Flower's Dev Diary (Week of October 23rd)

[RezDev]

Wow, great to hear FC!

11 hours is a decent bit of time. ;)

Thanks for all the effort you put in on this. I'm glad to hear that the process seems to be a bit easier this time around.

On another note, I really like these Dev Diaries. Following the creative process behind the mod is just as much fun as playing it. Thanks for sharing.

[dawnraider]

Nice job on getting the prot done. Glad to hear it wasn't as difficult as the 1.3 port was, and that ML is a non-issue. 11 hours sure is a lot off work, and we all appreciate the effort you put into this mod. You deserve a good amount of rest (or an allnighter of walking dead, either one works :)

[CumuloNimbus10]

All right, done with the base-class port. Time to crash and watch me some Walking Dead :)

Great to hear that it went well. The Walking Dead episode tonight was really good, by the way. There are some really good plot twists now.

[FlowerChild]

Don't forget guys: not done yet.

...and it was 17 hours so far with the 6 I put in yesterday ;)

[SufficientAnonymity]

I'm a long time lurker, but now seems an appropriate time to introduce myself.

I've come to see Better than Wolves as Minecraft, not an addition tacked on the side. It's so well integrated into the game, and takes it to levels Mojang really should have done (meaning I simply can't play vanillia these days).

My previous laptop bricked about a month ago, cutting me off from BTW. Upon getting a new rig, I was rather worried by what greeted me, what with whole turtles/forge etc debacle, but talk about rising above it - great to see you push on and show how modding should be done - a real show of professionalism.

In short, FC, stop being so awesome; you're showing the rest of us up (except Risu - so glad to hear he's got a ML release out despite all the flaming over at MCF).

[Gormador]

You're a beast FC !

[brab]

The rather drastic impact this will have on BTW though, is no pig breeding until you find a village. I look forward to some awesome overworld exploration with a stack of the larger maps :)

You're forgetting kibble.

This is great, because it means animal breeding become more dependent on technology: no pig breeding until you find a village or build a hibachi.

[Mason11987]

Excellent! Many of you are probably already aware, but ML just updated, and I only have 5 base-classes left to go :)

So, false alarm on my earlier plans to release without ML. The timing is perfect.

I still have quite a bit more work to do mind you, as I'll still need to both integrate with the server code, and spend some time axing some of the new vanilla features, but this is definitely good news :)

Glad ML was released :)

Do you already have a list of what you plan to remove? Or are some features up in the air until you can test them out?

Thanks for the code insights as well :).

[FlowerChild]

Yup, I have a list.

Will I share it? No. :)

I'd prefer to avoid debates on the nature of the changes I will be making, as those inevitably just slow me down when I have a lot of work left in front of me.

[Ancilangeli]

do we really need to see your list? not if we browse the forums and see what youve already said about various features.
will it be better than vmc 1.4? thats why we are all patiently waiting on you before we update to 1.4.
after all, whats minecraft without btw? boring as hell, thats what. i mean, i remember when i first started playing minecraft and was super excited that i could build whatever i wanted however i wanted and just spend my days watching the cows graze and the creepers, er, creep. but then i realized i would never be able to build the factories i so longed for, and i started looking for mods... after several failed attempts at a set of mods that made sense together without seeming too simple (with single blocks that could do literally anything i wanted) i stumbled upon better than wolves (which i call better than minecraft).
i have spent much time reminding myself that the game would not be nearly as complete if i hit that update button before you were ready for it, and no time at all minding the wait.
in short, keep up the good work, keep your mad ideas to yourself, and let us experience it like true scientists once its all released (although i do like playing detective with your forum posts)

[Mason11987]

Yup, I have a list.

Will I share it? No. :)

I'd prefer to avoid debates on the nature of the changes I will be making, as those inevitably just slow me down when I have a lot of work left in front of me.

That's cool. Maybe just fishing a little for some hints. I'll just be surprised then.

[FlowerChild]

Yup, it's cool. Removing features is obviously just a highly sensitive issue, and it's inevitable some people will get upset regardless of what it is that I remove. Probably even more so if they aren't already playing it, and thus my reasons may not be immediately apparent (nor do I want to feel obliged to justify all of them either).

