On 1/14/03 at 4:10 PM Curtis L. Olson wrote: Lots!!!!
>David Luff writes: >> As for 1.0, although its just a number, I personally think its a >> pretty significant number, and probably worth a bit of work >> polishing bugs , user interface, and installation problems out as >> much as possible before release. > >David, > >Definitely we want to get out releases that have no major bugs and >have all installataion issues resolved. However, there are a couple >things that work against us. > >1) Time. Putting out a good release takes an immense amount of time. < big snip > OK, I appeciate all that you're saying, and I realise that you're the guy who cops the time penalty when we do releases. In general I think that your new 'bang them out' release strategy has been a good thing from a software point of view as well as from a time spent point of view since we're now getting useful bug reports from users much closer to the current CVS. My point is simply that IMHO, 1.0 is a 'special' number, whereas others may feel that its 'just another' number. If we get a heads up prior to when you think its ready for release then I for one will certainly be ready to stop work on long term features and look at short term stuff. > seriously. But then inevitably, I personally (since I'm the > primary flightgear contact) get flooded with questions, complaints, > people howling that they shouldn't be expected to compile an > application from scratch, or have to learn unix, or have to read > instructions, or type from a command line, etc. etc. People want a > Windows/Mac/Linux installer. Download one big file, double click > on the icon and it's installed and all perfectly native to > whichever platform they are on. I haven't the time to do this > myself, and apparently (since we don't have these sorts of things) > no one else does either. But there seems to be an underlying > expectation that someone should be doing this stuff. I'm not sure > who that would be though. > Yeah, that's (Windows Installer) on my personal "do it before 1.0 if no-one else does" list, which is another reason a couple of months heads up would be useful. I've been putting it off though since its such a good project for newcomers to Flightgear who may be non-coders or not familiar with the code to contribute. >4) There is too much of an attitude or expectation overall that some > magical core of developer(s) (i.e. someone else) will do > everything, and make everything work, so that any end user can then > point and click and everything works perfectly the first time. > But, none, or very few end users are willing to try the development > and prereleases and report bugs in advance. A few "other people" > are expected to keep all the documenation perfectly in sync with > development. "Others" are supposed to make sure everything works > perfectly with your platform, etc. etc. I think our limited > attempts to do this draw people into thinking that "others" have > infinite time and should just make it all work magically. >> There seem to be some problems with the JSBSim gear model which I'd >> have down as a show-stopper for 1.0, Yeah, sure, I appreciate everyone's effort in making Flightgear exist, and realise that some folk have and are putting a *lot* of personal time into it far over and above what I am. Thanks guys. What I was trying to say was simply that 1.0 is to me more than a number - its a very symbolic number. Come to think of it, no software I've ever written for myself has ever made it to 1.0... > >I haven't heard this discussed. You should probably take this up with >Jon/Tony on the JSBSim list. There's a lot of wobble and drift when stationary, particularly with the brakes on. This might be a floating point issue rather than a JSBSim issue though. Its much less noticable at the default startup location than some others which may be why it doesn't get mentioned. I'm pretty sure I've been blown in a circle when stationary in a light crosswind as well, although I'll have to check that one - maybe I got the heading and speed mixed up... > >> and I'd have thought that displaced thesholds and the arrows >> pointing to them would have to be pretty high on the list of >> features that would be expected to make it in. > >Do we actually have these in our airport data? If so (or if the data >could be added) I'd be willing to work on it. The airport code is >still relatively fresh in my mind. I'll have a look for a data source... > >> My personal hope as a non-US citizen is that world-wide DEM-3 data >> from STRM becomes available prior to 1.0, but I'm not holding my >> breath on that one any more. > >I grabbed the 30 meter (1 arcsec) USA data, but I haven't had time to >start looking at building scenery from it. That's another can of >worms ... there is a ton of things in terragear that I'd like to go >through and rework and improve ... someday ... Worldwide DEM-3 should build more-or-less out of the box on Terragear though, shouldn't it, given that the US is already DEM-3? Cheers - Dave _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
