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(...) Point taken, but I still think developers should discuss what they want to add with LDraw.org and Lugnet.cad.dev so that they don't add something that's already been added or being developed. -Orion (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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(...) I don't see how a lock is practical. We don't even have an official standards body yet. I don't know how you would enforce it any way. My goal in making the call was to document what is there, so that people: a) don't produce name space (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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(...) I agree 100%. -Tim (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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(...) Yes, of course the spec document would govern it. What I was more referring to was bodies of people and processes. -Tim (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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(...) hmmm... how is file naming part of the spec? the spec says it's 8.3, but what else would it say? (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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(...) the more I think about it, the less sense it makes to me. The community (or the "board") could suggest names, and keep track of what's out there - but a "yea or nay" power seems excessive. How, exactly, do you propose you enforce this "nay"? I (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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In lugnet.cad.dev, Tim Courtney writes: <snip> (...) To some extent the parts library will have to be goverened by the file spec. The most glaring issues for this seem to be Part File naming and BFC complience. -Orion (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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(...) No, I'm saying that if anyone is thinking about adding a meta-command they need to, at the very least, post what they plan to add so that the community can comment and ultimatly say yea or nay. Once the committee us up a running thay will take (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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Quoting Tim Courtney <tim@zacktron.com>: (...) I disagree. How can you prevent the various programmers from adding new functionality to their software? Why should development on all these tools halt until the non-existent committee figure out what's (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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(...) I agree. Establishing such a lock means however we need to move rather quickly on a standards body. I know there are others like Steve and Larry who will want to weigh in on this, but they're busy this weekend. I'm traveling up to Steve's next (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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In lugnet.cad.dev, Tim Courtney writes: <snip> (...) I think we need to put a lock on the creation of any new commands until we can properly document the existing commands. This will prevent the overlap of functionality. -Orion (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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(...) Don't forget about LDLite: (URL) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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In lugnet.cad.dev, Kevin Clague writes: Mucho Snippo. (...) Excellent points, Kevin! All - I can second everything Kevin is saying here. Through many private exchanges, and by meeting Kevin at BricksWest, I've come to understand his position on this (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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Hi All, Wow! This thread has created more postings that I thought it would. So far I've gathered meta-commands from (URL) Eriksson LTrax, Parent: Kevin Clague - LPub and LSynth There must be more. If you know of programs that define their own (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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(...) Hi Orion, Here is my take on the current state of LDraw related tools and parts library. There are a few documents that sketch out the basic mechanics of what we use today, but the real standards are the programs that we have that use them. We (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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(...) Cool. Kevin started the call for meta-commands, and I believe he plans to assemble them into a list/document. If you want to help with that, I suggest you email him. -Tim (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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(...) Consider this my volunteer for this standards body. I can also work on an informal list of META commands. -Orion (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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(...) While a noble proposal in spirit, I strongly feel we need to organize what we have before taking that radical of a step forward. Once we've defined the current LDraw format spec and all meta-commands, a standards body can work at defining a (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Backwards Compatibility (Was Calling all Meta-commands)
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(...) I agree the backward compatibility is good, to a point. This is especially true for the parts library. Too many times we refuse to fix something or extend the file spec (e.g. new colors not able to be represented by existing color numbers) (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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(...) Why not keep previous meta-commands where they're at, but also introduce a new line-type exclusively for meta-commands? I'm not too keen on MLCad's WRITE, to me it makes little to no sense. Maybe if it was COMMENT or even ! (like an HTML (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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(...) Why not force comments to be a meta-command like MLcad does with WRITE? Then the only problem you have is new files created with Ledit, and old files which will need to be converted. And Ldraw would still handle them OK. ROSCO (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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(...) Yes. (...) I think we'll see coming out of this discussion something that will prevent the meta-command chaos we've seen for the past years. No one here is talking about a new file format, or new version of a spec - yet. First we need to fully (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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(...) Are we REALLY stuck with current meta-commands? Sure if we change them all (the META Statements) after setting up a "body of standards" our old files may not work but somewhere down the future is it NOT better to NOT worry about backward (...) (22 years ago, 15-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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In lugnet.cad.dev, Larry Pieniazek writes: [...] (...) I agree with the route of a standards body to control (officially adopted) meta-commands. The second option is just a fix, and the third option is unacceptable, especially if we want to see more (...) (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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(...) Kevin & Travis - These are very good points. As a non-programmer, but someone who has a general knowledge of the LDraw file format, I think it is a good idea to separate comments from meta-commands. Also, talk of a standards body is a good (...) (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Latest BFC Spec?
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(...) Sure, but give me a moment. I just noticed the the graphic I added to the text didn't make it into the PDF therefore skewing the TOC. -Orion (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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(...) Travis, I could not agree more. I've been tossing around the concepts of an LDraw file format standards body with Tim and others, and IMHO the weakest link in the LDraw file format is that comments and meta-commands use the same record type. (...) (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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(...) Namespace Pollution is a technical term. It's not meant as an insult, mind you. It refers to a common phenomena in programming, in which things become hard to use because of scope problems, because things named in global scope interfere with (...) (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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(...) Neither. You should PUBLICLY support the command and make it known that you are doing so. (...) maybe. (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Latest BFC Spec?
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(...) Thanks, Orion! Would you mind emailing me the plain text, so I can assemble it on a web page for LDraw.org? We can also host the PDF you created on the server for those who prefer it in that format. -Tim (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Latest BFC Spec?
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(...) OK I'm done. Here's the spec in a more readable format: (URL) didn't change anything, I just cleaned up the text and made a TOC. (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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Having read through this thread, I've seen a lot of good points made. However, it also appears that people haven't really fully thought about the implications of meta-commands. It's very important to realize that meta-commands are presented as (...) (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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(...) Ain't that the truth! (...) This is kinda what I was proposing. If you had known that the APP {appname} branch of the namespace was open for any developer to use as he saw fit, but that other commands needed more community buy in, you probably (...) (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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I have invented a 'general purpose' header statement, 'Parent:' that points to the parent[s] of a model file. See example below. I find it very useful when sorting out Datsville submodels, and also in animations. I also use the 'Was:' statement for (...) (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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(...) If you write FooCad, don't regard LTrax as a program, but rather a family of standard meta-commands. But as the "owner" of that family, I may change the spec's and thus make FooCAD incompatible... When it comes to LTrax - I know you most (...) (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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In thinking about this a bit more, I flashed on a quote from Yoda in one of the Star Wars movies "Hard to see the future is".... I've added some meta-commands to the name space that are certainly specific to LPub and the creation of building (...) (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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Kyle, This seems very pragmatic solution. I like it because there does not seem to be a "one size fits all" solution. Kevin (...) (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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(...) I think that, with a little investigation, each command might be identified as 'general purpose' or 'application specific.' I think that haveing the app-specific ones prefixed with the appname (or even 'APP {appname}') isn't such a bad idea. (...) (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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I don't think of any new meta-commands as polution. Possibly over-population? I've got mixed feelings about the LTrax solution. It is very hard to know which meta-commands will be usable across many applications. Certainly the original LDraw (...) (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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| | Re: Calling all Meta-commands
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(...) except that if you do that, it discourages cross-tool commands. If I'm writing FooCAD, and I want to implement one of the LTrax commands, should I make a new command '0 FooCad xxxx'? should I secretly support the '0 LTrax xxxx'? I'm not sure (...) (22 years ago, 14-Mar-03, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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