Request forum

General Discussion
1

Should we create a request forum for code snips.

  • Yes (Yes, I think we should have one)
  • No (No, what we have is good enough)
  • Maybe (I see the benefits, but we should talk about it more)

0 voters

Please comment if you’re going to vote no… at least add why you feel it wont work. Be detailed so it can be covered in the decision. Other wise… it seem like you are being a jerk in the long run.

Why don’t we have a Request forum? It think it would be a nice add-on on for the community to be able to request code snips as it’ll help generate new code that can be used for later.

For example, I know a lot of people would want a easy way to create GUI elements and position them onto the screen. Microsoft VB allows users to do something like this very easy, and then save the forums out to be used in their projects. Using that as a base … “someone” could create a program to do such of thing that others can use when they also look up this code request.

From there… we add the finish program to a program repository that can be later be search for such a program or to just simply browse throw to get new ideas to either fill in missing gapes of code/programs or just simply allow users to speed up their projects.

Another good thing about this idea is that it should help lower the number of questions on already ask questions on how x code should work. For example, collision and “shooting” is ask a lot, so having code snips in this repository would make it easy for a programmer just to pick up the code and move on.

Last, by having such a code repository, we can keep code in such away that it’ll be well understood so that any bugs or changes can be fixed on the spot or increase performance later on as the project keeps growing.

All in all… we would be removing the forums Code Snippets and some programs from Showcase to a repository while adding the forum called Request Code, but we will be allowing a way to increase over all OOP code for everyone to use I would think.

What do you all think?

#Edit: Another nice thing this would allow is a place to keep and store Hello World like tutorial for other to use and learn from using them. For example, Hello-World-Tutorial-1-Collision and then build up from the Hello World Tutorial while adding a bit of collision to the project.

Someone would’ve had to requested it, but seeing as it’s one of the most ask questions in the Code Help forum… I don’t think it would take too long before someone does :stuck_out_tongue:

#Edit again…: As for the repository… I was think it being break down to something like this:
Tutorial:
|-Hello World-1-Getting Started
…
|-Hello World-1-Collision

World Code:
|-Water fall
|-Day night

Weather:
|-Rain
|-Snow
|-All weather

Terrain:
|-Grass
|-High maps

[Click here to add your own snip] or [Click here to see what others are requesting]

You would have to have a voting system I would feel to help clean it up once in a while… for example… under weather there was rain and snow, but someone also added a all weather code meaning that the single rain/show one isn’t needed anymore.

2

I am sorry but this sounds too much like I-am-lazy-please-do-it-for-me forum section. It would encourage bad behavior (namely lazyness) and have forum section full of unanswered requests.

3

What I think might be a better idea – as I think that someone suggested in another thread – is an easily-searchable collection of already-created snippets and classes, and one placed a little more visibly than a forum thread, so that users can easily browse through the collection and see whether what they want has already been done.

4

how hard is it to search snippets section now? all snippets are in one place. they can be searched. no idea what else anyone could wish for… separate page? web 2.0 ajaxy kind of search? that would be wasting of time on eyecandy that is not necessary.

5

I see what you are saying, but at the same time… are you not already using code created by others? For example, you didn’t create python… you didn’t create c++… and you didn’t create panda3d either. In all fairness… it can create some laziness, but I feel allowing a way to see examples and use x code you do increase productivity over the long run witch again is what python is all about anyways.

I also have to ask, what do you think it could create a section full of unanswered request? We already kind of have it with the help forum. Mind you it isn’t that bad, but they do happen. More or less… if they go unanswered, then so be it? Why would it matter if x isn’t completed for x self. If they want the code… they would either have to do it themselves or wait Y time for someone else to do it… Not many people like to wait Y time and would just end up doing it anyways, and whos knows, they might repost the code back up for others to use in this case.

To me… I feel computers are hitting a issue in that everyone feels that way… that it’ll create laziness or they don’t want to share their ideas and thoughts, but are we not just slowing down the pace of programing by thinking that way?

For example, creating a movement code for an actor should take Y time to do not matter what. Yet, Y time is taking a while for each person to understand how it should look and work. This mean the community is slowing down for everyone to hit Y time to create movement code for an actor. Not that it’s a bad thing. It means we have a better understand in what the code does, but it does slow down the community as a whole to keep creating the same code someone has already done at the start already.

By posting movement code for an actor then we are already on the same page as a whole for the community meaning that others can go on and start the next section of lets say Net-Working. Panda offers a nice API for it, but lacks structure in how it works. That part is again left up to the programmer. Meaning that again, each programmer has to recreate a structure that works for their program. Again, not a bad thing… but it does mean it takes Y time for each programmer to get on the same page over and over again meaning we’re not moving forward that fast and some ways moving backwards a bit.

Same with models, sounds, and so on. If a company has to keep recreating new things, then it’ll take longer to produce something that they could do it factions of time if it was already there. They just had to put it all to gather to see their ideas come to life and be fun to play with ever more increasing graphics that will be produce later down the road from already created ideas and code.

