rails-devel

[Rails-devel] Keeping compatibility (was: Test report: 1835 in Rails 1.5.1)

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

I agree that tidying up these behaviours would be a good thing. 

I think removing popups is easy to do.  Pressing the 'OK' on such popups does not count as a player action. 

But removing unnecessary 'Pass' and 'Done' actions is a different matter, because it has a bad side effect: all saved games that contain at least one such removed action will no longer load. At least not without special compatibility code to detect and catch such cases (and I'm not sure if it's feasible at all).  This is especially bad for the developers, who heavily rely on sometimes pretty old saved files for testing.

This consideration has so far kept me from removing such actions.  The one case I once did has caused me a lot of trouble.

Ultimately we will have to bite the bullet.  There is already quite some compatibility code that I would like to get rid of as well.
Would it be an idea to set this as a goal for Rails 2.0?  Or 2.1?  Remember: it means that we will have to rebuild all test cases.  Not just those in the repository.

Erik.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: brett lentz [mailto:bre...@gm...]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 3:19 AM
> To: Development list for Rails: an 18xx game
> Subject: Re: [Rails-devel] Test report: 1835 in Rails 1.5.1 (Windows XP)
> 
> On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 8:13 PM, John David Galt
> <jd...@di...> wrote:
> > Observations in playtest game of 1835 on Rails 1.5.1 on 2011-10-10.
> >
> > 2. During a starting packet purchase round, if a player cannot take
> > any action (has too little money to buy anything currently available)
> > a popup appears "[name] cannot buy anything" with an OK button.  If
> > two players are skipped they are combined on one popup.  That's cute,
> > but I'd prefer the turns be silently skipped.
> >
> > Oddly enough, the stock round behavior is not the same.  If a player
> > cannot take any action on his stock turn (he has too little money to
> > buy anything currently available, and owns nothing that can currently
> > be sold) he still gets a turn, even though "Pass" and "Autopass" are
> > the only actions allowed.  Again, I'd prefer the turn be silently skipped.
> >
> 
> My suggestion is that these behaviors should:
> 
> 1. Be consistent.
> 2. Have a preference for whether the user wants to explicitly hit "next" (or
> an equivalent) or automatically skip no-op actions.
> 
> ---Brett.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a
> definitive record of customers, application performance, security threats,
> fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it.
> Business sense. IT sense. Common sense.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2d-oct
> _______________________________________________
> Rails-devel mailing list
> Rai...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rails-devel

Re: [Rails-devel] Keeping compatibility (was: Test report: 1835 in Rails 1.5.1)

[brett l. <bre...@gm...>]

I didn't necessarily mean remove the actions from the log or save
file. I meant simply that we'd silently move the game forward until
there's an action needing player intervention.

---Brett.



On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 5:56 AM, Erik Vos <eri...@xs...> wrote:
> I agree that tidying up these behaviours would be a good thing.
>
> I think removing popups is easy to do.  Pressing the 'OK' on such popups does not count as a player action.
>
> But removing unnecessary 'Pass' and 'Done' actions is a different matter, because it has a bad side effect: all saved games that contain at least one such removed action will no longer load. At least not without special compatibility code to detect and catch such cases (and I'm not sure if it's feasible at all).  This is especially bad for the developers, who heavily rely on sometimes pretty old saved files for testing.
>
> This consideration has so far kept me from removing such actions.  The one case I once did has caused me a lot of trouble.
>
> Ultimately we will have to bite the bullet.  There is already quite some compatibility code that I would like to get rid of as well.
> Would it be an idea to set this as a goal for Rails 2.0?  Or 2.1?  Remember: it means that we will have to rebuild all test cases.  Not just those in the repository.
>
> Erik.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: brett lentz [mailto:bre...@gm...]
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 3:19 AM
>> To: Development list for Rails: an 18xx game
>> Subject: Re: [Rails-devel] Test report: 1835 in Rails 1.5.1 (Windows XP)
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 8:13 PM, John David Galt
>> <jd...@di...> wrote:
>> > Observations in playtest game of 1835 on Rails 1.5.1 on 2011-10-10.
>> >
>> > 2. During a starting packet purchase round, if a player cannot take
>> > any action (has too little money to buy anything currently available)
>> > a popup appears "[name] cannot buy anything" with an OK button.  If
>> > two players are skipped they are combined on one popup.  That's cute,
>> > but I'd prefer the turns be silently skipped.
>> >
>> > Oddly enough, the stock round behavior is not the same.  If a player
>> > cannot take any action on his stock turn (he has too little money to
>> > buy anything currently available, and owns nothing that can currently
>> > be sold) he still gets a turn, even though "Pass" and "Autopass" are
>> > the only actions allowed.  Again, I'd prefer the turn be silently skipped.
>> >
>>
>> My suggestion is that these behaviors should:
>>
>> 1. Be consistent.
>> 2. Have a preference for whether the user wants to explicitly hit "next" (or
>> an equivalent) or automatically skip no-op actions.
>>
>> ---Brett.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a
>> definitive record of customers, application performance, security threats,
>> fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it.
>> Business sense. IT sense. Common sense.
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2d-oct
>> _______________________________________________
>> Rails-devel mailing list
>> Rai...@li...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rails-devel
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a
> definitive record of customers, application performance, security
> threats, fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes
> sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Common sense.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2d-oct
> _______________________________________________
> Rails-devel mailing list
> Rai...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rails-devel
>

Re: [Rails-devel] Keeping compatibility (was: Test report: 1835 in Rails 1.5.1)

[John D. G. <jd...@di...>]

On 2011-10-11 05:46, brett lentz wrote:
> I didn't necessarily mean remove the actions from the log or save
> file. I meant simply that we'd silently move the game forward until
> there's an action needing player intervention.

