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Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: Old WIF Player Saying Hello and Thanks (12/2/2006 1:00:36 AM)
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I had trouble logging into Matrix this morning or I would have posted this earlier.
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December 1, 2006 Status Report for Matrix Games’ MWIF Forum
Accomplishments of November
Project Management
I did my first detailed project plan in mid-October and have more or less kept on track against that to date. However, my estimation of my time required to complete MWIF product 1 is over 3300 hours. Roughly, the big items are coding/modifying: Player Interface and the AI Opponent (~800 hours each), Game Engine and Rules (~400 hours each), and the Tutorials, PBEM, and Documentation (200 - 300 hours range for each). These are broken down into finer detail, with everything rounded off to units of 10 hours.
Altogether, I have 70 items on the project plan spreadsheet with what gets worked on when scheduled by month. This is only one of 5 task lists I maintain. The others are: reported bugs from versions 2 and 3, programming to-do list, and project tasks. The last deals with the project overall and includes people other than myself, while the other 3 are specific to programming. The programming to-do list priorities the bugs to be fixed and interleaves new items (e.g., new optional rules).
At this point I am the bottleneck in the project schedule, but there doesn’t seem to be much more I can do about that. I delegate tasks whenever possible and then step aside, taking care to not micro-manage items I have given to others. Of course, this still requires staying informed of how things are going and providing assistance whenever it’s needed. Still, management, and all that implies, places few demands on my time. I figure it is only 10 - 15 %, and I include in that all the report writing and communications to forum members and other members of the MWIF project team: email, posts, status reports, plus a few rare phone calls.
I calculate I have spent around 5000 hours on MWIF since I started in July 2005. Someone in the forum wasn’t sure whether I was working full time on MWIF. Well, I am using 9 productive hours a day as my metric for scheduling tasks, with no days off. By productive, I mean after the 10 -15% for management has been accounted for. In reality I work 10-12 hours a day on MWIF. That lets me fit in some barbershop singing, but otherwise I am a recluse: me and MWIF. My wife keeps me fed and points out lapses in personal hygiene.
This works out to me completing my tasks in December 2007. David Heath translates that to a release at Origins in July 2008.
Why so much longer than originally thought? Mostly it is a lack of documentation. The programming tools I am using explore all the possible ways to do poor documentation: none, incomplete, misleading, obsolete, written by a non-English speaker (Theme Engine - Russian), and, most common, frequent use of words with special meanings that are never defined. For example, every so often, while I am entering text comments into the source code, the compiler crashes with the error message: “Target of an invocation failed.” Reboot and start again. I also lost 4 days last week before I figured out that adding a directory to the search path for the compiler was resulting in it ‘automatically’ recompiling all the Theme Engine modules - incorrectly. I removed the directory from the search path and dozens of problems disappeared.
When I write new code, programming is easy. When I need to go into the CWIF code and make changes, extreme care is required or things can go wrong without me knowing. Tracing the repercussions of changes, especially when it involves the Windows User Interface routines is time consuming. Failure to understand exactly what is going on is even worse and can lead to a great loss of time later spent finding and fixing bugs.
You now know most of what I know about the MWIF project schedule.
Communications
Rob Armstrong provided new coastal and river/lake bitmaps for about 2/3rds of Russia, the Caucasus, Mid-East, India, Burma, China, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Solomon and Caroline Islands.
I monitored all the threads in the MWIF World in Flames forum daily.
Work on the unit writeups continues, with a few new volunteers.
Chris Marinacci sent me some bug corrections he has made to the version of CWIF being sold by ADG. I hope to be able to reciprocate from time to time.
Beta testers sent me numerous reports on the versions 3.02, 3.03, 3.04, 3.05, and 3.06 I uploaded for them during the month.
No activity with the AI Opponent team, though the forum members are helping with the strategic plan for France.
No word from Patrice and Peter Kanjowski about their project on the Yahoo WIF Discussion group to clarify all outstanding rules questions.
Dan Hatchen (I hope) is waiting on me to install what he has already done on NetPlay.
Beta Testing
I have been able to fix a dozen or so bugs identified by the beta testers but there are still major difficulties, even playing Barbarossa. More on my attempts to iron out the fatal crashes below.
Units
Other than some new unit writeups, there has been no new work on the units. The code and data are pretty stable at this point.
