[Bf-committers] Blender roadmap article on code blog

[Benjamin Tolputt]

On 17/06/2013, at 3:23 PM, Campbell Barton wrote:

> Then it may be a good argument for Daniel to make a start on
> interactive-animation tools,

If he is amenable to the switch, then that would make a decent compromise to offer surely?

> While this is a valid point, (as far as I know) none of these devs
> have stepped up to really supporting the BGE and helping become a
> maintainer.
> They mostly submit one feature they need for their game, then become
> inactive with BGE dev.

I wasn't pointing it out as a reason against Ton's move, I was using it to support the *earlier* point that there is a lack developer effort/focus toward the BGE. The patches/submissions to Blender aren't being accepted, a good-sized proportion of BGE advocates are recommending that one use a build that applies most of them, and yet they admit is almost a fork due to the variance between "official BGE" and "HG1 build BGE". 

Perhaps it will be a benefit to both BGE and Blender if they become separate projects? Blender can focus on asset creation (with the data structures and code compromises that make that efficient) whilst the BGE can start optimising the code/structures it uses to make it better for running a game. 

> ... you could argue this is catch22 - if we accepted their patches
> they would become more active and submit more fixes.... but I still
> think if someone really wanted to become active and take the BGE
> forward they could - despite some slow patch review.

Whilst you could argue the catch-22 aspect, I'd have to disagree that slow patch review isn't a big issue in it's own right. Watching a patch wither on the vine is a very demotivating experience, especially if it fixes something and the bug is left in the main project despite you having put the effort into solving it so the core development team didn't have to. That's something being bandied about the Blender-verse lately as well.

Sure, if you want to be active enough, you'll walk over shards of broken glass to keep submitting your patches but that doesn't mean we should expect them to. Again, not an argument against the BGE removal/simplification as I support/defend Ton's decision in this regard. Just pointing out that the argument (like the "it's not as good as the competition" one) is pretty poor on it's own.

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Benjamin Tolputt