Hello and good day,
It is rare, at least for me, that a question bubbles forth as many
means, as it does ideas, at least for me, it is rare. Technology has
certainly caught up with us here and there are many alcoves of
programmers taking advantage of this, so a great deal of the work is
done, or at least available for exploitation.
Forums? Yes to be sure there are forums enough to go around for such a
site, but so much more is out there right now. I?m going to sound like
I?m digressing for a moment, but bare with me here. I am the DM or GM
(Game Master) for my son?s Dungeons and Dragons group. We play every
Saturday, rain or shine, and have never missed a week yet. Recently a
member of our group went up to South Dakota for the summer vacation,
and this would have been very hard on the group, as this particular
player, and his characters, are very good, and very involved in the
plot of our current story. But what can you do? It?s family and you
don?t put D&D ahead of family.. but all is not lost. I loaded up on my
webserver OpenRPG, and we still haven?t missed a Saturday.
http://www.openrpg.com/index.php?page=features
With OpenRPG, he not only sees the game board, maps, have ?silent
chats? with the other players, and interact with the Game Board,
moving his characters and seeing the movements of the others, but, can
talk to us and hear what we are saying back to him as well. Add to
that a web cam by Logitec, and he might as well be in the room with
us, live, even though he is over a thousand miles away. A few changes
to this software, which is Open Source, and you have a chess playing
field that would simply rock.
The voice chat we use is Team Speak, an amazing voice over Internet
software package designed for multiplayer game environments, and free,
for non profit use. You just need the server to run it. It doesn?t
take a huge one. And there?s not a great deal of ?speaking? going on
in chess. :-)
http://www.teamspeak.org/
I bring up these two software packages to open the imagination bubbles
a little in your mind, as they are pouring out of my ears. Literally,
if you can think it, it can be done. Anything short of instant
teleportation of persons and bodies to remote parts of the world, ?
anything less than that, in the world of chess, could be done, and may
very well be happening in one form or another already.
Chess was, in fact, the first real challenge for the growing interest
in computer science. I?m sure you are well aware of the games against
Big Blue, for example. Computer chess games and engines have become
quite astounding in ability, bordering on near ?insight? in fact. But
Chess itself is an interest to many a programmer. Not just for the
logic challenge of rendering a game engine that can play, but as an
interest in the game itself.
Hence ICS (Internet Chess Servers) were developed, and continue to
grow in ability, features and popularity. But what ICS actually is, is
a protocol for computers to talk to one-another, a chat really. Just
like IM?s, ICQ, or Jabber. A list of servers for ICS can be found
here:
http://www.freechess.org/FICS_sites.html
And like any popular chat server protocol the list of clients that can
use it continues to grow.
Jin Chess
http://www.jinchess.com/
from that web site : ?Jin is an open source, cross platform, graphical
client (interface) for the Internet Chess Club and the Free Internet
Chess Server.?
So that is an option for your site, and has been in the past, the most
popular option available, but certainly not the only one. There are
others out there
eBoard
http://freshmeat.net/projects/eboard/?branch_id=14548&release_id=128645
from their page : ?eboard is a chess board interface for ICS (Internet
Chess Servers, like FICS) and chess engines (like Crafty) based on the
GTK+ toolkit. It provides a friendly user interface with input
history, locked scroll back, and multiple board windows.?
But I feel we are digressing here a bit. So I will post this FAQ which
covers everything you could find out about Chess on the Internet so
far (up to 2003 anyway), and move on to your Chess Site.
(*Note : No kidding, this FAQ has everything, and is a good read as well)
Rec.games.chess.misc FAQ
http://www.drpribut.com/sports/chessfaq.html
So, let?s see where we are, and think about where we came from. First,
why ICS? That?s pretty simple. As a basic chat internet protocol,
basic commands could be sent back and forth to several thousand
computers at the same time, using very little bandwidth. Remember that
ICS (now ICC) was started when I had a 1.44 baud modem, and I was the
fast guy. But, as a chat type protocol, the clients that played the
games could be very elaborate. These ran on your own computer, and
would continue to run even if your phone line was cut by an angry girl
friend (never mind that). You were no longer playing with that guy in
Australia, and no longer only three moves away from finally getting
him in check at least ( a Kodak moment lost for sure), but the program
was still running. They were not browser based, basically. They
couldn?t be. There was too much going on. But they were live.
