Tomb Raider Forums  

Go Back   Tomb Raider Forums > Tomb Raider Level Editor and Modding > Tomb Raider Level Editor > Software Development

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 08-11-15, 20:17   #1821
Dustie
Member
 
Dustie's Avatar
 
Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 9,208
Default

Umm, that sounds like the argument was actually more serious then we thought and things really have stopped?
Dustie is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-11-15, 20:56   #1822
HeinzFritz
Member
 
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 536
Default

Looks like the only successful programming & development so far has been achieved as old fashioned one man show.
In short:
Democracy doesn't work!
Neither here, nor there.
HeinzFritz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-11-15, 21:17   #1823
VictorXD
Member
 
VictorXD's Avatar
 
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 9,827
Default

Ooooh That sounds pretty bad... can anyone tell me exactly what happened? It seemed to be going so well with a lot of people working on this and progress was much faster. If only one person is working at this it will take forever... there are still SO many things that need to implemented :/
VictorXD is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-15, 09:46   #1824
vvsgh
Member
 
Joined: Jun 2015
Posts: 138
Default

I don't think that something unusual happened in particular. It seems that OpenTomb is just of low priority for the developers right now. The slow progress is nothing new considering that there never were too many people working on it. TeslaRus found a new job which takes almost all of his time. Also, he was not very fond of the changes in the main branch and he preferred to stay away from it for a while. Lwmte seems to be occupied by his real life too. T4Larson is still working on collision processing in his spare time but updates are rare. Stohrendorf is still working on his refactoring branch. Others seem to have their differences with the decisions made in the past. I'm certainly intending to test it and do small fixes when there is something ready to test.

Overall, there is not enough manpower behind the project. All low hanging fruit is already ripped off and the remaining work needs much more planning and consolidated effort. Anyway, that's how I see it.

Put it differently, there is a lack of leadership and everyone is working on his preferred pet features.

Last edited by vvsgh; 09-11-15 at 09:56.
vvsgh is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-15, 11:55   #1825
Cochrane
Golden
 
Cochrane's Avatar
 
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 16,751
Default

Vvsgh: That is a… surprising point of view, considering that most developers have quit the project, all communication between developers has ended, the Github site has seen no meaningful activity for months, and the few people who are still developing aren't sharing code or talking to each other. To each their own interpretation, I guess, but I know you were around for all of that, so I am not sure where your positive attitude is coming from.

For everyone else: I don't think I'm qualified to speak about things neutrally, since I'm still too angry, and honestly speaking, too much of it is my fault. I certainly didn't help prevent it. But on a basic level, the problem is that we weren't able to manage a project of this size properly, and when big changes came in, we didn't handle it well, didnt understand or discuss it properly, and then the whole thing basically came to a halt. It is not a case of any big drama or argument or something (though we did have a bit of that), it's mostly just big changes handled really badly by well meaning and competent people all around. Sorry about that. If you want details, it's all public in this thread and the issues section of the Github site.

If the project is making a comeback now, that's awesome! I wish everybody the best of luck.
Cochrane is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-15, 11:57   #1826
Caesum
Member
 
Caesum's Avatar
 
Joined: Aug 2008
Posts: 12,070
Default

Is it possible to just, I don't know, halt the project for a while, check what's done and what's not, and then just plan what should be done and who should do what and try again? I mean, so you could combine branches into one and start from it again?

Last edited by Caesum; 09-11-15 at 11:58.
Caesum is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-15, 12:37   #1827
vvsgh
Member
 
Joined: Jun 2015
Posts: 138
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cochrane View Post
That is a… surprising point of view, considering that most developers have quit the project
Well, they denied that previously. At least TeslaRus and Lwmte did. So, I just believe what they said

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cochrane View Post
all communication between developers has ended
That's true, unfortunately.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cochrane View Post
the Github site has seen no meaningful activity for months
Things are not that bad. At least I value the work that happened on the collision front. TeslaRus is doing very interesting things too, but his branch would require much effort to integrate it back to the main branch.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cochrane View Post
and the few people who are still developing aren't sharing code or talking to each other.
True. I'd love to see someone to step forward and bring everyone together again. Lwmte did much of this work previously by posting regularly and actively promoting the project.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cochrane View Post
To each their own interpretation, I guess, but I know you were around for all of that, so I am not sure where your positive attitude is coming from.
Perhaps, I wouldn't stress the differences and just concentrate on the common interests.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cochrane View Post
I'm still too angry, and honestly speaking, too much of it is my fault.
Sorry to hear that. Personally, I never saw it that way. I still think that someone should be an active leader which makes considerable efforts to present things positively and post some exciting news for the community. That would stimulate more interest and friendly attitude toward each other.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cochrane View Post
But on a basic level, the problem is that we weren't able to manage a project of this size properly, and when big changes came in, we didn't handle it well, didnt understand or discuss it properly, and then the whole thing basically came to a halt.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. But we need to act constructively. Blaming won't help. Shouldn't we leave that negative stuff in the past and make sure that everything would be handled better from now on? Come on guys, there is much interest in the future of this project. People laying their hopes on you all.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cochrane View Post
If the project is making a comeback now, that's awesome! I wish everybody the best of luck.
I hope that if things start to change for better you will return. Your previous work on the rendering side was invaluable. I don't believe that somebody could replace you there
vvsgh is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-15, 14:21   #1828
Hateshinai
Member
 
Hateshinai's Avatar
 
Joined: May 2008
Posts: 1,564
Default

^
I completely agree with everything said above.

