How well things went
I'm going to go ahead and say that even though the repo would not compile at the *official* deadline it was by no means a failure. As the universe usually works, I think we ran out of time. Or, at least, I did.
I did get a lot of the things I wanted to do completed…. the server works, for one. Secondly, you can configure the Settting.txt file with the appropriate settings, and log in as a unique player (requires recompile after editing since the Settings.txt file is contained within the project) . I didn't quite get the iInternetPlayerController working, but that was more of a de-serialization issue that was incomplete than the design and implementation not working.
I guess what I'm saying is that it was a pretty great collab. I'm pretty sure we got some better organization going in the structure even if we didn't realize its full potential. It happens, everybody butts heads at times, but hopefully it also opened our minds eye to new horizons.
What went wrong
This was a bad project to expand (even though it had both the most promise and the most votes).
There's nothing wrong with the way it was. It worked, and it was an outstanding effort for its time.
With that out there, there was a lot of room for improvement:
- There was redundant and conflicting code.
- There was design theory that we had a hard time even communicating about.
- There was time wasted figuring out what the heck was going on and what needed to be done to move forward.
- We should have spent some time 'prepping' the project before attempting to update it.
How we're going to improve
I'm not sure. I think a good thing would be to complete the design and object layout before beginning. This collab we updated a previous work.. but I don't quite recall if we had any kind of flowchart for the first one. If we had of, we could have compared what worked last time with what didn't work, and revise the overall layout. On any ongoing project, that will be priceless. Starting with a great layout and some visual diagrams can never hurt. The only other thing is communication. I don't think we did a bad job with that this round, however there were still points when we had to go back and reference each other to know what was going on. There's nothing wrong with that either in most circumstances but there's still an overall lack of foundation that reared its ugly head this collab.
So my recommendations:
- Create a graphical object layout before beginning.
- Discuss, review, and update the layout before beginning.
- Communicate discrepancies quickly, and resolve issues before they become design issues.
- If updating a previous project, spend 3 hours streamlining code.
That's pretty much my input. Like I said, I think we did well on a lot of those points, and great on others. Time was a factor for me so I'll have to see how things ended up.
Sadly I won't be able to finish the de-serialization today. I really really wanted to spend that extra time today and get it done, but it's 8am Sunday, and the last time I wasted time laying around asleep was Friday mid day. So, it's catching up to me.
I want to give a BIG OLD THANK YOU!!! to everyone who showed up and participated today (sorry, this weekend).
You know, these things aren't always fun. They are work, and that work is not easy. Add to that having to put up with me, and you've earned yourself that (-fill_in_the_blank-). Take care guys, and I'll be around Monday evening, or possibly late night tonight (Sunday).
"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets