rails-devel — List for discussion of Rails development

[Rails-devel] v18xx ver.2.00 and extensions ver.2.00.xx are uploaed

[Akiyoshi N. <aki...@ni...>]

Hello,

This email message is a notification to let you know that
files has been uploaded to the Files area of the 18xx group 
and to the VASSAL official page.


File : v18xx_200.zip
Description : v18xx system module ver.2.00 for VASSAL

File : v1826_20003.zip
Description : 1826 extension ver.2.00.03 for v18xx


File : v1851_20002.zip
Description : 1851 extension ver.2.00.02 for v18xx 

File : v1889_20011.zip
Description : 1889 extension ver.2.00.11 for v18xx 

File : v18AL_20008.zip
Description : 18AL extension ver.2.00.08 for v18xx 

File : v18EU_20003.zip
Description : 18EU extension ver.2.00.03 for v18xx 

File : v18GA_20008.zip
Description : 18GA extension ver.2.00.08 for v18xx 

File : v18VA_20009.zip
Description : 18VA extension ver.2.00.09 for v18xx 


You can access this files at the URLs:
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/18xx/files/VASSAL/
  http://www.vassalengine.org/community/index.php?option=com_vassal_modules&task=display&module_id=55&page=Files

Regards,

Akiyoshi NOMURA
  mailto:aki...@ni...

[Rails-devel] Generic Framework

[Stewart T. <wsr...@ho...>]

Brett, et al,

I agree that building a generic framework for 18xx games is an essential 
foundation, however, I think that focusing on just a single game like 1830 
is risky. Particularly because 1830 is more straightforward than many games, 
the danger is of making design decisions in the basic model that makes it 
more difficult to extend to accomodate richer feature sets.

From a game specific rules set, it is generally easier to disable 
functionality than it is to introduce whole new capabilities. For example, 
many 18xx titles have major, minor and private companies, not just the major 
and private of 1830. 1837 has 4 types of company with "coal" companies as 
well. Some titles allow minor companies to merge. 1841 almost allows 
arbitrary company mergers. 1870 allows companies to buy their own stock. 
1837 and 1854 have hexagonal stock charts - the so called 2.5 dimensional 
stock chart. 1860 has a linear stock chart.

While it is more work to begin with, I think that we'd get a better 
framework with an object model designed to handle a richer feature set and 
then constrain it with rules for 1830. If we get the framework right and 
exploit polymorphic methods we can save a lot of work later on.

Another issue to be considered is "persistence". How are we going to save 
the game to disk? What persistence mechanism are we going to use? Java 
serialization? Record based flat files? Database? This also has an impact on 
the design of the generic framework.

Its impossible for me to describe my software development experience without 
sounding terribly boastful! But, I have considerable experience in designing 
large OO systems with Java as my preferred language of choice. I also have a 
large collection of 18xx titles! :-)

I've started sketching out a few thoughts in Visio. Can you read UML? If you 
are interested, I can design a domain object model for a generic framework?

I think that XML is a good way to go for the rule sets - and, I've got lots 
of experience with XML as well.... :-)  I've also written Swing applications 
- not really my idea of fun as I'm mainly a relational database guy. I 
started in the software business in 1980, so I've had plenty of time to 
build lots of experience!

regards

Stewart

RE: [Rails-devel] RE: First goal?

[Erik V. <eri...@hc...>]

 
> >My main question for now is: what kind of animal you have in mind for
> > a first working prototype? A servlet? Applet? What kind of 
> user interface?
> 
> I expect to write a stand-alone app, and probably employ Java 
> Web Start at some point to aid with running the app over the 
> web. I'm taking many cues from both Vassal and Colossus, as 
> they seem to have trod this path already.
> 
> The UI is probably the biggest thing I'm looking for suggestions on.

I've little experience in implementing user interfaces, 
most of my work has always been on the back-end side (servers etc.).
User-friendliness I can judge. But I've never done anything with Swing,
Postscript, graphical artwork etc. Just a bit of Java AWT 8 years ago,
and quite some HTML/Javascript (with Perl CGI's and Java servlets) later on
(I'm currently doing a project in plain old C).
 
> I'm definitely interested in making the app look and feel 
> similar to the old 1830 PC game. If you haven't seen/played 
> it, you can find it on many abandonware sites around the web. 
> While the 1830 UI wasn't perfect, it did have a lot of things 
> I really like that, in the long-term, I'd like to attempt to 
> clone, such as how they handled the stock rounds and the 
> purchasing of little companies. However, one of the areas I 
> definitely want to diverge from that old UI is to attempt to 
> keep as much relevant game information on a single screen as possible.