Map
I processed all the coastal and river/lake bitmaps that Rob sent me (see the list given above) and incorporated them into the current version of MWIF. Patrice took those images and made corrections to the map data they revealed. He also has been going gang-busters on adding new names/labels to the map. Once the detailed coastlines, rivers, and lakes have been drawn a lot of touch-up work is needed. Part of that is to place the map icons in reasonable places (keep the factories out of the ocean), reroute the rail lines through each hex so they do not cross water, and place the names/labels so they are both legible and do not cover important game elements.
Somewhere in the middle of the month I provided both Rob and Patrice with the utility program I use to cut Rob’s large coastal bitmaps into individual hexes and generate the river/lake quasi-bitmaps. I included documentation on how to run the program. Patrice now runs it so he can edit the map data files without waiting on me to process them.
The coastal bitmaps are 50% complete and the river/lake bitmaps are 55% complete.
Scenario Information
I learned that the version of the WIF FE unit setup information I had been using was obsolete. I now have the correct one and I will ask the beta testers to proofread the scenario setup code to identify needed changes. Most of the mods have to do with Cruisers in Flames and Convoys in Flames.
CWIF Conversion
Problems popped up with the pop-up unit menu. Since I wanted to do it anyway, I restructured this earlier than I had planned. The routines that process the unit menu items are now in a separate module and the main program module is down to a svelte 11,200 lines of code. Unit menu items are: split/merge convoys, breakdown/reform units, place units in sentry mode, and dozens of others.
I began work on a new system to route resources to factories. This is needed by the AIO but it will also help players route resources and save oil points. The design is 95% done and I will use a similar one for determining supply for units. Basically calculating supply status for units is the same routing problem but with different rules.
Game Interface
Most of my time this month has been spent working on bugs in the player interface identified by the beta testers. While working on that I kept coming across anomalous events, some of which were “now it’s a problem, now it isn’t”. Eventually I began to suspect that the software libraries were out of sync so I went back to bedrock. I uninstalled all the software libraries I was using, including the Delphi compiler itself. I then reinstalled everything from scratch. As is usual in performing this task, it required several days full of profanity and detailed discussion on the ancestry of the people who design, code, and document software packages.
This did result in identifying some systemic problems which I was able to correct without too much trouble. More importantly, I am no longer worrying about the code base with which I am working - or at least not as much.
Internet - NetPlay
I made some progress on this but had to stop work in order to debug versions 3.0x.
MWIF Game Engine
I also made good progress in writing events out to the game record log. This was much easier than I expected and should be completed quickly once the rest of the game engine redesign is complete.
Saved Games
I haven’t tested this recently. I have no bugs listed for this code at the present.
Player’s Manual
Nothing new.
Help System, Tutorials, and AI Assistant
I did a little more work on the Introductory Tutorials but I need Rob to redo the Weather bitmap overlays. I also need to get the code that determines supply corrected.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Started detailed work on the strategic plan for France.
Other
Our Xmas show is coming up next week. We have been practicing a lot plus we have several other paid gigs scheduled. During the holidays we get to perform at parties which helps the chapter treasury. I have also found a new baritone for our quartet. We lost our previous baritone when he went off to college in western Massachusetts in August.
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November summary: Good progress on the bitmap graphics for the map. Too little on fixing bugs and NetPlay.
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Tasks for December
Communications
Continue monitoring the forum threads.
Beta Testing
Fix more bugs, so that version 3.00 can play through the entire Barbarossa scenario cleanly. [est. 60 hours]
Map and Units
Continue adding coastal and river/lake bitmaps as I receive them from Rob. [est. 20 hours]
CWIF Conversion
Thoroughly test the new random number generator. [est. 1 hour]
Game Interface
Get the bidding capability to function cleanly and modify other aspects of the Player Interface to support NetPlay. [est. 20 hours]
Redesign of MWIF Game Engine
Continue refining the superstructure of the MWIF game engine. [est. 45 hours]
Software Development Tools
Finish replacing all the old components with new ones from JEDI (as part of the debugging process for 3.00). [est. 10 hours]
NetPlay
Incorporate the Indy10 code for the new design for the multiplayer system into MWIF. [est. 100 hours]
AI Opponent
Finish the Strategic plan for France and begin work on the same for China and Italy. [est. 15 hours].
Player’s Manual
Nothing planned for December.
Historical Detail, Animations, and Sound
Nothing planned for December.
Help System, Tutorials, and AI Assistant
Continue work on the Introductory Tutorials. [est. 10 hours]
Other
Perform in the Xmas show - as one of the anonymous reindeer/basses in the back row. Start work on the script for the Spring show.
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December summary: Debug version 3.00. Continue mass production of the coastal and river/lake bitmaps. Implement NetPlay.
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