My first software introduction OpenRPG, is again the same basic thing.
A client, computer based, not browser, connected to a Server, sending
out basically text chats, program instructions, and small graphical
files. But we don?t really want that. What we want is a website that
players can play at, and on, using the browser.
Again, technology is with us stride for stride. I?ve been working
with, and developing Flash sites for some time. Very uninteresting
stuff to an Internet programmer like myself. They don?t ?do? anything.
They make cute animations and annoying advertisements and that is
about it. About a year and a half ago I came across a site where you
could draw, like the Paint program, on the Internet, and I thought
?isn?t that special, Yawn!? cause you couldn?t save it, or print it
or do anything with it. You could draw, which was kind of
anti-climatic really. Others could see you drawing, which was a little
cool, they had a game going of a kind of charades I guess you would
call it. Yawn.
Flash has changed in big ways though, which is why I?m still working
with it, and also why I bring it up. Flash 7 (Flash MX 2004) now has
what they call Flash Remoting. A very interesting development. And
they made it so that the OpenSource community could develop with it
further, a huge success for Macromedia really. As a programmer I can
now use Flash as a fully animated, dynamically generated, graphical
interface for my PHP/MySQL Internet program. I can create a chess
board that literally hundreds of other players could watch, and you
and I could play at, and, on top of that, add web cams to see the
Players at the board.
These games, attached to a MySQL Database could record time and
movements, PHP running as a server could control play times, and
record the outcomes.
Really, we are still doing the same thing, sending small bits of
information back and forth between two or 100 clients, using a server,
but, we are in the browser now. And that is a huge leap forward. Why
is this a huge leap? Because we have left the OS problems, which in
the past have plagued us since the beginning of ICS. We are now single
version, and OS independent. Where in the past we had to worry about,
and maintain software for Win95, Win98, Win2000, Mac(Versions), and
Unix?? Types, we now only have a single software board to manage and
develop on.
Development time is cut down dramatically as well, and the ability to
gather help from the OpenSource Community has grown in equal size.
Where before we needed C or C++, very experienced programmers, we can
now draw from a much wider base of programmers, Flash Interface
artists, or just artists, they don?t even have to know how to program,
PHP programmers, Perl, SQL guys. Oh, there?s room for the elite as
well, but we aren?t limited in any form by a high level of skill
required to move us further along.
With this setup we are open to using other popular development areas
as well, areas that would respond well to seeing this thing done and
moving forward. Jabber for example.
http://www.jabber.org.
Jabber is an instant messenger server which you ?own?. It is not like
AOL, or ICQ, where you have no control over who is on there talking to
you, it is ?in-house? running on your server, and not limited to only
?chat? either. In fact there are several clients created now that play
chess, and have video chat integrated. They don?t? save games or
anything like that, but with a site like Flash could make with Remote
Services and Webservices, it is very easy to see the marriage between
these and the broadening of access to the user base. For example,
Jabber clients run on cell phones, and can access your site, if you
choose to develop that a bit, so individuals would not have to be at
their desk, or even inside, to be involved in tournaments. ICS/ICC
never had that. Nobody does. But it is there. Right there waiting to
happen.
Internet Chess Servers are available as well.
Internet Chess Server
http://sourceforge.net/projects/chessd/
for example.
There are Chess Training Tools
http://sourceforge.net/projects/chesstraining/
Advanced HTML Chats that play Chess and other things
MAHC
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mahc/
Many Many Many ICS/ICC servers to choose from
http://www.freechess.org/FICS_sites.html
There are libraries of chess functions for developing your own computer software
ChessLib
http://sourceforge.net/projects/chesslib/
for example, and ChessV
http://gregstrong.com/ChessV/
And of course forums and chats and email list programs and ?
phpBB
http://www.phpbb.com/
PHPOpenChat
http://www.ortelius.de/phpopenchat/c
MailGust
http://mailgust.phpoutsourcing.com/
can you hear me yawning? I hope not, this is text, you aren?t suppose
to be able to do that. But I am, because it is all being done, and has
been done, just read that FAQ I linked too before. And on top of that
there is this ..