That's what I meant also.  Let the report window (log) continue to report that
"Bill couldn't buy anything."  If the player wonders why his turn was skipped,
he can look there.

Re: [Rails-devel] Keeping compatibility (was: Test report: 1835 in Rails 1.5.1)

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

I understand, but that would mean adding special compatibility code to skip such now 'silent' player actions when loading a saved file.

That's possible, but it's ugly.  For a long time, there has been such code in Game.load() to cope with one removed 'Done' action in (I believe) 1856.  That code is gone now.
There is also such a case in 18EU, where I have not added compatibility code, but where have had to edit lots of old saved files to remove that extra 'Done', and I still occasionally encounter such saved files.

Erik.

> 
> I didn't necessarily mean remove the actions from the log or save file. I
> meant simply that we'd silently move the game forward until there's an
> action needing player intervention.
> 
> ---Brett.
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 5:56 AM, Erik Vos <eri...@xs...> wrote:
> > I agree that tidying up these behaviours would be a good thing.
> >
> > I think removing popups is easy to do.  Pressing the 'OK' on such popups
> does not count as a player action.
> >
> > But removing unnecessary 'Pass' and 'Done' actions is a different matter,
> because it has a bad side effect: all saved games that contain at least one
> such removed action will no longer load. At least not without special
> compatibility code to detect and catch such cases (and I'm not sure if it's
> feasible at all).  This is especially bad for the developers, who heavily rely on
> sometimes pretty old saved files for testing.
> >
> > This consideration has so far kept me from removing such actions.  The one
> case I once did has caused me a lot of trouble.
> >
> > Ultimately we will have to bite the bullet.  There is already quite some
> compatibility code that I would like to get rid of as well.
> > Would it be an idea to set this as a goal for Rails 2.0?  Or 2.1?  Remember: it
> means that we will have to rebuild all test cases.  Not just those in the
> repository.
> >
> > Erik.

Re: [Rails-devel] Keeping compatibility (was: Test report: 1835 in Rails 1.5.1)

[Stefan F. <ste...@we...>]

The solution Brett suggested was implemented by me some time ago:
This enabled the auto-pass in the Start-Round.

It does not skip an action or player, but selects and executes the pass action 
automatically if it is the only possible action for a Player. The advantage of 
this is that does not break the save file compatibility.

I mentioned at that time that this behavior could be extended to the 
ShareRound if we check if the ActionSet only consists of Pass and Autopass.

At that time I did introduce the new message to the ReportBuffer (this creates 
the Popup before the next player without Autopass) to make players aware of 
the changed behavior.

Maybe the best solution is to make this configurable.
Something like AutoSkipPassingPlayers = {Silent, Warn, No}

Any thoughts what the default should be? This reminds me that in principle the 
configuration system allows different default profiles, maybe we should have 
one for beginner and one for experts?

Stefan




On Tuesday, October 11, 2011 03:36:23 pm Erik Vos wrote:
> I understand, but that would mean adding special compatibility code to skip
> such now 'silent' player actions when loading a saved file.
> 
> That's possible, but it's ugly.  For a long time, there has been such code
> in Game.load() to cope with one removed 'Done' action in (I believe) 1856.
>  That code is gone now. There is also such a case in 18EU, where I have
> not added compatibility code, but where have had to edit lots of old saved
> files to remove that extra 'Done', and I still occasionally encounter such
> saved files.
> 
> Erik.
> 
> > I didn't necessarily mean remove the actions from the log or save file. I
> > meant simply that we'd silently move the game forward until there's an
> > action needing player intervention.
> > 
> > ---Brett.
> > 
> > On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 5:56 AM, Erik Vos <eri...@xs...> wrote:
> > > I agree that tidying up these behaviours would be a good thing.
> > > 
> > > I think removing popups is easy to do.  Pressing the 'OK' on such
> > > popups
> > 
> > does not count as a player action.
> > 
> > > But removing unnecessary 'Pass' and 'Done' actions is a different
> > > matter,
> > 
> > because it has a bad side effect: all saved games that contain at least
> > one such removed action will no longer load. At least not without
> > special compatibility code to detect and catch such cases (and I'm not
> > sure if it's feasible at all).  This is especially bad for the
> > developers, who heavily rely on sometimes pretty old saved files for
> > testing.
> > 
> > > This consideration has so far kept me from removing such actions.  The
> > > one
> > 
> > case I once did has caused me a lot of trouble.
> > 
> > > Ultimately we will have to bite the bullet.  There is already quite
> > > some
> > 
> > compatibility code that I would like to get rid of as well.
> > 
> > > Would it be an idea to set this as a goal for Rails 2.0?  Or 2.1? 
> > > Remember: it
> > 
> > means that we will have to rebuild all test cases.  Not just those in the
> > repository.
> > 
> > > Erik.
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --- All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains
> a definitive record of customers, application performance, security
> threats, fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes
> sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Common sense.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2d-oct
> _______________________________________________
> Rails-devel mailing list
> Rai...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rails-devel

