[cplp-dev] Re: What's next

[Andrew B. <an...@br...>]

On 10/10/02 at 9:21 PM, mox...@de... (Petras Kudaras) wrote:

> > What's next with the project?
> 
> 2) Start coding the game itself ;)
> 
> Seriously, we have come to the point where we have enough ideas to
> start cracking on our first goal -- making it possible for a player to
> move in some world (not interacting with anything but walls ;)
> 
> I think we have agreed on a client/server model, so we also need to
> work the protocol. I would personally choose XML-RPC because it is XML
> based over HTTP (thus can be easily done via a webserver) and very
> simple. But this is my personal opinion, and I would like to hear
> yours. I can see a shortcoming of XML-RPC that it can be seen as
> "hyped up and buzzwordy and having lots of overhead and not terribly
> useful", so tell me what you think about this.

Well I guess that I don't have a clear enough idea in my head of how the
game and program are going to work for me to suggest a protocol to use.
XML-RPC looks like a fine choice for many applications.

I think it would be useful to try to describe or define how the game and
program are going to work in writing. Starting off with perhaps even a
few sentences or paragraphs, and refining it to become more and more
detailed. My approach to writing anything but simple programs is 'If you
can't state it in English(or some natural language), you probably aren't
ready to write the code. That's how I feel now. If you asked me to
describe to you how the overall program will work, I couldn't. Does
anyone else feel this way?

Anytime I am going to write a subroutine, or a module, or a complex
program, I need to have a clear idea of how the thing is going to work
before I start writing code. Since there are fourteen developers signed
up for this project, I think it's necessary for us all to have that
clear picture; preferably the same one :-)

I think we have a good first goal: making it possible for a player to
move in some world (not interacting with anything but walls). I suggest
that we write up the details of how we plan to accomplish this.


Andrew

btw, I wondered about using IRC. I don't know if this would be
[helpful|chaos]. And then there's time differences...just a thought.