Like I often say with regards to Mojang, when tough decisions need to be made with regards to game design, additional public input is really not what is needed. Disagreements about it, and the sometimes opposing viewpoints on these things from a player convenience and a design standpoint generally just cloud my thought process.

[Nerdasaurus_Rex]

I just wanted to let you know that you're a huge inspiration to me. It used to be Notch, but I'm pretty sure you bested him through and through. Also, reading your dev diaries usually makes me want to dive head first in my own code, more so than a morning coffee.
Oh, and I suppose I should say that it's great that life is a bit easier for you with this port! Just a question, did Mojang include any hooks in this release?

Cheers!
(And it's great to be back. No more stupid ideas until I can think straight :P)

[FlowerChild]

Well, Notch is a personal hero of mine, given what he managed to pull off with MC largely on his own, so I wouldn't write him out of this equation :)

I haven't seen anything in the code-base that would qualify as a new hook yet, but keep in mind, I only touch on a small fraction of the code that comprises MC during these updates. Unless I just happen to stumble upon a change, it may go entirely unnoticed.

Also, because of the switch to Fernflower over JAD, I can't really use a diff tool to see what has changed since the last version, as it would just light up like a Christmas tree for me if I did (I suppose I could go back to 1.2.5 and decompile using Fernflower, but that seems like more trouble than it's worth).

Hence why I'm stuck once again doing a more or less manual integration this time around. The more differences there are between two code-bases, the harder it becomes to use automated tools for this kind of thing. Granted, the changes to the code itself are far less sweeping than they were with 1.3, but the source I'm looking at is vastly different due to using a different decompiler.

[Nerdasaurus_Rex]

Ah, I see, it's almost like a whole different language :P. That's why I prefer to stay away from modding. If you create your own code the it's much easier to understand, and you're not forced into situations that you don't want to be in (unless your code fails :( ). Also, everyone has a different idea of what code should look like, and I know that reading someone else's code takes a while to get used to. I personally prefer big indents with lots of comments :P

I wish you luck with your updating though, and I will drool at the new features you added in 4.3 with patience.

[FlowerChild]

Also, everyone has a different idea of what code should look like, and I know that reading someone else's code takes a while to get used to. I personally prefer big indents with lots of comments :P

Yup, that's true, but there are some modern standards that are worth learning and getting used to. Once you do, it makes going through other people's code a lot less painful.

Coding standards are actually a fairly big concern when working on teams with lots of programmers. When I've been in the lead role in such circumstances, it was pretty typical of me to hand out multi-page documents detailing everything from indentation to variable naming convention, and to refuse code integrations if they weren't adhered to. It's painful at the beginning of a project, but by the end it *greatly* aids development speed, and makes a huge difference if say a programmer leaves the team for whatever reason and someone needs to take over their code. When something is consistently formatted, it makes it much easier to discern its intent by scanning over it quickly.

But yeah, it's definitely a bit rough dealing with decompiled code. You can rely on things being consistently formatted, but you basically have to forget about stuff like variable naming conventions, or meaningful names.

[Nerdasaurus_Rex]

Ah, probably good to keep in mind :P

What type of formatting do you personally use?

Also, I hate how MCP just name the variables in methods and stuff by numbers, like var0, var1, var2, etc... I always make sure that the variable names describe what their use is.

ps: Finally one of my inspirations that I can actually talk to! XD

[Thorium-232]

It's painful at the beginning of a project, but by the end it *greatly* aids development speed, and makes a huge difference if say a programmer leaves the team for whatever reason and someone needs to take over their code. When something is consistently formatted, it makes it much easier to discern its intent by scanning over it quickly.

I worked on an internal inventory system for a large vehicle manufacturer about two years ago, and there was no coding standard at all. We had a team of five which I swear managed to code seven different ways. It's like reading a novel written in more than one language, and not necessarily all ones you understand. It's amazing how far something as simple as consistent package structure can go in maintaining order.

On topic, it's great to hear you've had a technical turn for the better with ML. Always a bit of a thrill when you can hear the bullet pass by you :)

[FlowerChild]

What type of formatting do you personally use?

