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Subject: 
Re: Parts for LDraw or parts for POV-Ray?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.cad.dev
Date: 
Mon, 16 Aug 1999 13:19:53 GMT
Viewed: 
1174 times
  
Joshua Delahunty wrote:

You continue to amaze, Leonardo.  To have not been a programmer that
recently, and to have come up with LeoCAD and make it work so well,
it shocks me a little (in a good way).  :)

  If you liked the Windows version, you're going to be even more amazed
when the Linux version is ready. :) I just hope that someone else gets
impressed and offers me a job... (I'm going to graduate this semester
and I realized I don't want to work as a civil engineer) :)

I wouldn't go that far.  In fact, I'd caution that we be VERY careful
NOT to believe that for a moment.  TLG cares very much about what's
done here, I'm sure, and the moment this effort steps out of hobbiest
"mode" and starts to even APPEAR to affect profits or step onto a
profit center, whether they've developed it yet or not, the developers
of this project with be _sure_ to hear about it.

  I don't believe we need to worry about LDraw because TLG don't see
adults as a good market and it's too difficult for a kid to use it.
Besides that, they can complain about the parts but not about the
program itself (you can say that it's just a generic drawing program).
And I agree that if they think they're loosing money they won't think
twice before going after us.

At this point in my narrative, the 0.75 sources were long gone, the
web site had been taken down (because of the letter) to be replaced
once btopia had been stabilized and was ready to realize.  He hadn't
kept a snapshot of this spot in the development, so couldn't give me
back the 0.75 sources, which as I said were actually more developed
than btopia was at that point.

  That's a bad habit, it doesn't take much time to just put all the
source files in a zip package and save it in a floppy. You'll need the
original files anyway when a user sends a bug report.

Being a CS student CERTAINLY does not make one a decent software
engineer, nor does having been a lifelone "hacker" (or, if you
prefer "coder").  Good design simply takes lots of pratice coupled
with a sincere review of one's code by talented peers over time (or,
for that matter, self-review of one's own code over time -- this
helps us to realize for ourselves what are important design decisions).

  I'd say that looking at other successful projects is the best way to
learn, I've learned a lot just by looking at how other programs were
done. I've examined the Doom source code and it gave me a lot of ideas
on how to write cross platform code.

I'm not saying that students don't do good coding, but they usually
don't have the time or experience to sit down for a good design at
the start.  More often, an idea germinates, some initial success
with the idea leads to an interesting framework around the idea,
and then features are added one-at-a-time on a whim and the
application just snowballs. Rarely is there time or interest in
taking what should have been a simple proof-of-concept or prototype
and starting over with a clean, well-thought out and (most importantly)
extensible design. [Unfortunately, I might add, much of the software
in the professional arena suffers from this methodology as well]

  I couldn't agree more, the most important step in development is the
design. If you don't plan how things are going to be done before you
start writing, you'll have a lot of trouble later. I've learned that the
hard way and had to rewrite LeoCAD a couple of times.

Trying to fit Windows code into the structure he created would have
meant adding an X<->Windows layer.  I tried to get him to genericize
some interfaces, so it would be easier to architect other windowing
systems into the program, but that was an uphill battle (understandable,
as he hardly had time to work on the features he wantd to).

  That's what I just did, I created a separate class (only with ANSI C
calls) to handle almost everything and the rest of the code would just
call members like "OnMouseMove" from this class.

Leonardo



Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Parts for LDraw or parts for POV-Ray?
 
(...) IIRC (this would be from e-mail he sent me that I almost certainly no longer have, and is stuff I know because I was making an attempt to port it to a Windows version): - It was LEGO Germany - The dispute was over TLG's rights to "studded (...) (25 years ago, 15-Aug-99, to lugnet.cad.dev)

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