FreeGameDev

Hello All,

I Have just joined this forum and looking to get involved in the development of Red Eclipse (c++ side). How do developers here sync with tasks they are working and do new members know what they can work on. Also, i looked at the wiki but could not find a particular IDE to use for development. Which IDE is being used over here ? Thanks

Hello and welcome! :-)

Getting involved codewise is generally an interesting idea, but at this moment there are only 2 main code devs. Quin is the owner and the mental father of the project who writes all the nifty features we all enjoy, while Eihrul supports him with engine code. You'll have to talk to them as there are no guidelines to contributing code atm. Very few ppl have offered help on this front and / or are willing to stick to the rules of how code is written.

If you are very serious about this, the best way to get in touch to talk about this kind of stuff would be on IRC I guess. Find #redeclipse on freenode and try to steal a moment of Quin's time. But beware, he's a very busy man ;-)

All the more reason why more coders would be a good thing!

Also, there are others besides Quin and Eihrul who can show new coders around, right? Arand for example, and there are a couple of others listed on the sourceforge page.

"HOWTO: Submit your content, idea, proposal, or issue"

As for code, well that's a tricky situation. So far, nobody else has demonstrated the ability to both understand the code that they're writing/reading and do it in the format that is expected of a Cube Engine derivative, and they would need to have a handle on both to ever be allowed anywhere near the code. Eihrul maintains the RE engine for me because he cares about the integrity of the code (and he's the one that encouraged me to build RE rather than try in vain to contribute to Sauerbraten); if I bring on a bunch of people who mess everything up, we'd lose the only person who knows WTF they're doing :P

wanher {l Wrote}:Hello All,

I Have just joined this forum and looking to get involved in the development of Red Eclipse (c++ side). How do developers here sync with tasks they are working and do new members know what they can work on. Also, i looked at the wiki but could not find a particular IDE to use for development. Which IDE is being used over here ? Thanks

Tasks are mainly being managed by trac tickets at http://www.redeclipse.net/tracker and feature proposals are discussed on the forums, or IRC, before being ticketed, normally.

In terms of the C++ side, there is unfortunately little concept of "low-hanging fruit" used to introduce new developers, at the moment it's kind of just a matter of hanging around for quite some time to learn, and discover some low-hanging fruit by yourself (that also existing devs agree on) and making a patch.

As far as IDE goes, there's Code::Blocks on Windows, though I don't know if that's being used as an IDE or just as the build system, in general, you just use whatever tools you feel like (I think most don't use GUI IDE tools, but that's just a matter of taste).

As far as code management, it's SVN, with a very simple linear trunk and no branches nor tags, see http://www.redeclipse.net/wiki/Obtain_d ... nt_version for more info on how to checkout and build it.

Speaking from experience, some easy "low-hanging fruit" would be making new gamemodes; I made one with barely any knowledge of c++, and I know a more experienced programmer would have made it less confusing and buggy, but still, it works.

Looking through the tracker, I did find some things that wouldn't require any prior knowledge of the engine:
Private messaging
Customizable HUD
Auto-updater for new SVN builds

In any case, I hope you have success with learning the ins and outs and getting in touch with the devs! Coding for RE is something I've always wanted to do, but I don't know how long it will take to learn enough programming skills to be able to help. Maybe Quin could make a "newbie tracker" for gruntwork and/or nifty features that don't require knowledge of the engine and squeaky-clean code...

greaserpirate {l Wrote}:Speaking from experience, some easy "low-hanging fruit" would be making new gamemodes; I made one with barely any knowledge of c++, and I know a more experienced programmer would have made it less confusing and buggy, but still, it works.

Looking through the tracker, I did find some things that wouldn't require any prior knowledge of the engine:
Private messaging
Customizable HUD
Auto-updater for new SVN builds

In any case, I hope you have success with learning the ins and outs and getting in touch with the devs! Coding for RE is something I've always wanted to do, but I don't know how long it will take to learn enough programming skills to be able to help. Maybe Quin could make a "newbie tracker" for gruntwork and/or nifty features that don't require knowledge of the engine and squeaky-clean code...

Nice lookup work. I think your idea of a newbie tracker sounds good if there are candidates for this. It is also a good way to ensure code integrity as Quin will always be the one who gets the overview of everything and he'll be able to approve the code first in such a system. Some framework to get small things done sounds like a good thing.

The problem is, I usually do all the "low hanging fruit" myself. It fills in time when I am not really up to working on the bigger stuff, and I get it done in a fraction of the time. (Think about it, how many times have one of you said something and had it implemented five minutes later?)

I think greaserpirates idea of starting with small jobs. eg
Private messaging
Customizable HUD
Auto-updater for new SVN builds
- is a great idea. It gives small, manageable jobs that are not to hard to get your head around and allows the coder to start learning the ins & outs of the engine. It also lets Quin and the devs have a look at their work and see if they are up to more. In the longer term this could be set as a formal process that eases coders in, and hopefully able to tackle more complex jobs. It would require a bit of thought, and work, but could pay off in spades in the long run. This could also enable Quin to 'run the business' rather than 'work in the business'. For MekArcade for example, I probably need someone working specifically on it, under Quins guidance.

PS We are catching a night train tonight and will probably be offline for a few days as we travel.

Thanks for you responses you all. I was able to import Red Eclipse repository in my Eclipse Indigo workspace and have it linked so that all the changes i make in the IDE (workspace) automatically reflect in the repo and i can compile from command line.

I am now going through the wiki and getting used to some of material in there as well as taking a tour of the source code.

I did like the quick discussion that happened earlier because Having people on board is one thing but getting them productive and working on actual tasks is another. I have experienced that defects investigation can also be one way to get new devs going. Is there a tracked list of defects along with their status (whether in progress or started or . . .) ?

http://www.redeclipse.net/tracker

Be aware that some of this is "wishlist" and may not eventually be approved for final inclusion in the game. Regard anything that is not an outright bug with caution.

You may want to get familiar with coding guidelines posted in that thread.