FreeGameDev

Hi all!
I wonder if there are people around eager to do FOSS games in Lazarus/Delphi?
In the nearest future I'm going to start a new game project and I wonder if finding [unpaid] collaborators in Lazarus is theoretically possibe? E.g. otherwise I won't spend time on commenting the code and make it well-readable for others, learning stuff like source-repositories, versioning etc. - just aim for the straightest route to the goal

eugeneloza {l Wrote}:E.g. otherwise I won't spend time on commenting the code and make it well-readable for others, learning stuff like source-repositories, versioning etc. - just aim for the straightest route to the goal

I really don't recommend it. That will make it unreadable and unrefactorable for you as well.

I understand it... but, as for today I have never ever experienced any problem with this. Before I wrote programs as convenient for me, and comments (usually to-do, or meaning/defaults of variables) that I might need in the future. But that would be definitely 'unreadable' by others.
If I'm working alone - it's fine. But absolutely unacceptable for teamwork.

I would say it's unacceptable regardless of whether or not it's a solo project. No one writes code perfectly the first time unless the application/script is very small or trivial (a game of any sort is never this simple). You might think that not writing comments or making your code easy to understand will help you reach your goal faster, but the opposite is true. You're going to need to go back and look at code you've written weeks, months, or years ago to understand how to use it or make changes, and you're going to be frustrated because you'll be sitting there for a long while trying to figure out what you did and why. It's extremely bad practice to be sloppy with your design and documentation, regardless of whether or not your project is a solo effort.


I can recall dozens of instances where I had to go back and understand how a piece of code I wrote a long time ago worked, and I always find myself incredibly thankful that past Roots was diligent with his comments and I could quickly understand my own code instead of wasting hours scratching my head over why I did things that way.

Yes, comments are not just for other people, but for the future you too.

I can understand you... but, I must say again... I have written both small and large projects... Project Helena has 6 thousands lines. It's fine for me.

However... speaking of the future I already understood that:
1. Bad code is less likely to attract collaborators
2. If one day a collaborator-programmer joins the project, I'll have to explain every piece I've written. It's easier to do it in the process.
3. The code might be used in 'learning'/example purposes.

So, I guess that I'll have to comment it properly.
However, sometimes the logic of a given procedure changes in the development process, so, sometimes a better comment may be written as soon as the procedure reaches some fixed stage, so latter commenting will be better than ones in the process.

(source: xkcd.com - Future Self)

I would really advise to comment your code, even during the process. If you wait to do a "code commenting streak" after a while you will probably find it boring, and even difficult to remember what each function or statement was meant for. Just put simple comments each time you start or finish something new, you don't have to write half a page of documentation about everything, but give yourself and potential code readers the minimal tools to understand what you're doing.

As for Lazarus/Delphi programmers, I learned Pascal during my studies to learn algorithmics 5 years ago, and then used Lazarus to code a small physics-based application. I'm not particularly interested in this language though so I won't propose to help with your project, but it still shows that there are people (at least teachers) in France who care about Pascal and the likes ;-) From my little experience I've seen that Pascal/Lazarus is still popular in France to some extent, and I know already a couple of Russian free software contributors who use this language too. So what I'm trying to say is that your project will probably be a solo project at first, but it might change if it reaches a state where people want to be part of your endeavour :-)

Ok! Persuaded me I'll comment everything clean... for the future

Delphi and a bit of Lazarus/FPC dev here.
I can't contribute since I have myself a project but I recommend heavily to comment your code.
Just write some 10k lines, stop it for some months and go back, and you will understand this important point
Doing it alone doesn't mean that you will understand your own code over the time, especially when complexity adds up in your code, and writing some lines of explaination doesn't take hours