Operation PR (or get some more developers)

A generic talk on the OpenMW project.
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lgromanowski
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Operation PR (or get some more developers)

Post by lgromanowski »

Hircine wrote: In February, I created a rather popular mod for Minecraft, Airships (i go by Pchan3 in most online forums)

I get about 1500 downloads a day on my website

http://steam-craft.com/

with about 3000 visits a day.

since June 1st, i have had 12,467 Unique visitors :P
(just to give you an idea of the traffic volume i have)

Now, they are all most likely people who would download mods and not make them, a tiny fraction having any programming experience at all.

I thought i would make an announcement on there to get publicity and get forums, blogs and magazines talking. (my mods got number 8 in PCGamer's top 10 minecraft mods, just found out today and I'm stoked :D )

so there are a considerable number of people i could market to.
my thoughts on this are that the more we throw out there of OpenMW, the better the chance we have of nabbing some programmers that can help.

so what I would like to know from you guys, is:

Good Idea?
What should I say specifically?
Think it will work?
raevol wrote: I think this is a good idea. I've posted around on official morrowind and ogre forums, but that was a while ago when we re-boosted the project. It's hard to go back to those places and say "hey, only a few steps of progress here, but we're bugging you again!", but making announcements on a new venue would reach a different audience. And I would think the Minecraft community would be Morrowind friendly. :)
Zini wrote: Might work. We are currently overrun with new and returning people and I am struggling slightly with finding tasks for all of them. But that should clear out in a couple of days. I am sure we can handle a couple more developers.
Zini wrote: To elaborate more on what we need. General C++ knowledge is enough, if the coder is willing to spend time to learn new tools or libraries. cmake knowledge is welcome, but not needed. Specially we need people who have experience with OGRE and MyGUI.
Star-Demon wrote: I think Hircine hyping it up is fine, but we have to really make things here easier. Otherwise the PR work we do goes to waste.

We should be actively discussing and sharing ideas with the Ogre3D community in order to really get the most out of it. We need to share some actual developments and gather comment from them on the things we do.

Maybe I should head over to OGRE3D - unless someone has greater skill/knowledge to pique their interest so they give our project comments and spur them to get involved. I think we'd benefit greatly just by inviting them to criticize us.

PS: Grats on the minecraft stuff! I'd be freaking out if I got that kind of recognition.
Zini wrote:
We should be actively discussing and sharing ideas with the Ogre3D community in order to really get the most out of it. We need to share some actual developments and gather comment from them on the things we do.

Maybe I should head over to OGRE3D - unless someone has greater skill/knowledge to pique their interest so they give our project comments and spur them to get involved. I think we'd benefit greatly just by inviting them to criticize us.
Recruiting in the OGRE forum is okay as well as showcasing our stuff. But all discussions regarding OpenMW belong to the OpenMW forum. Also, I don't see what good would come from discussion ideas there, unless it is a very specific problem that we are stuck with (which is currently not the case).
Star-Demon wrote:
Zini wrote:Recruiting in the OGRE forum is okay as well as showcasing our stuff. But all discussions regarding OpenMW belong to the OpenMW forum. Also, I don't see what good would come from discussion ideas there, unless it is a very specific problem that we are stuck with (which is currently not the case).
Well, I'm thinking of how to get the interest of an academic or a nerd. Usually, you present them with a problem (or a choice. The humor in PHDcomics lies in its truth.) I think discussion is better than advertising at getting folks over here and contributing. There's tons of projects out there.

Someone could easily go over and say "Oh hi, join up." and they'd be all - "Pfft. Why should I?" - then that person is on the defensive and everyone there is on the offensive. They want to know what we've brought them. We get nothing until they get that.

I think it's better to come to them and spark more detailed discussion or invite them to comment - it seems like we want to do well instead of just recruit.

That's my idea about it, at least.
ObsidianBlk wrote: Hello everyone!

I'd like to offer myself up as a programmer if you're still looking for any. I've played Morrowind (as well as Oblivion, Fallout 3) off and on for years and currently have a new Morrowind game I just started playing about two weeks ago.

My setup is Ubuntu Linux (so, yeah, I'm playing Morrowind via WINE at the moment) and I've already setup the openmw source from GIT repository (I love git sooooo very much). I've compiled it and know it runs on my computer.

Little bit about my coding experience... Originally started learning C++ when I was in highschool (mid to late 90s) and continued through college, but haven't worked with it for at least 5 years now, so... I'm rusty. I HAVE been working with Python (heavily), PHP, Javascript, Java (via Android development), and VB (for work). I've also used Actionscript, the NWN scripting language, LSL (On both SecondLife and Opensim), and probably a number of others. All that to simply say, I'm not new to programming in general. :)
Star-Demon wrote: Welcome! Awesome! Welcome aboard!

Read the wiki for some setup tips. If you don't understand something or need more info please let us know and ask.
Zini wrote: You will need an account on github and on our issue tracker. On the issue tracker you will also find our roadmap. We are pretty much done with 0.11.0, but 0.12.0 has still some open tasks. Feel free to pick anything that looks interesting.

