Can I make a fork of Zandronum?

[Lollipop]

I am happy to see you are not down, that would be a terrible shame :)

I am curious about how you are going about this, are you implementing the changes one at a time, or are you throwing them all in at the same time and testing that?
I think one change after the other and test after each change would be the best way personally, as you can see when a culprit pop up :)

P.S. I have sent you a PM in case you have overlooked it :)

[Torr Samaho]

Torr Samaho, what would be the process of - wanting to help out the development by fixing reported bugs on the Zandronum Tracker or submitting newer features to the Zandronum engine? I know this is a very vague question, but - I am just curious right now.

Everybody is free to submit patches. As long as they align with our goals and coding standards I'll integrate them into Zandronum. In order to ensure that a certain new feature aligns with our goals, it would be helpful if you open a tracker ticket and announce that you want to implement something. Then we can discuss further details. If you just want to fix a bug, simply code a patch and let us know about the patch in the tracker ticket.

In addition, what all resources would one need? For example, I would use Visual Studio 2013 Professional, is there any kits or dependencies that I would need?

You just need to be able to compile Zandronum on the platform of your choice. For Zandronum 1.2.2 the Wiki should have all the information you need. 1.3+ have some more dependencies (OpenSSL and SQLite) that still need to be documented.

It seems so. I think I just take it too seriously... I'm terribly sorry for this. I have ears open to your next comments, and when I'll, I'll also have my mind here and make sure that I don't have anything life related - Anything that can't causes stress or something.

Ok, so let me try to rephrase what I have been trying to convey so far. You have a big goal in mind, which is fine. Having big goals can help your motivation. The problem is that you want to achieve this big goal in a single huge chunk of work. To achieve such a big goal, you need to divide the work into smaller chunks that are already worthwhile by themselves. Does this sound reasonable so far?

[Monsterovich]

1.3+ have some more dependencies (OpenSSL and SQLite) that still need to be documented.

Pff. Zandronum sources are fat like a mancubus. IMO, there are some unnecessary stuff: rcon utility, stats maker, getwad (LOL)...

[Quaker540]

It seems so. I think I just take it too seriously... I'm terribly sorry for this. I have ears open to your next comments, and when I'll, I'll also have my mind here and make sure that I don't have anything life related - Anything that can't causes stress or something.

Ok, so let me try to rephrase what I have been trying to convey so far. You have a big goal in mind, which is fine. Having big goals can help your motivation. The problem is that you want to achieve this big goal in a single huge chunk of work. To achieve such a big goal, you need to divide the work into smaller chunks that are already worthwhile by themselves. Does this sound reasonable so far?

I know, you are TOTALLY right here, but since I've already started, don't you think that it's better to continue it as is? I've just checked the files, there are about 430 files and this will obviously take time, but like I've stated in past comments, I've lots of free time, energy, ambitions, decision to finish it etc.

What you are saying is right and I should listen to it first, but I also feel that this is why Zandronum's development is kinda "slow". Of course I'm probably the worst person to say this as I'm updating Zandronum in "One-Man-Army" basis and you have a huge supporting team behind you, so, if you want help or something I promise that I'd be here. That "BOUNCEONACTORS" bug couldn't be too hard to fix, it just needs attention, backups, and a compiler at hand.

[Tiger]

1.3+ have some more dependencies (OpenSSL and SQLite) that still need to be documented.

Pff. Zandronum sources are fat like a mancubus. IMO, there are some unnecessary stuff: rcon utility, stats maker (LOL), getwad...

GetWAD is part of Internet Doom Explorer. Feel free to tell Bond to get rid of a very useful feature that (and I am positive on the numbering) 100% of users take advantage of... I am sure he'll listen to your request, probably facepalm, but - he'll listen to it!

[SwordGrunt]

All this talk about psychology, psychoanalysis or whatever (aka complete bullshit) isn't going to help the guy. Torr, myself and other people have already stated multiple times that the best way to get Zandronum up-to-date with ZDoom is to start working and submit bug fixes. Apparently the dude wants to do everything by himself no matter what, and doesn't seem to realize that we're several years behind in our ZDoom database.

Look, stop lying to the thread author. You are not going to do this if you keep thinking you can do it on your own. Read this entire fucking post instead of stopping here and shouting at me for discouraging you. You can get it done but you have to start on the right track and follow the suggestions Torr is giving you. People will get tired of repeating this to you if you don't get it in your head and then you'll really have no support. You're not going to make your Zandronum because you clearly aren't capable of. But you can make "our" Zandronum better and believe me, if you get good work done, you WILL be recognized for it.

[Catastrophe]

But you can make "our" Zandronum better and believe me, if you get good work done, you WILL be recognized for it.

Yep. Still remember Spleen for unlagged.

[Torr Samaho]

I know, you are TOTALLY right here, but since I've already started, don't you think that it's better to continue it as is?

No. I consider the "upgrade all files at once to the latest ZDoom revision" simply infeasible. If you do not get my reasoning, I can just ask you to trust on my experience on this. I have ported about 2000 ZDoom revisions to Skulltag / Zandronum and have a pretty good idea of what works and what does not.

