Re: [AD] [Win] Proposal

[Andrei Ellman <ae-a-alleg@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Thomas Fjellstrom wrote:
> On Sunday 21 January 2007 3:22 pm, Evert Glebbeek wrote:

> > I've done the advertisement (on ACC) following a release once or twice, and
> > usually enough people are willing or interested in helping. The problem
> > is, they want something concrete to do then and there, which requires a
> > lengthy explanation of Allegro's internals and what needs to be done,
> > which someone has to write, which takes up a lot of time, which ends up
> > not being done.
>
> To be honest, I was more talking about advertising for another admin, someone 
> who's willing to get down and dirty and learn where allegro, and where its 
> going. Someone who isn't afraid to help push allegro forward, and help design 
> with regards to windows.
>
> The three main platforms are different enough that they will have to assert 
> some significant pressure on the overall design and layout of allegro, and 
> without a Windows Allegro Guru (not just a dev) (hmm, WAG the dog? :D), I 
> don't see that happening. Of course we'll want some plain old win devs as 
> well, but a WAG will imo, be absolutely necessary.


I think that one thing that is putting new people off of working on
Allegro is that the sourcecode is not as elegant as it could be. By
that, I mean that there are very few code-comments and the variables are
poorly named.

Some time ago, a project to refactor the Allegro source was proposed (
http://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/587133 ). I think that getting
someone (or a group of people) to beautify the Allegro source would be
an opportunity for them to learn about the internals of Allegro.
Ideally, the beautifying would be done by someone with good knowledge of
DirectX and Windows programming. By the time they've finished, they
should have enough knowledge to figure out for thmselves what needs to
be done (although it would help if they could see a list of outstanding
bugs and the proposals for the new API).

The refactoring could be done by several people. The advantage is that 
that way, it will be done quicker, and several people (who hopefully are 
also knowledgable at Windows programming) will have knowledge of 
Allegro's internals, but the disadvantage is that the knowledge will be 
too diluted and this may lead to the people not knowing enough about the 
internals.

Another idea is to post a list of outstanding WinAlleg bugs. Anyone 
wanting to become a Windows Allegro guru could make a start by 
attempting to fix the bugs and in the process, learning about the 
internals of Allegro.

Also, bearing in mind that a lot of people who use Allegro are trying to 
get into the games-industry, one idea would be for one of the existing 
Allegro Gurus to offer to give someone a reference if they become a 
Windows Allegro Guru. Being one of the lead developpers of a thriving 
gaming-library used by thousands would look good on someone's Resume 
(CV). The only problem is that once they get their dream-job, they will 
have very little time to continue to work on Allegro, and we'll be back 
at square one again.

Allegro is developped purely as a hobby. Many hardcore hobbyist
programmers tend to use Linux. People who develop software for Windows 
tend to be more pragmatic - that is, they focus more on the projects 
themselves rather than hacking the libraries. The more likely they are 
to want to be interested in developing Allegro, the more likely they are 
to switch to Linux. On the other hand, a lot of professional programmers 
code for Windows. If we could convince one of these to work on Allegro 
in their spare time, we'd have someone who is very experienced with the 
Windows platform.


AE.