

And just help Judeau. He's motovated to do it, and has progress on it. Whatever you're talking about seems as if it's not to work.

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DragonFly
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Joined: 02 Jun 2007
Location: England

PostPosted: Thu Jun 21, 2007 5:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I agree with Modder666. Join Judeau don't compete with him. All your doing by makeing a seprate project to do the same basic thing is spliting the comunitys resources and making us wait longer to get anything playable.

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Equiredox
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Joined: 29 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Anyway guys, its cool. I understand that blubber (the previous posts) doesn't make any sense to coders (that is being good at coding/programming - but having no concept of the software process). Just, out of experience, and basically any other professional programmer's / software engineer's experience (Steve Mcconnell, Humphrey, Boehm etc.) being good at coding is not even half of the story, more like 5% of what constitutes a successful software project on the large scale. I was under the impression that, at least a couple of PPM members, are uni students (such as myself) and have a grasp on software engineering concepts. Again, this is a modders site, so I shouldn't of been so naive in that regard. I am sure one or two of you may understand why you can't just throw people together and say "Produce this" and don't evaluate risk, undertake proper design procedures etc.. OpenSun is mega, in terms of a project/idea, and needs discipline in order for it to be successful in the long term. I mean, sure, it may start off well without planning, but soon you realise it's bigger then expected, your morale drops, you hate coding, you end up with 100s of defects etc. Anyway, I think I will migrate to another idea and try to recruit people on developer forums.

I agree that most people here wouldn't touch LISP with a ten-foot pole. However LISP is cool, but unique. It is elegant in a way. It is not bad, only if you don't know how to use it properly or write it correctly. Good old MIT 6.001, the first programming course you will come across - used iCampus a while back for one of my uni courses. I actually started out using C / C++ / VB .NET / Java before I used LISP, but having used LISP, it makes coding a pleasure. Also I think there is a recent 3D MMORPG that was built using it or something.

Anyway, ta ta and (cddr (list 1 2 'best_of_luck)).

Last edited by Equiredox on Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:54 am; edited 1 time in total

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gufu
Defense Minister


Joined: 22 Dec 2004
Location: Tiberium Research Center N27

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

and it turned out to be crap...

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Equiredox
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Joined: 29 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

OpenSun turned out to be crap because it used a cowboy coding approach. People learn from one's mistakes. I actually wrote an essay, and made a short mention of OpenSun as a case study into how software projects could be done poorly.

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Kiith-Sa
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Joined: 26 Oct 2004

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 9:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I'm not saying LISP is bad. But it's simply unusable. You can not plan/design too much forward in this kind of a project, since things will just change too fast. Since you don't want to join TS Open, just simply start coding, and show your proggress. That will make a total of 3 TS/RA2 engine remakes right now, all with rather low chance of getting completed.
Honestly, I think two coders is better than one software engineer for this kind of project. There's nothing "mega" about it. You can build more than half of the engine like lego of OS libs. If you don't want to create a brand new scripting language, or UnrealEd size editor, you can make it, pretty fast. On the other hand, everyone is mentioning TS Open and Judeau here... but what's Judeau's opinion?

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Judeau
Commander


Joined: 28 Feb 2004

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 9:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Well, since you're asking
I agree with the idea of needing agile development, open source projects are often projects started by either one dedicated coder, or a very small group of dedicated coders.
Some planning is essential, you need to properly test all your methods for doing things, need to check if things are feasible prior to actually working on the final project.Along with that comes continous community input.And of course, you need to have some guidelines on what you want to end up with, but don't plan out every detail, simply have some general things.

And on the idea of OpenSun, simply said, Equiredox, you started it out far too large last time, you tried to put in several very hard to implement ideas, and got sidetracked far too easily.

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Equiredox
Rocket Infantry


Joined: 29 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 10:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Judeau wrote:

And on the idea of OpenSun, simply said, Equiredox, you started it out far too large last time, you tried to put in several very hard to implement ideas, and got sidetracked far too easily.


Totally agree. Wasn't feasible. I did not now my own limits, said 'yes' to everything people wanted in such a project (including myself), and just wasn't ready to take on such a project (I still may not be ready). But I am just a 'novice' and inexperienced programmer, but I have seriously attempted to try to learn from my mistakes.

1.) Know the problem you want to solve - get a good idea about what it required (very important in sequential development)
2.) Evaluate risk and estimate total effort involved

Best of luck. You have made good progress so far, and I think we can expect great things from you. All I have is a bunch of unreleased code from the last time I tried it. I don't think I released the engine because it was just to darn unstable and just posted up pics of a test running. It was by actual coincidence that I wanted to start OpenSun again, and finding out you started the project.

I think I will aim a bit lower, and just focus on providing a tool to the community (a couple of KLOC) and just undergo a solo project. After I gain some proper experience, work my way up in complexity.

