Can I make a fork of Zandronum?

[Slim]

"Quickly glancing through the server list I see that almost every populated server (except CTF), has some form of mod loaded."

Sure. Skin WADs and Font changers.

Yeah umm, let's take a stab at one of the two things that keeps the Doom community rolling. That'll get you help on your fork. Get a WAD editor and open up some WADs sometime, see how they're filled with DECORATE and ACS? Yeah umm, Looks like Skin WADs and Font changers to me. Sarcasm*

*covering ears* "BALALALALALALAH I DIDN'T HEAR THAT"
Dem quotes.

[Quaker540]

I realized what kind of insult that was to everyone when I said "Sure. Skin WADS and Font changers", and I've to say a massive apology to everyone that got offended by this. Of course, at the time I posted that I was like "Oh. Again. Maybe an reply that is offensive could possibly get my request". Of course I didn't had my brains in mind back then, but since I've them now, I'm terribly sorry for such reply. I will bin it.

Now, answer time!

"This question shows that you are neither sufficiently experienced with ZDoom's inner workings (otherwise you would know the answer) nor sufficiently experienced with programming in a large scale project (otherwise you would find the answer in a minute with your favorite search tool) to go for the file-by-file approach."

This is why I can't find an answer; I didn't use any "favorite" search tool.

"Having the blunt part said, you can surely learn everything you need and the revision-by-revision approach combined with fixes of backport problems will help you learn exactly what you need (and helps Zandronum along the way). To get you on track with the fixing part, let me try to answer your question: The flags are declared in one place, but the implementation is not centralized, but scattered all over the source. Do you have a tool at hand that can search through all source files simultaneously? Searching the code for the flag name is the easiest way to find where the implementation is. A quick search reveals that the internal name of BOUNCEONACTORS is BOUNCE_AllActors (seen in thingdef_data.cpp). Further searching for BOUNCE_AllActors shows that P_BounceActor in p_map.cpp is a place to start looking for the problem."

So you guys want me in the development team? :D

"For instance, how ZDoom handles the game logic. How the main Doom loop is structured, what thinkers are, what the tickers are, how state jumping works, how actors can travel from map to map, how the platform dependent code interfaces with the non-platform dependent code, and dozens of other things."

OK then.

"Intended or not, this is a huge insult to Zandronum's modding scene as a whole. If this is your true attitude, I doubt that any further discussion will lead to anything."

As I mentioned above, I understand what kind of "shitty" reply that was and I'll bin it.

Also Suicide Slim, I'm dead serious that many WADs cannot run onto Zandronum. This is my main reason why I rarely use it. I know there are a few ones onto Zandronum's server list, but there are not the ones I play. I hope I was clear enough this time.

Also, those who discourage me on continuing this (Posts such as; "You'll have 1 month max and you will get bored") don't you have something better to do in your life instead of harassing a poor guy? Instead of annoying faceless people on the Internet, I suggest for ya to just get out of this thread.

[Tiger]

I will only speak for myself, and I think my post was exactly obvious what I truly mean and the tone. I don't mean to discourage you, but I really think it would be much beneficial to you and the entire Zandronum team (and the community), if you were to help with the Zandronum development. We all would like to see Zandronum (speaking with SkullTag history here) be caught up with (G)ZDoom latest revisions again. ;)

[Quaker540]

I will only speak for myself, and I think my post was exactly obvious what I truly mean and the tone. I don't mean to discourage you, but I really think it would be much beneficial to you and the entire Zandronum team (and the community), if you were to help with the Zandronum development. We all would like to see Zandronum (speaking with SkullTag history here) be caught up with (G)ZDoom latest revisions again. ;)

So can I upload what I've done so far?

[StrikerMan780]

Your best bet is to look at current bugs/issues on the Zandronum tracker, such as that BOUNCEONACTORS bug, and submit working fixes through Bitbucket as pull requests from your own Bitbucket fork of Zandronum.

[one_Two]

Also, those who discourage me on continuing this (Posts such as; "You'll have 1 month max and you will get bored") don't you have something better to do in your life instead of harassing a poor guy? Instead of annoying faceless people on the Internet, I suggest for ya to just get out of this thread.

Well, it's not good for people to encourage you. Any one can tell just by your responses in this thread you dont have what it takes to finish this. I see no technical questions from you just "omg sorry mod makers" etc... shit.

[Popsoap]

These are the kinds of responses that clearly explain the skepticism people have about you.

Ah buddy, I had lots of C++ experiences.

General rule of thumb: don't gloat that you know something, show that you know it instead (i.e. A past project).

Aside from this, just knowing the language doesn't mean that you will understand how every program using it works.

So you guys want me in the development team? :D

Torr's answer never implied this or otherwise. He did it to give you an idea of how to traverse the source code efficiently.

Also, those who discourage me on continuing this (Posts such as; "You'll have 1 month max and you will get bored") don't you have something better to do in your life instead of harassing a poor guy? Instead of annoying faceless people on the Internet, I suggest for ya to just get out of this thread.

This isn't the sort of attitude that a developer (much less one who is part of a team) should have.

