Fragmentation of Verge - VERGE, Free 2d Game Engine

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Fragmentation of Verge

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adderd	Something I've been worried about and that causes a problem with trying to port verge to Mac/Linux/PSP is the fragmentation of verge versions. It seems like a lot of people like to make custom mods to the verge runtime and not commit those changes back to the main verge source. This causes the resulting executable to be incompatible with other games (potentially..) Ideally, there should only be one verge executable on the system and every game should call that one. Doing such won't be too hard in windows, linux, or mac. I realize that the reason for custom verge mods has been to add functionality that verge lacks that needs to be executed quick. Additionally, I realize that a lot of the mods are things that SHOULDN'T be committed back to verge because they are too game specific. It then seems apparent that the solution to the problem is two fold: 1. People need to commit to not modifying the verge executable with things just for their game (AKA: USE THE STOCK RUNTIME) 2. To facilitate 1 we need to speed up vergec and add a few more things (like, maybe, pathfinding) to the verge runtime. What does everyone think of this? Can we all commit to improving the main runtime instead of fragmenting verge? Posted on 2006-02-13 10:41:46
Omni	I don't think it's necessarily bad to modify a version of Verge. You could say, for instance, that pathfinding would be a general game-specific feature. Out of the game ideas I've had in my head that I want to work on, none of them happen to involve pathfinding. So I would consider that a more specific feature, and thus a "feature creep" into the main Verge library. But other people want pathfinding and need it to be faster than VC, I suppose. Which works for me. It really isn't a huge deal whether or not pathfinding is worked hardcoded into the engine, though I do consider it a "creeping" feature. Point being, if people need to customize their own version of Verge, they should go for it. Perhaps they need to distinctly point out in their releases, through a readme, that they use a modified version of the engine, and the original executable could be found here. It's only fragmentation, as far as I know, if modified engines begin to compete with the main engine itself for competition. This doesn't happen for a personal modification of the engine. It should go no further than that; compare, for example, Kildorf's unique Verge engine mod that ran some C++ code or somesuch [don't remember exact details]. That's not fragmentation, even I decide I'd like to take a look at what he did and incorporate it myself. On a case by case basis there is no problem. And if it does become a problem, this means. 1. The modified engine of Verge is competing with the main runtime. And this means. 2. People obviously feel the modified engine satisfies some need the main one doesn't. Which obviously means... 3. You should incorporate the modified changes into the runtime if it seems general enough that everybody seems to want/need/use it. Any "commitment" to keep the engine pure wouldn't necessarily keep the engine pure. The three step-pathway above shows that individual modifications can be harmonized without fragmenting the engine. Having to strive to keep the engine "pure" is just extraneous, and it might actually discourage modification, which is not inherently a bad thing. Bottom line, I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's not like there's this army of hackers set to release "their own Verge" onto the community. Posted on 2006-02-13 17:05:45
Overkill	Quote: Originally posted by adderd I realize that the reason for custom verge mods has been to add functionality that verge lacks that needs to be executed quick. Additionally, I realize that a lot of the mods are things that SHOULDN'T be committed back to verge because they are too game specific. What does everyone think of this? Can we all commit to improving the main runtime instead of fragmenting verge? Well, in case you're wondering, ALL of the features I wish to add are NOT game-specific. Snowball does use a custom verge build, but it uses nothing that couldn't be applied somewhere else. In my current custom build I've added many features. Nothing unwarranted, nothing game-specific. Additional string routines, a minor update to the button variables to make them writable, a few new graphics routines, something that checks if a layer's lucency is 0 before needlessly blitting, a variable that checks to see if the Verge window is currently in focus, network functions that allow you to specify a port and methods to send/receive raw string packets, getting the event function of a zone index, vertical and horizontal gradient rectangles. Among other things. Posted on 2006-02-13 18:01:46
adderd	Thanks for the replies. I can see where people are coming from and I won't worry about it anymore. From my view it looked like it could have been detrimental but I see how it might actually be a good thing. Posted on 2006-02-13 18:34:45

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