Re: [glob2-devel] Reverse Compatibility

[Stéphane Magnenat]

> > I'm thinking about this mainly because there isn't really a good place
> > to put something like team alliances that can be set before the game.
> > Its certainly possible to implement this, but it would be yet another
> > hacked in feature. I considered putting it into BaseTeam, only to
> > realize BaseTeam was a static style object of the map, rather than a
> > dynamic object of the game.
>
> I think easiest (but not best) thing would be to create an additional
> file for maps and games, like:
> "A_big_pond.game" and "A_big_pond.metainfo"

I'm strongly against this, we don't want to go into Apple_mails-like system 
with pet metafiles (sorry for my tone, but I hate external metafiles).

imho, a much better way would be to have maps as zip (not tgz which require 
entire decompression prior to toc access) files, with content (map itself + 
any number of metafiles + some additional graphics) fused into glob2's 
virtual filesystem. This was my original design I never had time to 
implement. I think it would open endless possibilities.

> > Backwards compatibility is really the only thing keeping me from
> > starting fresh, deleting much of the old code like I did with the unit
> > allocation system. In this case, If i'm not very carefull, all usage
> > of previous maps could be eliminated. This is half the the problem,
> > backwards compatibility is keeping us from implementing a completely
> > new design. Glob2 is sort of a victim of its own success.
>
> I'm generally for creating new code if:
>  it fits the game better,
>  is well documented,
>  maintainable and extensible
> so that the next generation of glob2 developers won't have to break
> backward compatibility again.

I agree, if the new format is really better we might consider breaking 
compatibility.

Steph

-- 
http://nct.ysagoon.com