Just my thought about it… I see it all around the news that computer software is slowing down while hardware keeps moving faster.

So I have to ask this… if you are worried it’ll create laziness then why did they create python in the first place? Why use python when C++ is 10x better than python in term of performance. Because as far as I know… python was created to shorten productive and cost time down. From your meaning, it would mean that a programmer was just lazy and should’ve cost the company time and money just to do it “right” and not be lazy. That sounds kind of silly…

6

i could talk a lot about why this would not work but there is no point. if you are confident in your idea - who cares what others think right? i would suggest you implement it yourself rather than asking someone else to do it. make simple website, gather existing snippets from code snippets forum so you have initial content. add snippets requests section with nice search and all. announce it here.

7

Lol, tell me why it wont work. I need to know what will be an issue that will stop the idea from happen. I also care about what you think. Allowing ideas to come to gather and be more clear is a very big step in making things work cleanly and smoothly. As for implement it myself… I don’t know java… well not that well to be able to do it, so in the end it’ll be a community thing. Also, even if I did create it, it be a off site thing meaning that it’ll go away after while because people forget things when they don’t see or use it all that often (simple 101 about humens). Meaning that it’ll have to be part of the website.

So tell me the “many reason” it wont work… because as far as saying it’ll make people lazy, we already have that in both programming code and Panda3d already doing a lot of stuff in the background for us that we just call() to make things work. As I point out also… people don’t like to wait for x time to get their idea out in code either, so they’ll do it if someone hasn’t done it already or a example of such code hasn’t been created yet already.

8

What does java have to do with anything?

Here is the problem. Everyone on the forum is working on their own project. Developers are interested in their project. Some of these people are willing to share their work on the code snippits forum. This is work they have done for themselves and are willing to share with others – no time lost (other than time to post)

A request forum is the opposite. Developers are being asked to create something that they probably wont use themselves – time taken away from their project. The minecraft community quickly found that developers are not really interested in other people’s projects. You go to other modding communities and you see the same problem. There are far, far, far more unanswered unit/mod requests for Civilization 4 than fulfilled.

Minecraft server owners discovered that if they place a bounty for their mod request (ie, hire the developer) then they get their request. Money exchanging hands gets into a risky litigation area if the contract isn’t fulfilled by either side. CMU, who hosts the forums, might not be too pleased with setting up a formal space for money changing hands.

The other issue is that the community just isn’t large enough to support something like this. First is moderation. How many “make me an mmo!” threads would there be vs something smaller and more practical like “convert the precomputed atmospheric scattering shader to panda,” or “write me a cubic sphere generator.”

I would much rather see the community’s energy focused on improving the engine and the code snippets library.

9

See… In order for this kind of thing to work requests should be short, sweet and to the point. i.e. “how do i move box?”. and that is exactly what suggestions forum is.

Should you ask something like “make me character class that can jump, crawl, run, walk and be a ragdoll” - i wonder how many people would throw away their day just to satisfy someone’s lazy request. ofc from time to time someone would have something similar you need and would feel like sharing. that brings us to code snippets forum. if people feel like sharing - they post stuff there.

you may think that lots of requests could be satisfied by taking little bits of stuff from existing projects. you are wrong. really good code is self-contained and portable, yes, but there is not much of really good code around. example: quake3 and doom3 are fairly similar games. both first person shooters. sure they have differences, but core is the same. however id software had to rewrite most of their idtech3 (which was used to build quake3) engine in order to accommodate it for doom3 (it is built on mostly rewritten idtech4 engine). see - even good companies have issues here. now imagine code in indie projects. it usually depends on bits and pieces from other parts of project. ripping something out of existing project is lots of work. think many would wish to waste their days to satisfy someone’s lazy request? and lastly good example of self-contained code is a library. library designed to do one specific thing. for example physics library. this brings us to opensource projects. sourceforge is your “big snippets” repository. people use libs made by other people in order to save time.

also since this is game engine support forum only inherently appropriate requests are feature requests for the engine. having this in mind i (and i bet many other people who actually have stuff to do (means are not bored to death)) see it as begging that comes from person who has no respect for other people’s time. idk maybe im idiot or something, but i think that if person needs something - he does it himself or pays someone else to do it (again speaking of larger requests that take multiple hours or days to implement).

Oh and speaking of website part - should it be really good idea you can always contribute website code to the project so it would be integrated in main website. Oh and only weird people do websites in java.

10

To some degree, but I do think that it’s a little out of sight and thus out of mind: I don’t think that it’s occurred to me before to look here when I’ve wanted something specific. Additionally, users who don’t come into the forum – and would many such expect that such a sub-forum exists? – might never know that code snippets are available. After all, no such service is shown in any of the menus…

A separate page shouldn’t take long to build, I don’t think, and it’s search facility could simply link to the forum search and show an entry from that, either the first post or some nominated post.

It might also be useful to have categorisation for the snippets, to aid in hunting for the desired type of snippet.