Yes, I have 1830PC and I agree with your view.

> One of my bigger complaints about the 1830 PC game was that 
> there were separate screens for just about everything. To me, 
> this seems a bit clumsy, and probably has more to do with the 
> limitations of developing a DOS-based game than anything else.

And the low resolution it was apparently designed for.

> The number one thing I can say is, if you've got an idea or a 
> suggestion, voice it. The more contributions, the fast the 
> project moves.

We could put different views (map, market, company view etc.)
in different windows or panes, so that users can move and resize.

No grand ideas yet, sorry. I would tend to start bottom-up,
creating prototypes that show part of the functionality and 
later fit things together. All using the same base classes, of course.

For instance, I could try to work out the Stock market, building upon
some of your classes and the StockPrice I sent you yesterday,
to create a servlet that would display the stock market,
with 4 buttons per company for the market-related movements:
PayOut (right/up), Withhold (left/down), SoldOut(up), Sell(down)
to let the tokens move over the display. 
Output would be HTML initially.
This would be little more than a demo, but in the background we would get
a number of classes that can be reused for the final UI machine
(which I don't envision yet), and a stockmarket definition file
(XML if we standardise on that). And then on to something else.

Is that a reasonable approach?

Erik.

[Rails-devel] Project Goals

[<wak...@ea...>]

OK... so, now that we've got a few people on the list, it's a good time to talk about the goals of this project, both long-term and short-term.

The long-term goals of this project are, in no particular order:

1. Allow human players to play of any and all 18xx games.
2. Support hotseat play.
3. Support play-by-email (PBEM).
4. Support network play.
5. Allow human players to play against computer (AI) opponents.
6. Allow for statistical analysis of games and strategies.
7. Support automated best-route calculation

The short term goals (i.e. first major release) of this project are:

1. Allow hotseat play of <the most "basic" 18xx game>. I believe this is 1830.

Milestones we need to reach before we can achieve the first release:

1. Create generic object framework for 18xx game mechanics.
     I've started the first stages of this.
2. Design and architect the UI for the game.
   2a. Stock Market Chart
   2b. Map
   2c. Little Company Auction
   2d. Other UI constructs
3. Determine what format the rulesets will be stored in, and code support for this.
     I'm thinking perhaps XML.
4. Determine what format the game's graphics will use, and code support for this. 
     Using PNG or PostScript for the tiles and maps, maybe?
5. Create documentation for new developers and new players.
6. Create graphics for the game, or, with permission, use graphics from another project.
     Someone has already posted references to existing tilesets. See the mailing list archives.
     Groups like the 18xx group on Yahoo! may be willing to allow us to use the materials they've already created for doing PBEM games.


That's the basic task list off the top of my head.  Does it sound about right? Am I missing anything?


---Brett.

[Rails-devel] RE: First goal?

[<wak...@ea...>]

> It seems the files arrived with CR+LF line endings,
> so they showed up double-spaced in Eclipse.

Ah, yep.  That's likely due to my using Eclipse under Windows XP.

I'll see if I can't find a setting in Eclipse to tweak that.

Failing that, Eclipse does have a source formatter that, once you define how you like your code formatted, you can have it sweep through and reformat everything.

I don't expect everyone to use my coding style, or to even like it. I figure, as soon as we have a significant enough amount of code, we should layout some sort of formal rules about what style we're going to keep the code in. However, for now, any patches you have, I'll do the reformatting before I commit it to CVS if I feel it's necessary.

>I"m reasonably proficient in Java, so maybe I can help,
> although we"ll have to see how things develop.

Great!  I'm happy to have you aboard.

>My main question for now is: what kind of animal you have in mind for
> a first working prototype? A servlet? Applet? What kind of user interface?

I expect to write a stand-alone app, and probably employ Java Web Start at some point to aid with running the app over the web. I'm taking many cues from both Vassal and Colossus, as they seem to have trod this path already.

The UI is probably the biggest thing I'm looking for suggestions on.

I'm definitely interested in making the app look and feel similar to the old 1830 PC game. If you haven't seen/played it, you can find it on many abandonware sites around the web. While the 1830 UI wasn't perfect, it did have a lot of things I really like that, in the long-term, I'd like to attempt to clone, such as how they handled the stock rounds and the purchasing of little companies. However, one of the areas I definitely want to diverge from that old UI is to attempt to keep as much relevant game information on a single screen as possible.