Oi vey. That would take a multi-page document like the one I mentioned above to describe. Not going to get into that here man :)

I will say I do tend more towards a coding convention based on C++ rather than java, because that's what I've normally used most professionally. As a result, my code probably looks a little weird to Java programmers, but that's fine by me as it's for my own use only.

For the most part it's just typical stuff though: I indent 4 spaces, and use Hungarian notation for variable naming, camel hump everywhere, prefacing all member variables with 'm_'. Brackets always appear on separate lines to code, lots of white space, and I tend to err on the side of caution with longer than normal variable and function names (descriptive variable names often eliminate the need for long comments as your code just winds up reading like english anyways).

Also, I hate how MCP just name the variables in methods and stuff by numbers, like var0, var1, var2, etc... I always make sure that the variable names describe what their use is.

That's not MCP. That's the decompiler when MCP doesn't specifically assign names to a function.

Keep in mind, no such names are retained in compiled code (the compilation process strips them out), so, if you decompile code, such names are the only thing you can really assign to variables automatically.

Basically, any NAMED variables you see within MCP are specifically assigned by the MCP team as they go through various portions of code. So they're the ones NOT doing what you describe above, and they're actively minimizing the chaos in the code by assigning descriptive names.

That why right after a new release, you'll see function names like "func666()" here and there in the code, whereas by the next release they've been changed to something meaningful like "FelatePlayer()"

[Mudkipz]

Just posting to say i love these dev threads, and thank-you for sharing the mod with us.

[CycloneSP]

aye, same here. I wish I could post more often and feel like I had something valuable to contribute to many of these conversations, but as of late, I feel like I know a whole bunch of nothing.

But yeah, love the insight you provide on my favorite mod.

[Minecraftgeek70]

It's painful at the beginning of a project, but by the end it *greatly* aids development speed, and makes a huge difference if say a programmer leaves the team for whatever reason and someone needs to take over their code. When something is consistently formatted, it makes it much easier to discern its intent by scanning over it quickly.

I worked on an internal inventory system for a large vehicle manufacturer about two years ago, and there was no coding standard at all. We had a team of five which I swear managed to code seven different ways. It's like reading a novel written in more than one language, and not necessarily all ones you understand. It's amazing how far something as simple as consistent package structure can go in maintaining order.

There's about 50 programmers here all working on 6 or 7 different products in a number of languages and platforms and all are "supposed" to interact with a shared library of database routines and theoretically share/interrogate data from multiple sources.

yeah... right!

we have enough problem keeping the code straight within each department let alone interdepartmentally XD There's 7 programmers in my department and when I do a release I have to go through the SVN Repository and "homogenise" the code. Stop multiple programmers each reinventing the wheel in their own particular manner, tidy up naming conventions and formatting, bring all the SVN commits from each developer into my master build copy and hope to god it compiles XD

Sometimes I wonder why I ended up in this job.. then I remembered. There's not much call for pure maths outside of academia and in the real world mathematicians end up as either programmers or teachers XD

I've dabbled in Minecraft modding and what not in the past (because I could) but I much prefer to leave that to the experts like Flowerchild XD I don't envy his task one iota !!

[Glace1221]

Flowerchild, if you don't mind me asking, have you ever played a game called Clonk? Because the first time I played this mod, that's what it reminded me of, simply because the mod enables me to build things like windmills, sawmills, elevators and the such, a lot of which is also in a game I once played called Clonk Rage.

[FlowerChild]

Flowerchild, if you don't mind me asking, have you ever played a game called Clonk? Because the first time I played this mod, that's what it reminded me of, simply because the mod enables me to build things like windmills, sawmills, elevators and the such, a lot of which is also in a game I once played called Clonk Rage.

Nope, but the name is familiar to me. I know I've heard it somewhere before :)

[FlowerChild]

Good news!

I've got BTW up and running in 1.4.2!

Still a long way to go to release mind you. The tasks I have left include:

-Fixing some remaining glitches and oddities I've noticed during a quick test.

-Going over the sounds in the mod. Looks like not only did they add new sounds, but they effectively removed some of the old ones (sigh...). Most notably, the old explosion sounds I was using for the Mill Stone and such are gone, so I need to find substitutes.

-Going over and trimming Mojang's new additions to vanilla.

-Porting everything over to a new server for SMP.

But, we're definitely getting there :)