[Quaker540]

"General rule of thumb: don't gloat that you know something, show that you know it instead (i.e. A past project).

Aside from this, just knowing the language doesn't mean that you will understand how every program using it works."

I never said that, you know ;)

"Torr's answer never implied this or otherwise. He did it to give you an idea of how to traverse the source code efficiently."

:|

"This isn't the sort of attitude that a developer (much less one who is part of a team) should have."

Hey, wait. I didn't said anything bad; I said that if people simply want to discourage someone, better for them to not do it and keep going. I'm not really sure what your mind thinks otherwise.



I think I had enough from this. I'll stop the project and move on then.

[Tiger]

So can I upload what I've done so far?

That's solely up to you. Just be sure that you follow in terms with the parent licenses and other regulations that Zandronum uses.

Well, it's not good for people to encourage you.

This comment doesn't weigh well with me...

[mifu]

Hey Quaker540,

You can keep doing this. There is always going to be a few people that are going to doubt you but you have already got some interested in your works.

But please take Torr's advice to heart though. He is trying to help you out here. Better yet if you can fix issues and Torr pulls them, you make Torr release builds at a more faster rate :P. Ultimately Torr and co will see this port updated with the latest goodies faster. You do not even need to be in the dev team for this.

Either way keep going. You do not know how far you can go with this until you try.. just take Torr's advice.

[one_Two]

So can I upload what I've done so far?

That's solely up to you. Just be sure that you follow in terms with the parent licenses and other regulations that Zandronum uses.

Well, it's not good for people to encourage you.

This comment doesn't weigh well with me...

It might sound harsh, although I'd never intend to be intentionaly rude to the guy, but there's just no point bullshitting him. Idk how old/ monged he is but when I was first interested in programing I was kinda similar and in the long run I appreciate people telling me its too complicated for my simplistic brain (ambitious stuff anyway).

[Quaker540]

Hey Quaker540,

You can keep doing this. There is always going to be a few people that are going to doubt you but you have already got some interested in your works.

But please take Torr's advice to heart though. He is trying to help you out here. Better yet if you can fix issues and Torr pulls them, you make Torr release builds at a more faster rate :P. Ultimately Torr and co will see this port updated with the latest goodies faster. You do not even need to be in the dev team for this.

Either way keep going. You do not know how far you can go with this until you try.. just take Torr's advice.

Thanks for the support buddy! :D

Sorry now for sounding like I can't find it myself, but I'm not in my computer so I can't use my "favorite search tool", so can someone tell me where the "BOUNCEONACTORS" flag is?

"I was first interested in programing I was kinda similar and in the long run I appreciate people telling me its too complicated for my simplistic brain (ambitious stuff anyway)."

Ah man, I never said I'm new in programming (Which you also misspelled with one "m"!) and I never said my brain is simple or other stuff like that. Sorry for sounding like I'm trying to help but I can't but I think you read all posts here more than you should :/

[one_Two]

Think w.e you like. I dont read many posts but the fuckin thread title pretty much says it all. But funnily you just declared you were gonna give up then started again, I think you should give up because this is a massive waste of time.

[Konda]

Quaker540, by seeing your replies I can tell that there's a misunderstanding between you and other people. Logically speaking, the only actual expert in this specific topic so far is Torr. I'd therefore dismiss others' 'discouragement' and only listen to what Torr says instead. Ignore the psychoanalytical bullshit. Torr knows very well what he's talking about as he's been working on this for YEARS and he knows the source code thoroughly. Receiving advice from him is probably one of the most useful things you can have when it comes to forking Zan. Having a long-time lead dev give you advice on forking his project.

In your place I'd think a lot about everything Torr said and decide what I'm going tmo do.

As for the misunderstanding part, oyou'll learn about howw people think here after some time. Try not to revolt too much because I can guarantee you that people here have a somewhat healthy mind. It's their bluntness that makes them look like asshats in the beginning. After some time you'll learn to process people's comments - to remove the insults from them and look at the point they are trying make

In any case, I wish you good luck with this as I'd love to see something like this happen, among many other people.

[Tiger]

It might sound harsh, although I'd never intend to be intentionaly rude to the guy, but there's just no point bullshitting him. Idk how old/ monged he is but when I was first interested in programing I was kinda similar and in the long run I appreciate people telling me its too complicated for my simplistic brain (ambitious stuff anyway).

There's a difference between downgrading or insulting someone's motivation (ambitions, and energy), and giving out some advice or useful suggestions.

Who would have thought that I would have been able to pull this off? It may seem simple to any average joe that uses it and looks at what is presented to them, but the inner-code is what really tells the story and where the ugliness can be shown ;) . No one really gave me negative or insulting remarks, but only a few minor praises -- mainly because I saw a problem and fixed it, essentially what the purpose of programming truly is. But when you hurt someone's ambitions or motivation, they will hold it against you and\or the community in it self -- those who hold grudges (me) will especially remember it for years even will after abandoning where they could have made a huge impact (regardless of the weight). If you wish to give out cold-hard truths that is fine, but - be reasonable.