AMFphp
http://www.amfphp.org/
sitting right there? waiting, which has not been done before, or even
close. Granted, starting it would take a small Herculean moment, but I
believe the response from the OpenSource community, in many areas,
would be very great, because there is a high interest on many levels
with the possibilities this technology opens up.
But, I am, if nothing else, a realist, and realize that the resources
you have may be beyond developing such a website. I?m a programmer
first, and a chess enthusiast second. So my interests are not only
different, but probably much less popular.
But, I do believe I have given you several tiers of resources here for
your answer, from ?have it up next week and working? to ?cutting
edge, you will probably bleed to death? technology, and several areas
between these two to mix and match as you please.
If you feel you need a bit more in one area or another, feel free to
post a Clarification Request and I?ll hunt it down for you.
Pawn to Queen?s pawn 4.
webadept-ga |
Clarification of Answer by
webadept-ga
on
13 Jul 2004 22:51 PDT
Hi again,
Just for my own edification I decided to draw out a break down of real
world startup needs for the Flash site idea. You may or may not be
interested in this, but I?ve been thinking about it all night and
can?t get any of my own work done, so if you are not, don?t read any
further as it is going to be major boring stuff. Lot?s of system
administration and web details. That kind of thing. But if you are
interested, then you get a rather large benefit for your first
payment. Not a bad deal. Isn?t it amazing how so very often a simple
choice in perspective can change a bum deal into the best bargain you
ever had?
Not matter the Flash or HTML, or even and ICS(like) server, we need a
stand-alone dedicated server box. This site won?t survive on anything
less. Best to get that first. Also has the benefit of custom library
installs, which we can?t get on a shared server, and we are going to
need those.
Most of the software, and the OS are OpenSource available. Since we
are non-profit, there is no cost attached. Recommend Fedora with a
machine able to hold and use at least 2 gigs of ram. Three separate
drives, no larger that 50 gigs each. CDROM Burner. Dual CPU?s. Dual
high speed network cards.
Install of the Fedora should be basic, absolutely nothing that we
don?t need, to get boot, and the base OS working. After that is up and
running Apt-get the need libraries for Apache 1.37 with mod_perl
mod_auth, mod_so, mod_ssl, mod_rewrite, mod_spel, mod_cgi working.
Install libjpeg, libpng, libtiff. Install pdf lib. (for making play
books of played games.. nice idea there.. fast note on the sheet.).GD
library and ImageMagick. Devel rpms of all these as well.
PHP version 4, not 5, we have enough to worry about at this point.
MySQL full max install, with devel libraries. We need those.
PHP should be installed ./configure
--with-mysql=/usr/src/mysql-max-4.0.20-pc-linux-i686
--with-apxs=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs --with-gd
--with-jpeg-dir=/usr/lib --with-png-dir=/usr/lib
--with-zlib-dir=/usr/lib --with-ttf=/usr/lib
--with-freetype-dir=/usr/lib --enable-gd --with-dom=/usr/lib
--with-curl=/usr/lib
Add Ming (for dynamically created SWF(flash) files by PHP code. ..
very handy? could use this to create playback boards of played games..
static and reviewable, with user notes added by site users.. hmm..
another idea there.. ).
Pear could save us some time in the XML department.. in fact I?m sure of it.
Most recent Perl. Heavy mod installs on graphic libraries, there is a
PDF library there as well that is very fast at creating pdf?s on the
fly.
I little known fact, you can embed Flash SWF files in PDF documents.
(there?s something there, but I?m not sure what it is right now. ).
Smarty Template Engine.. will cut development of the site in half,
easily and allow full use of volunteer efforts without wasted time
waiting for components to be finished before others can be started.
So far we?ve purchased a really good computer and spent 10 hours
setting it up with libraries and such. Estimated Admin time for Sys
Admin and Webmaster (10-15 hours a week).
Install PostFix and Procmail.
Install Jabber 2
Start the site on High Speed DSL, if available. ISDN if not. Prepare
for possible move to partial T1 in 14 months. Full T1 in 38 months.
Dual Server at this point as well.
Initial staff size, 5. Two coders, two designers, one overseer.
