Rich writes:
It seems that every few months someone proposes this grand re-organization of the fractint source code. It sounds great until they actually get into the code and then the sheer size of the task generally has them leaving without further comment.
I'm not saying that Florian couldn't do what he proposes, but the number of previous victims laying dead along that path should serve as fair warning to anyone else proposing the journey. I travelled farther down the path than most, and still it seems people want to re-do what I did instead of build on it.
I agree. I too started reworking the allegro branch a couple of months ago, but then I lost interest because I couldn't even compile properly because of 16-Bit-Problems and weird DOS routines (was ist the allegro branch? I cannot even remember). Apart from that, I didn't want to branch away too much from the existing code base (I did a lot of reorg). If at all you want to create a portable C-Engine by _reworking_ existing code, I guess it would be best to start off with xfractint. If you want to _rewrite_ I'd still do a C-based (or C++-based) engine, taking existing pieces from xfractint one by one.
From a practictal point of view, it may be best to start a GPL-licensed project from scratch on http://www.sourceforge.com/. That way, you can have a centralized CVS repository, web-space, task tracker, downloads and all that stuff.
Don't underestimate the desgin! Do not start coding until you know what it shoud look like (unless you want to do lots of 'extreme programming'). The key to software design is to divide into modules, with simple, yet effective interfaces ... Just some thoughts... Florian A side note, Rich, I think people tend to build stuff from scratch because it is in their nature. But the real challenge is not to reinvent the wheel, but to put pieces together to create something that is bigger than the sum of its pieces (is that how you say it english?) Ugh, huge words at 2:30 in the morning ...
-----Original Message----- From: fractdev-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:fractdev-bounces@mailman.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Rich Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 6:07 PM To: Fractint developer's list Subject: Re: [Fractdev] Re: WinFract, parallel development, etc
In article <1068536385.11076.44.camel@localhost.localdomain>, Edwin <edwin@bathysphere.org> writes:
Florian's wish list sounds very appealing, and also fairly familiar -
Yes, it has been discussed in the context of fractint many, many, many, many times before.
It seems that every few months someone proposes this grand re-organization of the fractint source code. It sounds great until they actually get into the code and then the sheer size of the task generally has them leaving without further comment.
I'm not saying that Florian couldn't do what he proposes, but the number of previous victims laying dead along that path should serve as fair warning to anyone else proposing the journey. I travelled farther down the path than most, and still it seems people want to re-do what I did instead of build on it. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/> Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty <http://pilgrimage.scene.org>
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