Yes, programming is difficult and it will be challenging no matter the subject. But over time, you get better, you learn new techniques, you learn new ways of solving problems, you learn to correct your old mistakes, and you learn much more than what you have ever imagined before you even started. Take for example, did you know that the modulus arithmetic is possible in the Batch Shell, or that you can call functions in Batch and avoid all the spaghetti code? I didn't notice these until the lesser years of the development (2013 - call :function %arg1 etc and 2014 - modulus), and the original development started around 2011 before I joined DRDTeam's SVN Dev. team. What I mean is, yes - it is difficult and I wont deny that it is - - difficult, but regardless what happens there's always new experiences.

[Konda]

Kind of off-topic:

It might sound harsh, although I'd never intend to be intentionaly rude to the guy, but there's just no point bullshitting him. Idk how old/ monged he is but when I was first interested in programing I was kinda similar and in the long run I appreciate people telling me its too complicated for my simplistic brain (ambitious stuff anyway).

While there are differences in intelligence levels or talent, people tend to overexaggerate these differences.
These differences are actually small. Programming is primarily about learning how to think, THEN about learning the actual programming languages. Some people may think faster than others, but in the end it boils down to learning certain thinking patterns For an example: if a=b and b=c then a=c. The first time I saw this, I took some time to process it, but later I didn't need to do that and I could use the same logic for similar things once I understood the logic. It doesn't even have to be math-related. As long as a situation requires the same thinking pattern, you're going to think faster in it. That's simply how the human brains work. Btw this was also written iny psychology textbook. I belive it's called Learning by Insight. Can't remember the psychologist ho tested this the most, but it has beeb determined that this is the most effective way of learning. I guess this is what makes educated people smart. They know a lot of things AND the logic behind all those things. Especially if they know history and thought about it.

So please, disregard the "this is simply not for you" arguments because that's bullshit. That can only apply with mentally damaged people with IQ <= 75 or 80
Unless we're talking about singing. But even writing, painting, and sports cam be masyered by repetition and learning.

I apologize for the typos, my phone is beinf a bitcg.

[SwordGrunt]

You know, a lot of bad things could be said here, but I'll try to give advice like every single person on this thread has - you really shouldn't get upset with the comments that have been made because they're trying to help you. A fork is no use. Why would you do that? Do you honestly think you could do everything at a faster rate than Torr Samaho and the rest of the development team do... by yourself? I think you're insanely underestimating the amount of work that has to be done here. Look at the +BOUNCEONACTORS bug for an example. You don't just copy the ZDoom code over to Zandronum, otherwise we would be up-to-date with their code a week after they release it. You run into bugs that seemingly appear at random, they can be actual bugs in the engine that were not noticed before and thus introduced with the new feature, or they can be as dumb as typos or miscalculations that you don't notice or forget to fix.

Ok, so you fix the bugs. What if that fix introduces a new bug (or as I said before, brings to light an existing one)? Yeah, that sucks, well there you go again in the same batch of code to see what's wrong. Now imagine doing this for hundreds of actors, properties, flags, ACS functions, line specials that you may be updating. Now add the client-server architecture that has to be worked on for every little thing in the game. And I'm sure there's a lot more to it than what I'm saying here, I'm not familiar with programming, let alone ZDoom's coding and Zandronum's multiplayer structure.

My point is, you're better off helping the current development of Zandronum by doing what has already been said here: fixing bugs. This speeds things up, the sooner existing bugs are fixed the sooner you get to move on to backporting more advanced features. If you just throw everything in without working on fixing the problems that every chunk of updated code generates, it ends up in a fucking huge mess where you have no idea where to start working on. This is true for anything you do, be it Doom's code, a map or a modification. Work in small bits and work together, and your chances of succeeding increase significantly.

[Torr Samaho]

So you guys want me in the development team? :D

Well, the beauty of open source development is that everybody can contribute, no matter if officially called developer or not. If you are truly interested in becoming part of the team, that's something we can talk about after you have shown that you are sufficiently experienced. Fixing the problem I mentioned could be a first step in this direction.

This is why I can't find an answer; I didn't use any "favorite" search tool.

Did you ever work with unfamiliar source code? I don't see any reasonable way to do this without a proper search tool. If you're under Linux check out grep, under Windows you can easily search the whole solution with VC++.

Sorry now for sounding like I can't find it myself, but I'm not in my computer so I can't use my "favorite search tool", so can someone tell me where the "BOUNCEONACTORS" flag is?

I already told you where to start looking. If you are as experienced as

Ah buddy, I had lots of C++ experiences.

implies, you should know how to traverse the source to find the problem. Also, if you are not at your computer why do you ask where the flags are? How you want to fix the problem without being at your computer?

[AkumaKing]

Maybe he's editing the code in a .txt and there's a .txt editor on his phone? I don't know, that's the best idea I have about how he could do the code without being at the PC.

[ibm5155]

Maybe he's editing the code in a .txt and there's a .txt editor on his phone? I don't know, that's the best idea I have about how he could do the code without being at the PC.

yuck, making codes at phone is a pain in the ass with that virtual keyboard, and limited screen size D:...

Even more for a big code like zanzan...

EDIT:

We all love you, Quaker540.

[spoiler][/spoiler]