Re: [Rails-devel] Keeping compatibility (was: Test report: 1835 in Rails 1.5.1)

[Stefan F. <ste...@we...>]

My current roadmap is to allow at least reading the save file fomat of the 
Rails 1.x series for Rails 2.0 to keep test games for the major redesigning.

When to introduce a new file format  used to write save files is open and can 
be 2.0 but it is also possible that it will occur later.


> This consideration has so far kept me from removing such actions.  The one
> case I once did has caused me a lot of trouble.
> 
> Ultimately we will have to bite the bullet.  There is already quite some
> compatibility code that I would like to get rid of as well. Would it be an
> idea to set this as a goal for Rails 2.0?  Or 2.1?  Remember: it means
> that we will have to rebuild all test cases.  Not just those in the
> repository.
> 
> Erik.
> 

Re: [Rails-devel] Keeping compatibility (was: Test report: 1835 in Rails 1.5.1)

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

I have added a new section to the Wiki main page, called "Plans", with a
link to a new sub-page called "Legacy clean-ups".
In that new page I have started to describe changes that are on the
wish-list but have been postponed as these would cause saved game
compatibility problems.
The goal is to have a to-do list handy whenever we decide to build a new
version that is no longer compatible.

See also my separate mail in response to John David Galt.

Erik

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stefan Frey [mailto:ste...@we...]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 6:38 PM
> To: Development list for Rails: an 18xx game
> Subject: Re: [Rails-devel] Keeping compatibility (was: Test report: 1835
in
> Rails 1.5.1)
> 
> My current roadmap is to allow at least reading the save file fomat of the
> Rails 1.x series for Rails 2.0 to keep test games for the major
redesigning.
> 
> When to introduce a new file format  used to write save files is open and
can
> be 2.0 but it is also possible that it will occur later.
> 
> 
> > This consideration has so far kept me from removing such actions.  The
one
> > case I once did has caused me a lot of trouble.
> >
> > Ultimately we will have to bite the bullet.  There is already quite some
> > compatibility code that I would like to get rid of as well. Would it be
an
> > idea to set this as a goal for Rails 2.0?  Or 2.1?  Remember: it means
> > that we will have to rebuild all test cases.  Not just those in the
> > repository.
> >
> > Erik.

Re: [Rails-devel] Keeping compatibility (was: Test report: 1835 in Rails 1.5.1)

[<Dr....@t-...>]

Hi Erik, 

	since i am not yet officially in the list of contributors with access
i cant edit the wiki. 

	Can you grant me access ? 

	And yes i would still send my patches to the list first for comments
and checking :) 

	Regards, 

	Martin  

	  Von: "Erik Vos" <eri...@xs...>
 An: "'Development list for Rails: an 18xx game'"
<rai...@li...>
 Betreff: Re: [Rails-devel] Keeping compatibility (was: Test report:
1835 in Rails 1.5.1)
 Datum: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 12:23:25 +0200

 I have added a new section to the Wiki main page, called "Plans",
with a
 link to a new sub-page called "Legacy clean-ups".
 In that new page I have started to describe changes that are on the
 wish-list but have been postponed as these would cause saved game
 compatibility problems.
 The goal is to have a to-do list handy whenever we decide to build a
new
 version that is no longer compatible.

 See also my separate mail in response to John David Galt.

 Erik

 > -----Original Message-----
 > From: Stefan Frey [mailto:ste...@we...]
 > Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 6:38 PM
 > To: Development list for Rails: an 18xx game
 > Subject: Re: [Rails-devel] Keeping compatibility (was: Test report:
1835
 in
 > Rails 1.5.1)
 > 
 > My current roadmap is to allow at least reading the save file fomat
of the
 > Rails 1.x series for Rails 2.0 to keep test games for the major
 redesigning.
 > 
 > When to introduce a new file format  used to write save files is
open and
 can
 > be 2.0 but it is also possible that it will occur later.
 > 
 > 
 > > This consideration has so far kept me from removing such actions.
 The
 one
 > > case I once did has caused me a lot of trouble.
 > >
 > > Ultimately we will have to bite the bullet.  There is already
quite some
 > > compatibility code that I would like to get rid of as well. Would
it be
 an
 > > idea to set this as a goal for Rails 2.0?  Or 2.1?  Remember: it
means
 > > that we will have to rebuild all test cases.  Not just those in
the
 > > repository.
 > >
 > > Erik.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure
contains a
 definitive record of customers, application performance, security
 threats, fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and
makes
 sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Common sense.
 http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2d-oct
 _______________________________________________
 Rails-devel mailing list
 Rai...@li...
 https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rails-devel