Author Topic: Standards  (Read 2224 times)

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Offline Inquisitor

It's real hard to do, I know, I fail at it all the time, but if we pull off this centralized code management thing, we're gonna need some code standards.

This includes things like comments and indentation for readability, as well as slew of technical things, but I figure we can start with comments and readability.

As you make you changes, look at the quality and quantity of the comments that exist thruout the code. From the VSS comments at the top, that offer a brief description of a new change marked with a time stamp, to the per fucntion and per variable comments about what the function does (or how your change makes it different) and what each variable does, sometimes with even what the ranges do.

Also, pay close attention to the indentation they used, it makes it pretty readable, and any centralized repository will want to follow similar conventions.

Finally, look at the readme. If you make any changes to the Workspace or project files, make sure there is a short text file describing those changes.

We have a pretty damn cool codebase here, with good comments. When we get CVS, we'll want to be able to integrate some of the best stuff sooner rather than later.

Easiest and least pain free way of doing THAT, is to make it well documented. For both the best practice approach and general continuity of the codebase, but also so that whoever is in charge of "approving" the code for inclusion into the over all code base can EASILY see what you have been doing.

Thoughts?
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Offline Kitsune

  • 27
I have to agree with all of the above.
Even though I won't be participating in the coding myself (I know my limits, and I know that I simply don't have the time to invest in it.)

But a readme would be the best thing to do.  Have a highlighted subject line, say what you changed, INCLUDE THE LINE NUMBERS of where you did the changing so others can be sure to avoid those things...

But it's still a good idea unless everyone out there is simply out to work on it themselves, in which case every version would be different from person to person.
~Space Kitsuné
6-Tailed RPG Nut.

"Why the hell don't we have any missles on this damn boat?!"
"But Sir, we have Tempests, Rockeyes, and unknown bombs."
"Like I said ensign, 'Why don't we have any missles on this damn boat?!"

"I went to a fight last night and a hockey game broke out."  -Groucho Marx

 

Offline LtNarol

  • Biased Banshee
  • 211
    • http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/the158th
first thing i think needs to be done is get someone to manage and run this mostrosity.  Next obvious step will be to determine early goals and ideas for changes that are practical and useful.  The third step should then be to start handing out those goals to smaller work groups or simply to individuals and have them work towards achieving that goal.  This in my opinion would best be done if each group/person is assigned a certain set of files and should that person need to make changes to other files, he can go to whoever is working on that file and ask for the certain changes to be made.

All my opinion on how this would best run, feel free to tell me im just plain wrong.

  

Offline Inquisitor

Well, this is less about running it, and more about making it easy to transition this into something that is moderated.

If folks keep these things in the back of their mind while working, life will be easier :)
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