One of my bigger complaints about the 1830 PC game was that there were separate screens for just about everything. To me, this seems a bit clumsy, and probably has more to do with the limitations of developing a DOS-based game than anything else.

The number one thing I can say is, if you've got an idea or a suggestion, voice it. The more contributions, the fast the project moves.


---Brett.

[Rails-devel] First goal?

[Erik V. <eri...@hc...>]

Hi Brett and others,

I've installed TortoiseCVS, fetched your classes,
and had a look at them via Eclipse. 

It seems the files arrived with CR+LF line endings,
so they showed up double-spaced in Eclipse.
I guess it's my problem, I will play with the Tortoise settings
to try getting this right. 
For now I have made a small Perl script to strip the sources.

I'm reasonably proficient in Java, so maybe I can help,
although we'll have to see how things develop.

My main question for now is: what kind of animal you have in mind for
a first working prototype? A servlet? Applet? What kind of user interface?

Erik.

[Rails-devel] First files

[Brett L. <bre...@ea...>]

Ok... the first rudimentary files are up in CVS.

Right now, I've been working on putting together the basic objects for=
 implementing the game mechanics.

These files are still kind of ugly, and very incomplete, but it's a=
 starting point.

I'm using Eclipse as my IDE, so I've included the .project and .classpath=
 files if you wish to also use Eclipse.


---Brett.

Re: [Rails-devel] Re: non-Java help?

[Brett L. <bre...@ea...>]

Great!   I'll definitely take a look at them.


---Brett.

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 2/24/2005 at 8:49 PM Akiyoshi NOMURA using aki...@ni...=
 declared:

>Hello Randy and Brett, 
>
>> We"ll need images of all the tiles. We"ll need documentation.
>
>I used Marco Rocci's TileDesigner to create tile images for v18xx.   
>You can see all tiles in 18xx.mod, which is a renamed zip archive.  
>Some tiles are not defined in his TileDictionary, so I made definition 
>file for TileDesigner.  If you use TileDesigner and need definition files 
>for 18AL, 18GA, 18EU, 1830Reading, 1889, tile #0052, Chirs Lawson's 
>tile #80-83 and #544-546, I am willing to send them.  
>
>Akiyoshi NOMURA
>  mailto:aki...@ni...

********** REPLY SEPARATOR END **********
This message sent with 100% recycled electrons.

[Rails-devel] Re: non-Java help?

[Akiyoshi N. <aki...@ni...>]

Hello Randy and Brett, 

> We"ll need images of all the tiles. We"ll need documentation.

I used Marco Rocci's TileDesigner to create tile images for v18xx.   
You can see all tiles in 18xx.mod, which is a renamed zip archive.  
Some tiles are not defined in his TileDictionary, so I made definition 
file for TileDesigner.  If you use TileDesigner and need definition files 
for 18AL, 18GA, 18EU, 1830Reading, 1889, tile #0052, Chirs Lawson's 
tile #80-83 and #544-546, I am willing to send them.  

Akiyoshi NOMURA
  mailto:aki...@ni...

Re: [Rails-devel] non-Java help?

[Brett L. <bre...@ea...>]

Absolutely!

We'll need images of all the tiles. We'll need documentation.

Once we figure out what format the rules sets for each game is going to be,=
 we'll need people to create the rules sets for each 18xx game. I'm=
 currently thinking XML may be the way to go here, but I'm not completely=
 sure.

Being that very little other than the programming language is set in stone,=
 there's a TON of things you can help with, including suggestions on the=
 design of the application.

Also, if you have experience other languages, especially other OO=
 languages, Java isn't difficult to pick up.


---Brett.


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 2/23/2005 at 10:56 PM Randy Shipp using ran...@gm... declared:

>Will there be any tasks for a non-Java programmer?
>
>Randy...
>
>

********** REPLY SEPARATOR END **********
This message sent with 100% recycled electrons.

[Rails-devel] non-Java help?

[Randy S. <ran...@gm...>]

Will there be any tasks for a non-Java programmer?

Randy...

[Rails-devel] First message

[<wak...@ea...>]

This is the first e-mail to the rails-devel mailing list.

Hello and welcome to the list.

Further information will be forthcoming.


---Brett.