Edit: With so many people showing up I find myself giving the same advice over and over again. Therefore I made a checklist for new developers instead: http://openmw.org/wiki/index.php?title= ... lopment%29
sir_herrbatka wrote: @ObsidianBlk

Welcome!
sarudak wrote: How hard would it be for someone with no C++ experience to get into this project? I work with C# primarily. I've never worked with unmanaged code.
Zini wrote: Possible. Maybe. C++ is a very different language from C#. We are kinda out of beginners task. Everything left requires good C++ skills. But you can try anyway, if you want.
Star-Demon wrote:
sarudak wrote:How hard would it be for someone with no C++ experience to get into this project? I work with C# primarily. I've never worked with unmanaged code.
C++ is like C#, but you get less work done.

It'll be difficult, but if you chat it up (and make use of IRC) us cool and helpful folk can help you if you have questions.

C# and C++ are a little too powerful - but what power means in C# and what it means in C++ are very different.

I would learn all you can about how memory works with C - if you understand how things like Java and C# work in memory and WHY, you'll have a leg-up on what needs to be done in C++ using the tools you have.

For this, though, I recommend you drop the books and stay in close touch with us cool folk.
sarudak wrote: I think it's the business of any competent developer to have a good understanding of how the language works as well as what it abstracts away. I have done research into the CLR and how it work. Fundamentally C# and C++ are different because C++ compiles to machine language while C# compiles to something readable by the CLR. As I understand it the garbage collector works a great deal like the reference counting method of memory management in C++.

How do I get on the IRC channel?
Zini wrote: There were several attempts to establish an IRC channel for OpenMW. None of them succeeded as far as I know, probably because of different time zones and because most developers don't have the time to hang around in IRC all day.

I don't know what kind of technique C# uses for garbage collection, but reference counting is available in C++ via the boost::shared_ptr smart pointer. It has its uses, but its not all that common (in OpenMW there are only a hand full of classes that are using it).
I think it's the business of any competent developer to have a good understanding of how the language works as well as what it abstracts away.
This statement I fully agree with.

Recently another newcomer to C++ finished his first task and I offered him two others that are semi-beginner friendly. I haven't heard from him since then, so I guess they are up for grabs: http://openmw.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=116
If something there looks doable to you, feel free to take it.

Please note, that you will require a github account and an account on our issue tracker to take part in the OpenMW development. The wiki has plenty information on how to set things up, but unfortunately it is still down.
K1ll wrote: Hi sarudak

i'm taking the tab completition task:

http://bugs.openmw.org/issues/116

If you want you can help me wih it. I'll make a thread for it later.

The IRC channel is #openmw on irc.chatspike.net . At the moment only Serpentine and I are on it thought.
The latest IRC discussion is here:

http://openmw.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=318
Zini wrote: All right. There was already one attempt to implement tab completition, but it failed. The old thread is here: http://openmw.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=84

I am setting the target version to 0.12.0. It doesn't look like we are releasing 0.12.0 any time soon. So you should have more than enough time. But if you don't get it finished in time for whatever reason, that is not a problem either. We can move it to 0.13.0 if needed.

When you start a new branch, make sure to merge in my next branch.
Sadler2 wrote: Three main concepts to get some more developers:
1) Easy to enter. Maybe, current developers must create a package, that can be easily compiled, without getting the libs (Ogre, Bullet, etc.). It will be interesting for win-developers.
2) Easy to learn (centralized documentation, roadmaps)
3) Easy to contribute
Star-Demon wrote:
Sadler2 wrote:Three main concepts to get some more developers:
1) Easy to enter. Maybe, current developers must create a package, that can be easily compiled, without getting the libs (Ogre, Bullet, etc.). It will be interesting for win-developers.
2) Easy to learn (centralized documentation, roadmaps)
3) Easy to contribute
We definitely have number 1, thanks to Athile - it's currently linked in this thread.

What is more difficult is eliminating technical problems so everyone can focus on programming ones. I think there's big opportunities here, but even after one overcomes technical problems, there's the issue of having to study code in the project because no one has the blessing of knowing how it works or what is to be done without worrying about everything else.

"Figure it out" seems to be our only means for a lot of us right now - I have enough of that to do at the university - it's really exhausting and demotivating.

Number 2 is something I wanted to try to contribute to since I started. I love teaching other sand making things easy. I think it has a lot of value but there's a lot of challenges to making a project this large something that can be done in spare time. Most 3D projects have this problem - so they go slow and hard. It doesn't help that our wiki is down. Our generated docs are really all we have, and a generated set of documents don't offer much insight so we can produce and complete more features - it's really more for reference.

Number 3 I think we've improved since reorganizing the project. We've outlined our expectations for style, format, procedure. It works. But that's only the surface. It's not easy to contribute because of the high level of a few skills needed right now. To be honest, I'm not sure whether making things easier or conquering the hardest tasks should be done first. Whatever happens happens. Right now - the veterans have all the work to do until the day comes when they don't have to.
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