[Uni-verse] Functional Specifications

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi Emil,

I've read the pages from Joel on the specs issue, and find it a  
positive and relaxing approach. :-)

Most obviously the _process_ of how the specs are being written is  
relevant too. For the Verse project there are two potentially  
conflicting viewpoints. One is the vision of the original creators (you  
and Eskil for example!) and the other is the expectations and  
requirements from the application developers and users (the other  
uni-verse partners).

I think it's fair for the original Verse developers to first put down  
here a paper what they consider truly the core philosophy and vison of  
Verse. I guess this is the information as on  
http://www.blender.org/modules/verse/ , but I would like you and Eskil  
confirm what exactly you expect us to read and take as starting points.

Based on that, we all should be able to come with a couple of "Miss  
Piggy" cases, simple and practical descriptions of an end-user case  
describing the results we expect of incorporating verse technology in  
the projects we'll work on. The danger here is that we do this at  
technical specification level (going over the API specs) since most of  
the team members are developers themselves. We all should be able to  
either find people to help with it, or put our mind to such end-user  
situations.

Main problem (for me) is the timeframe for Uni-Verse, versus one we  
have for a next-generation Blender project. I aim at organizing several  
workshops and review-groups withing the community worldwide around this  
topic, where not only Verse but also other aspects of the future of  
Blender will be discussed. These workshops will be done in the period  
may until end october (Blender conference Amsterdam).
I'll still have to work out how to cope with that schedule... but don't  
mind just preparing for the Uni-verse project the specs based on  
smaller scale feedback as an advance on the results of a wider feedback  
with the Blender community.

Does this sound like a plan?

-Ton-


On Monday, Feb 16, 2004, at 16:17 Europe/Amsterdam, Emil Brink wrote:

> Hello.
>
> I seem to recall that we each have responsibility for some writing
> some kind of specifications, with a deadline on the 8th of March if
> memory serves.
>
> It would be helpful to me at least, who although I consider myself
> fairly experienced with software development, have never had the
> opportunity to work in an environment where formal specifications
> were being used, to get some pointers regarding this subject.
>
> I googled, and unless anyone has some obvious (and preferably online
> and/or free, so we don't have to spend our precious funding on books)
> reference, suggest this article:
>
> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000036.html
>
> as a primer on the subject of *Functional* specifications? It'd be
> superb if someone with this experience could check it out and offer
> some comments (Craig, for instance?). All I can say is that it seems
> pretty sane, if this is indeed what we are looking after. It might
> even be too detailed, for this first round of specs.
>
> Comments, anyone?
>
> /Emil
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>
>
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Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton@blender.org  
http://www.blender.org