Mythruna
May 04, 2024, 01:58:36 PM *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
News: Welcome to the new forums. See "Announcements" for a note for new users.
 
   Home   Help Search Login Register  
Pages: [1]
  Print  
Author Topic: Touching on the Delicate Topic of A Programming Team  (Read 3969 times)
Michael
Donators
Hero Member
***
Posts: 2166



View Profile
« on: April 05, 2015, 06:20:54 PM »

Beg my pardon with this topic, because it has been touched on many occasions of "Joining Mythruna's Development Team."

To start out with, let's review some of what has been talked about:

Time - Time is an issue. Time is money (so to speak). If there is a development team of programmers, there is at least one person needed to make sure the game continues to work properly, and in this case, it will be Paul Speed. He's described that he'd no longer be programming the game, but instead watching over everyone.
Money - Money is what makes the world stay Geometrical. If Mr. Speed doesn't have money to fund workers, he won't be able to pay for the supporters. As well, I expect after beta/release (or whenever it is worth money to buy) then it would be split among people, and Mr. Speed would receive less.
Agreement & Understanding - This kind of relates to time, but some problems that 2+ programmers face for one program is at certain points, on how things work. I have my programming friend that we'll toss ideas at on how to accomplish certain things, and that works fairly well, but when it comes down to actual code, it can be more difficult on how to make things work--especially when it comes to SCRIPTING. Understanding is even worse. If someone's got a bright idea, and they want the other person to work on it, it will be pretty much something that you'll say, "This is the most horrifying thing I've ever seen! NO SUSHI FOR YOU!" Simply putting the Understanding, a person is not able to fully understand another person's idea without having the same brain.

* Those are the few things that I actually remember because I can't really find any of the posts talking about it.

Now, Paul has said that, and I am  paraphrasing, "The best way to help is to be a modder."

Sure, modding can be fun, but when the game is in its current state, there isn't a real modding capability. Sometimes people like to get their hands dirty with the real stuff, and help hook things together.

Now for some other points.

Quicker Work - Two people work together, two people can work on two different ends at the same time. Another great point to make about this is that one person may have a better understanding to know how to program certain things compared to the other person, so that part of the application is less erroneous in the first place, and code can be faster/cleaner as well! Although there may be times when work collides, different work can be given example image below (downside too)


Feedback/Editors - Sometimes a development team can in a way swap ideas and inspect code an everything, and even help correct code as if they've made similar mistakes or they catch mistakes there. Although it doesn't apply much here, sometimes it's like writing an essay--sometimes you need someone to double check what's going on, so it's definite that it works like it should, and if anyone else were to be given the code, they'd understand. Sometimes it can even boil down to performance (EG: Using bitwise operators).

Now for my final point, that struck my curiosity.

A programmer to program in their spare time, and you just hook things together? - Is it a good idea? I know that with people with lives, development can be a struggle, when it boils down to time to program mixed with family/work/other life things that take you away from it. So in a way, if two people program, both in their spare time, more progress can be made as if one works while the other one is busy and vice versa. Even if the extra work isn't much, it can be something.

Paul, you know I'd love to be part of the Mythruna Development Team, and I'm not saying that I'm the best choice AT ALL. I just had this brilliant idea because why not get your input on it?

* This can also be a repository of when people ask to help with development, and it can explain why.
Logged
Rayblon
Donators
Hero Member
***
Posts: 1861


Hmmm...


View Profile
« Reply #1 on: April 05, 2015, 07:05:40 PM »

I think Paul is uncomfortable with teaming up with other people too, because he's coding while looking years into the future... And, well... I'm not a developer myself, but I know that each coder has their own 'handwriting', so to speak. Writing out code that any coder can walk up to and understand without reading the notes on each line is difficult, and that is something Paul may want to avoid. In five years, he may have to come back to your code after you may have left and might struggle to figure out how your code even works, notes or no notes. That's how I see it, anyway.
Logged

pspeed
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 5612



View Profile
« Reply #2 on: April 05, 2015, 09:11:14 PM »

I don't have time to address everything.  Just thinking about it has already taken away valuable design time from other things.

The bottom line: the kind of developers who would actually be helpful are the ones who can already earn a living doing it and/or write their own games.  Anything else, I get less out of it than the effort I'd put in.  I work with professionals every day and in many cases, I can do most things faster than many of them.  But in those cases, we need a team because we are being paid to produce X in T amount of time and one person couldn't do it all.  The key being "we are paid".  Then it's ok to spread the load and let people come up to speed, etc..  When it's only my time being "spent", it doesn't make sense.

Plus, I like writing code and want to continue doing it.  Any quality issues become my own... because they always were my own.

re: modding... here's the thing.  The kind of developer with the right level of experience to actually be helpful and not harmful, would have no problem writing mods even in the current state.  The last "donators only" version of the engine is not that far off from where I am today... and if that were truly the only hurdle then it could easily be remedied.  I mean, people reverse engineered minecraft to make mods... they didn't even have source code to work from and had to hack the game.  Mythruna already has a plugin system and scripting capability... someone with the right gaming and Java chops could easily start making real stuff.  The source code might be a little helpful but it's no panacea. 

The thing is, those same guys could also go write their own game.  Unless I can afford to pay people, I just don't understand how it works.
Logged
Pages: [1]
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.20 | SMF © 2013, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!