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Equiredox
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Joined: 29 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 10:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Judeau, does TS Open need any helper applications for content creation etc.?

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Judeau
Commander


Joined: 28 Feb 2004

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 11:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Equiredox wrote:
Judeau, does TS Open need any helper applications for content creation etc.?


hmmm, good question, but i think TSO by isn't close to using 3d models yet, i'm just trying to get TSO terrain working properly before moving on to putting anything else, it's still far too inefficient at this point in time., it would be best if you simply added me on msn.( my ppm e-mail is my msn )

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Renegade
Cyborg Artillery


Joined: 21 May 2006
Location: Hamburg, Germany

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 12:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Equiredox wrote:
Anyway guys, its cool. I understand that blubber (the previous posts) doesn't make any sense to coders (that is being good at coding/programming - but having no concept of the software process). Just, out of experience, and basically any other professional programmer's / software engineer's experience (Steve Mcconnell, Humphrey, Boehm etc.) being good at coding is not even half of the story, more like 5% of what constitutes a successful software project on the large scale. I was under the impression that, at least a couple of PPM members, are uni students (such as myself) and have a grasp on software engineering concepts. Again, this is a modders site, so I shouldn't of been so naive in that regard. I am sure one or two of you may understand why you can't just throw people together and say "Produce this" and don't evaluate risk, undertake proper design procedures etc.. OpenSun is mega, in terms of a project/idea, and needs discipline in order for it to be successful in the long term. I mean, sure, it may start off well without planning, but soon you realise it's bigger then expected, your morale drops, you hate coding, you end up with 100s of defects etc. Anyway, I think I will migrate to another idea and try to recruit people on developer forums.

[...]

lol...arrogance won't help you recruiting people.
Because we know about different methodologies and programming paradigms, we think it's ridiculous to go boast about using this or that one, without actually having a single line of code to show.

You can try to belittle us all you want, but we're at least realistic - you are one guy with an idea. One guy who failed on the same idea before. Of course you're free to plan your project through and pick a fitting way to coordinate the development process - but recruiting people with a paradigm while you haven't even chosen a programming language yet is just ztyping ridiculous.

Blame it on ignorance all you want, the truth is: We're seeing that, right now, your project is vaporware, and you have nothing but a name and a programming paradigm.

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Equiredox
Rocket Infantry


Joined: 29 Jun 2005

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 1:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Renegade wrote:

lol...arrogance won't help you recruiting people.
Because we know about different methodologies and programming paradigms, we think it's ridiculous to go boast about using this or that one, without actually having a single line of code to show.

You can try to belittle us all you want, but we're at least realistic - you are one guy with an idea. One guy who failed on the same idea before. Of course you're free to plan your project through and pick a fitting way to coordinate the development process - but recruiting people with a paradigm while you haven't even chosen a programming language yet is just ztyping ridiculous.

Blame it on ignorance all you want, the truth is: We're seeing that, right now, your project is vaporware, and you have nothing but a name and a programming paradigm.


Explain, in detail, how you would undertake such a large project, such that it can be demonstrated that it has a reasonable expected development time, a reasonable chance of success and of good quality. You have critised me, but you haven’t formulated a solution - except getting a bunch of people together and hopefully it will work.

I agree that Agile can be the way to go, and has advantages over sequencial development (Waterfall). The major issue I had was that I didn't believe the people available to do the work were competent enough to successfully undergo Agile development - which you probably already know, requires the programmers to be highly competent or else it will fail.

My first experience with OpenSun was that not planning ahead, and just getting a bunch of people together, didn't work for such a complex project. In this topic / post, I used all those fancy acrynoms to help presented a method to go about the software development process in order to demonstrate the idea that if we apply a plan and estimate the effort involved properly, it may rectify the major issues associated with the first attempt.

But yes, I am a name and only have an idea. But you do know me, I suppose that counts for something.

Anyway, I decided to help out with OTS.

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Renegade
Cyborg Artillery


Joined: 21 May 2006
Location: Hamburg, Germany

PostPosted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 5:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread


  1. Decide what you want to do, write it down - completely, everything.
  2. Break it down into small tasks, group those to milestones.
  3. Start coding. Code something presentable - an alpha with selectable and movable units on a demo-map or something.
  4. Show this demo to the community, ask for help.
  5. Be happy if someone replies, either way...
  6. ...continue coding.
  7. Repeat steps 3-6 until the game is finished. Either you'll slowly build up a crew, or you won't. But at least work is getting done, and people have a real incentive to join - 'cause a working techdemo is way better than "Hey I'm Equiredox and I want to [insert three paragraphs of buzzwords here]!".


You do not create a game by talking. You do not find volunteers by talking. If you want to get it done, you'll have to have more than words to convince people your project actually has a future.

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