Dave Ahn <ahn at vec.wfubmc.edu> wrote: > > I agree, mostly. I think better time is spent improving the client. The > idea of a stand-alone server that runs on the client machine is nice, but > we can get most of any benefits from that setup by having a real, dedicated > newbie server with training bots. While I commend Darryl and others for > trying to do a complete Java rewrite, I think that those "reimplementations" > will have little to no benefit in improving the netrek player base. I disagree. There are too many people with bad connections out there. You don't want the user's first experience to be a bad one due to a flakey connection. It's much better to have a local tutorial server that is rock solid. Any commercially successful game has a localized version. > Regardless of the technical differences between Java and C/C++, any Java > port will require substantial man-hours of implementation and testing > without the help of most of our existing developer base that, I would guess, > will continue to work on Vanilla, COW and other software. Going to Java is debatable. On the one hand the C code is well established, but it is also a mess. C is also harder to maintain. I'm willing to bet there are more converted C++ programmers on this list than you think. > I really wish we could try to consolidate our development efforts. We merged > the INL server functionality into Vanilla, so the server dev is pretty well > organized. But there are simply too many clients with people forking off in > different directions. I've been saying this for years. It's unlikely to happen unless somebody with enough sway can get everybody to agree on a clear vision. -Jeff