Group projects are always tough but you guys have accomplished so much that it would be a shame to let it go to waste.
All obstacles are meant to be overcome, we just need to keep a positive attitude and try to find the best way to overcome them.

I wish you guys the best of luck and I hope you'll all come to an understanding and will be able to work together again.


Anyone else thinks that Core Design really ought to release that source code someday ?
Hateshinai is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-15, 14:42   #1829
Gh0stBlade
Member
 
Gh0stBlade's Avatar
 
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 2,773
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cochrane View Post
Vvsgh: That is a… surprising point of view, considering that most developers have quit the project, all communication between developers has ended, the Github site has seen no meaningful activity for months, and the few people who are still developing aren't sharing code or talking to each other. To each their own interpretation, I guess, but I know you were around for all of that, so I am not sure where your positive attitude is coming from.

For everyone else: I don't think I'm qualified to speak about things neutrally, since I'm still too angry, and honestly speaking, too much of it is my fault. I certainly didn't help prevent it. But on a basic level, the problem is that we weren't able to manage a project of this size properly, and when big changes came in, we didn't handle it well, didnt understand or discuss it properly, and then the whole thing basically came to a halt. It is not a case of any big drama or argument or something (though we did have a bit of that), it's mostly just big changes handled really badly by well meaning and competent people all around. Sorry about that. If you want details, it's all public in this thread and the issues section of the Github site.

If the project is making a comeback now, that's awesome! I wish everybody the best of luck.
You need to stop being overly dramatic making out as if it's that bad. Then to imply most of the team is competent is plain rude. That really disappoints me to see this coming from you. At the end of the day, we're all fans, have different levels of expertise. We've tried our very best on the project and so far, it's an amazing achievement. I know you're still mad but you shouldn't leave because of this. You know very well the project requires as many people as possible to be completed.

Now, you have some very valid points, especially the parts where you mention major changes not being discussed correctly. Nevertheless, each and every one of us had the right to voice an opinion, revoke such changes and suggest an improvement.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Caesum View Post
Is it possible to just, I don't know, halt the project for a while, check what's done and what's not, and then just plan what should be done and who should do what and try again? I mean, so you could combine branches into one and start from it again?
In my opinion, the entire codebase needs more documentation and restructuring. Some things are simply unnecessarily complex which puts me off. There are too many "hacks" to fix bugs which is the wrong way to go.

=========

There has been A LOT of confusion caused. I thought we were migrating to Github and developing everything in one place. It seems that TeslaRus has decided to work with an older version of the codebase. Substantial changes have been made and as @vvsgh suggested it may be complex to integrate those changes in right now.

I am very sorry that the team has come to this. Communication is KEY I have always suggested maybe something like Skype could be used to collaborate better so we know exactly what each and every one of us is doing or is going to do.

Leadership is a problem here, we never really had a leader or someone who would take on the role fully.

To be honest, the project needs a good cleanup. All the current features need to be reviewed and all the current bugs need to be fixed. There are too many half baked features....

Regards.
Gh0stBlade is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-11-15, 16:40   #1830
Cochrane
Golden
 
Cochrane's Avatar
 
Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 16,751
Default

Wait, did I insult anyone by saying the team was competent? That was not my intention, and frankly, I don't get why this would be insulting. What I meant was that the mess was NOT caused by anyone being an idiot or by anyone being an asshole. Everyone involved was doing good work individually. Yeah, different levels of experience, but there was nobody who was bad. The problem was that the cooperation didn't really work. And yes, that is my fault too.

I fully agree that need more communication is key, but I don't think Skype's the answer. Many people here (e.g.: Me) don't speak english as their first language, and are better at having it written than at actually speaking. Time zones are also an issue.

The best approach would probably be along the lines of other Open Source projects: A mailing list (or forum, or similar) for the discussion; all code comes in via merge requests, that are discussed and not immediately applied; instead people talk talk about them, maybe reject them or demand that they get split into smaller pieces and so on. It's more work all around, but it seems to work for everyone else.

vvsgh: I'm not as irreplaceable as you think; my work was mostly standard stuff that I talked about too much. For me, the main issue why I left was one of infrastructure. I was the only one who developed on and cared about Mac OS X, and so I have to keep the build environment working, ensured that all the libraries are there, the build process worked and so on. That's not something I'm really good at; my solution (prior to the refactoring) was mostly hacked together. I know Cmake is supposed to make it all better in theory, but in practice I never got it working right. This problem will still be there even after everything else has been solved, and after all the time and curse words I spent getting the hacked solution working, I'm really not interested in going there again. Yeah, I know that's selfish. Sorry.
Cochrane is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



All times are GMT. The time now is 12:39.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Tomb Raider Forums is not owned or operated by CDE Entertainment Ltd.
Lara Croft and Tomb Raider are trademarks of CDE Entertainment Ltd.