[freeciv-data] Re: State of the data patches

On Tue, Jan 21, 2003 at 12:18:56AM -0500, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> 
> Jason Dorje Short <[email protected]>:
> > You had about 4 patches, of which some got applied.  But I said "all but 
> > the Barsoom one", which clearly isn't true.
> 
> This could be good or bad, depending on which one you applied.  One of
> those 4 was a rollup patch that included all the other stuff minus Barsoom.
> 
> I just updated CVS.  It looks like what you have is my leader enhancements, 
> without my class/legend stuff, and without a needed correction to the 
> Catalan file.
>  
> > Raimar - I guess the status now is that new fictional nations shouldn't 
> > be added until the class/legend stuff is in place.  But we're not going 
> > to have support for the class/legend stuff for all GUI's...so perhaps we 
> > should push that patch through without GUI support, thus unblocking 
> > further nation development?
> 
> Please do that.  There are more good things I'd like to do with improving
> the nation data, but I can't until I know my new patches won't collide with
> older ones still in the queue
> 
> I've already got a problem that I want to test Raimer's version 3 patch for 
> the new nation dialog, but I know that's going to step on the Catalan fix
> I want to put in, and restoring the ten or so patch bands that Raimer said
> didn't fly when he tried to apply my patch.  Also my wife has thought of
> a couple of queens we can add.  

> There's a lesson here.  Tying the data patch to the GUI stuff complicated
> my life way too much.  The data files are designed so they can be enriched
> without breaking the server's startup parse; we should bear that in mind 
> and decouple the two.

That way we add information in the data files which is never tested
and used. If a new kind of data is added we needed the network code
and the GTK1 client code. GTK2 and Xaw would also be nice to have. You
provided the new data, I wrote the code and now I want people opinions
on the GUI code.

> Here's how I would prefer to handle it, if Raimer doesn't object:
> 
> 1. Raimer, please drop the data-file stuff out of your nation-classification 
> patch entirely so we won't step on each other.  I think it would be better
> if I maintained the class/legend stuff.  I wrote it, after all.

No problem.

> 2. I will take the responsibility to do a rollup patch that will bring 
> the data files fully up to date, *with* class/legend, and *with* Barsoom.

See other mail about the Barsoom. Also merging these two are bad. I
want to have two separate commits for them.

> 3. From now on, the GUI maintainers get to play catchup with the data
> files at their own pace.

This won't work. Also will you be happy if it turns out that nobody
has produced the network and GUI code in 6 months?

> 4. Informally, I'm willing to 'own' the nation files.  Good role for
> me, as improving them is something fun that I can fit into a busy
> schedule, doing lots of small steps, with little risk that I'll
> break anything.

That is very good.

	Raimar

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