[Bf-committers] Re: 64 bits Blender

[pangelo at dcc.online.pt]

On Sat, 2007-01-20 at 05:19 +0100, Alexander Ewering wrote:

[...]

> The problem is, in my opinion, two-fold:
> 
> 1) Lack of experience with the Blender codebase.
>     This problem exists with any application, and is not a big hurdle to
>     take. Anyone willing to take the time and effort can just keep reading
>     and reading the source and will eventually get the global idea.

Yes, this is true. I also believe a new developer with enough willpower
can get to know the codebase over time with a bit of patience, good
documentation and a working debugger. However, many will probably give
up before they succeed.

What I was suggesting was having something like the mentorship in Google
Summer of Code where some experienced Blender developers would help new
developers getting to know the code base by ushering them to easy fixes
and by reviewing their patches regularly to ensure they weren't barking
up the wrong tree with their code.

> 2) Lack of experience with the language, in this case, mostly C.
>     C is a very difficult language because it's not the language itself
>     that is crucial to solving problems and writing good code, but the
>     *understanding* of what goes on in a computer in general.

So true.

>     So, I would say proficiency in C (proovable by providing examples
>     to other projects done in C) is an absolute requirement.

This could perhaps also be achieved by learning good C programming
skills with developers that have a lot of experience with the language
and it's pitfalls.  

>     Proficiency in this case means profound understanding of pointers,
>     memory management, string handling and whatnot, all areas where obvious
>     lack of experience has lead to an enormous amount of problems in the
>     code.
> 
> | alexander ewering              instinctive mediaworks
> | xx-mail.com/instinctive     http://www.instinctive.de

I also agree with you on this, but I don't believe that barring the
entry to new developers is the solution.

p.
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