Why aren't there very many group prodjects?

[Dwedit]

Wouldn't CVS/SVN servers help a lot with collaboration?

[Madskillz]

Communication is always tough in these joint projects too. If one person drops off the face of the Earth, they tend to take their code with them.

-True. Or if somebody works on some of the code, then they dont show it to everybody it becomes a hassle too. If only one guy is doing all the work, it really isn't much of a group project...

[coelurus]

I'm with CoBB, projects for calcs are small enough to be maintained by single developers. What project could possibly need more than, say, two developers?

[koolmansam375]

What project could possibly need more than, say, two developers?

http://forums.unitedti.org/index.php?s= ... owforum=19

[tokijnct]

The not understanding each other's code trouble can be solved by really in depth commentary on the side, but more often than not, this leads to longer programming times and making the commenter really p!$$ed at having to write such long commentary.

[sic]

My good old collision tester isn't generalized, just 8x8. But it looks faster?
returns C if collision, nc otherwise

Code: Select all

;(ix+0) = my X, (ix+1) = my Y
;b = Other Y, c = Other X
	ld a,(ix+0)
	sub c
	add a,7
	cp 15
	ret nc

	ld a,(ix+1)
	sub b
	add a,7
	cp 15
	ret

Yea, I use something similar to that for my collision detection. And if 8x8 is to general for you, you can always use SMC.

[Dwedit]

Usually with the function and variable names, it's possible to determine what the code is doing. Good programmers can read anyone's code, unless it's complete crap code.

[CoBB]

What project could possibly need more than, say, two developers?

http://forums.unitedti.org/index.php?s= ... owforum=19

It could be done by one person or two, too. Just think of Metroid. Anyway, it's not clear to me who does what in this project. Most people seem to be active just verbally.

[kv83]

What project could possibly need more than, say, two developers?

http://forums.unitedti.org/index.php?s= ... owforum=19

It could be done by one person or two, too. Just think of Metroid. Anyway, it's not clear to me who does what in this project. Most people seem to be active just verbally.

Further more, Metroid has ONE programmer and ONE artist. However, most artists in the ti community can program also and will not likely contribute to another project than their own.

[DigiTan]

I'm 100% convinced that if I had somebody programming quests, Robot War would have come out in 2003.

[Madskillz]

I can see one or two people working on a project...but there is really no need for a "group" I mean, the projects may seem long and elaborate, but look at games made by the "professionals". There are even whole teams from companies devoted to a new device. Look at EA, they created a whole team/section of programmers just for development of the PSP. I dont think you will ever see that amount of work/group effort in the ti community. I may be wrong, but I dont think a game like UncleWorm or even Metroid would benefit from a "group" of programmers working on them. I am sure Joe likes to be able to not have people bothering him about getting a certain part of the code done, when he can take the time and create something good on his schedule and not have to rush the progress.

It isn't about really being able to read somebody else's code, if the comment well or even if they dont, you could almost always try and figure out what is going on with it...if not you come here and ask, or e:mail the author.

Basically it comes down to less rushing of the game to just to please the audience, instead of 2-4 coding styles (there is only 1), and the author gets to work at their own pace. It has worked for years and continues to work even now!

[coelurus]

In a properly setup group project, you won't have to understand others code. Each member gets a small piece of work to finish off and then all pieces are "connected" without anybody having to worry what each piece does internally. That's the whole idea with group projects, otherwise everybody would sort of write the entire project This is not a very good thing for calcs as it would introduce a lot of unnecessary overhead spent on walking through lots of nice interfaces between "the pieces".

Also, Sonic is one of the projects that should _never_, _ever_ have more than one developer, since it'll need some rather wickedly optimized code and overall usage of resources. Bad, bad example, you should have gone with Tetris or something instead which doesn't require a lot of work

[tr1p1ea]

Yeah, i dont think too many calc projects need to be group ones ... ESPECIALLY ones which will need some really fast code as that would make them nearly impossible to develop.

If there is going to be more than one person developing a calc project, its best that they arent coders, rather and artist and a coder.

[DJ_O]

yeah, much like Metroid and Fate by Fire (I hope Justin is doing well). But I got able to achieve a RPG in 900 hours alone in 6 months (300 of those hours were for artwork) without stopping so projects doesnt absolutely need to be group project when they are huge

[koolmansam375]

OH ok. Well Sonic doesnt need more than two (and now i know shouldnt have more than one even!) but it does have more than one kinda except DigiTan is really the only one who has made some code for it :-/.