I've just checked the files, there are about 430 files and this will obviously take time, but like I've stated in past comments, I've lots of free time, energy, ambitions, decision to finish it etc.

I'm pretty sure that no experienced programmer would ever consider changing hundreds of files with thousands of unrelated changes that each affect multiple files without compiling the source and testing the compiled versions in between.

The main problem is that you cannot even check if the source compiles before you are done with all of them. Only then you will notice all the problems you didn't realize when just changing the files without compiling them. And I'm not even talking about the problems you will only realize after the code compiles yet. And since you just changed hundreds of files without checking what the individual changes did, you will have absolutely no idea which of the changes caused which of the bugs.

What you are saying is right and I should listen to it first, but I also feel that this is why Zandronum's development is kinda "slow".

No, that is absolutely not the reason. If my prime goal was to be up-to-date with ZDoom, we would be. My prime goal is to have a stable multiplayer port. A successful multiplayer port has a much higher need for stability than ZDoom has. If something breaks in a given ZDoom version, you can just switch to an older release or a new nightly. On Zandronum all servers have to run the same version.

Of course I'm probably the worst person to say this as I'm updating Zandronum in "One-Man-Army" basis and you have a huge supporting team behind you, so, if you want help or something I promise that I'd be here. That "BOUNCEONACTORS" bug couldn't be too hard to fix, it just needs attention, backups, and a compiler at hand.

If you don't want to fix the BOUNCEONACTORS bug (or simply cannot fix it), I have no problems fixing it myself. I was just suggesting you to look into this problem, because it is a prototype of the dozens of backport problems that will await you along the way to the latest ZDoom version. If you cannot fix it, you will still need to learn how to fix this kind of bug to reach your goal.

[Ijon Tichy]

okay so from what I've seen here, quaker here has:

• no experience with the zandronum source code
• no idea how to use mercurial or merge tools
• no compiler on hand, because he can't spare 5GB in an age where 1TB and 2TB hard drives are becoming the norm
• no project-wide search tool on hand (which both mercurial and git have)
• no actual coding environment (notepad is not a coding environment)
• not shown a single bit of code telling us that he can actually do a single thing he has said, instead getting vaguer and vaguer
• an inability to recognize why going commit by commit is an infinitely better idea than file by file, which not a single sane programmer would ever attempt on a big project
• thinks that zandronum mods are skin wads and font changers only

quaker, you have demonstrated you have no actual coding environment, no knowledge of zandronum's code, no knowledge of zandronum's modding scene (which, while pretty shit, is more than just skin wads and font changers), no experience to work with (otherwise you would never attempt file-by-file merging on its own), no way to get around code, and have brought up absolutely nothing substantive to disprove any of this.

while you have a few people here who seem to keep trying to push you forward despite these glaring holes in your skillset that you could drive a tank through, I'm going to be real here, and just say this:

stop.
you are just wasting your time here, and you are setting yourself up for an inevitable failure because you simply do not have the experience or knowledge necessary to take on the task that is backporting over two thousand commits from one incredibly complex project to another, just as complex project.

[Tux]

requesting lock

[ibm5155]

music

If you know this music you know what is going to happen here

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║ And that too
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v

[tyler12112]

ijon just rekt this whole thread

[Popsoap]

Quaker540, just for your sake. Everyone who asked you to work on the BOUNCEONACTORS bug is really just suggesting that you start small, then work your way up.

In other words, they aren't discouraging you, they are asking you to not get overly ambitious.

[mifu]

Ok guys I think just let Quaker do his thing and let him do this.

If he cant really do it, he will find out the hard way. At least he can attempt this.

[Ruin]

I don't know how the other mods are feeling, but I'm close to just locking the thread if things carry on the way they have been.

If he cant really do it, he will find out the hard way.

This.

[Espio]

I'd say just let the guy do what he wants. It's a fork he wanted to do and I don't think anything is discouraging him at this point.

The advice is something to take into consideration, but you're not obliged to listen to them. Do as you see fit.

[one_Two]

I don't know how the other mods are feeling, but I'm close to just locking the thread if things carry on the way they have been.

If he cant really do it, he will find out the hard way.

This.

Killing the banter as always.

[ibm5155]

If he already updated zdoom 2.5.0 to 2.7.1 why are you people talking yet?

[Ruin]

I don't know how the other mods are feeling, but I'm close to just locking the thread if things carry on the way they have been.

If he cant really do it, he will find out the hard way.

This.

Killing the banter as always.

[Tiger]

Torr Samaho, excuse my ignorance with Git (or Bitbucket) as I only have a limited knowledge of Subversion. If I where to create an account on BitBucket and I want to peak or modify the code (assuming I'll have a local working copy on my filesystem), would I need to 'fork' the Zandronum project or do I need to do anything special?

EDIT:
In addition, would I need any specialized permissions, or I'm I just free todo as I please? Again, excuse my ignorance as I never used BitBucket nor GIT.