Primary development PHP/Mysql, with flash design for game boards. We
only want the Flash for the game. Everything else should be PHP. Perl
used when obviously faster in initial coding for version one startup
(such as creation of PDF?s or ming swf?s).
Games in the Chess room should always be timed and time limit games at
this point. Recoginize that the flash clients are going to be almost
in constant contact with the server, an so a great deal of bandwidth
is being used here. And we aren?t sure how much.
Flash clients should be design to only contact the server on move event, at first.
For that chats at this point, push the Jabber clients to the users of
the site. Set up Jabber Chat room as well. Give users a site account
on sign up, with the Jabber. This saves the need for massive Email
lists as well, which are more server intensive than broadcast messages
to Jabber clients.
Jabber also allows the following features with web services.
Tournament standings. <Pause>
You may not understand what I?m talking about here with the Web
Services. Jabber isn?t just a IM chat. Not by a long shot. You can
have Sign up forms, White boards, .. anything going on with this
system. Addresses are like email addresses so if the site?s name is
chessboard.com.. you could have an address like knife@chessboard.com
and I could have webadept@chessboard.com. These are our accounts. But,
we could also have tournamentstat@chessboard.com.. So if you sent a
message there, and a tournament was going on, the message you would
receive back, no matter what you sent, would be the current status of
the tournament.
Players that are signed up for a game at a particular time would get
message reminders from the system. Game time announcements to who ever
signed up to be notified when a game was starting could be sent out by
the system automatically when the players arrived in the room. Moves
on the board could be sent out via Jabber, to those who could not be
at the website watching the game, but had their cell phone or
PDA(Palm) with them. Players could play on their Cell Phone or PDA as
well.
Really there is not serious limitation to what could be offered as a
Web Service with Jabber and Remote Services running together with PHP
and Perl. There just isn?t.
Since Jabber is address based, and can be secured via SSL, this makes
it a very viable answer to actual long distance tournament play. I
mean the real thing. Basic house rule would have to be that the time
limit stands, no matter what, so if you lost your connection or your
phone lost battery, you forfeit.. that simple.
Message board is phpBB, that?s a no brainier. At one point or another
I?ve tried all the major ones, both opensource and commercial, and
phpBB is simply too good to worry about the others.
Back Admin area for those ?behind the scenes? should be eGroupWare.
Very little beats that, and it would be a very good tool to use in
development and site administration. See it here
http://www.egroupware.org/
We still aren?t spending a great deal of money here. But time we are
spending, in great amounts.
Total time to setup server, jabber, service, phpBB, eGroupWare and get
ready to start creating the site
20 man hours. Look to spend them all getting a few of those libraries
to play nice.
Required level of Admin skills for setting this up to this point. Expert.
Get a PayPal account now for this site, for donations. Look to get
Google ads on it as soon as you have enough content to interest them.
Get Amazon account for book revenue.
Do not sell ad space to any other place at this time. In fact, be very
careful of the ad space you sell and to who. We need to know the
bandwidth structure and limitations too much to risk poorly behaved ad
buyers. This should stand for at least 18 months.
Install Xcart. Okay, we finally bought something. Xcart is not open
source, it is however the best cart out there at this time. I would
like to say mine is, I really would. But I?ve been through their code
and I know better. They just have too many, well developed features.
Like mine however, it does use the Smarty Template Engine, so we can
customize it to look and feel like it is a natural part of the website
with very little effort.
Starting the game design.
Use PHPDocs..
Source Forge Call out. Your designers and your coders are going to be
doing this, but put it out there as OpenSource, and allow others to
join in and help with the creation of this. Two things happen here.
First, you get a lot of visitors to your site, second you get a great
deal more code written.
A word on open source development. There is an old saying that if you
try to build a house by taking the advice of everyone who passes by on
the road, you will never get it built. Have your feature list, goals
and structure planned out and posted before starting on SoureForge.
Any idea for a feature not on that list, is put on a wish list for the
next version. Never, and I do mean never, add to the feature list of a
version once coding has started. Encourage ideas, re-enforce them,
send coffee cups for great ones, ? never use them on a current version
in development.
This type of thinking is a given in commercial land, but can be
altered and bent a little as required. In the OpenSource community, ..
it is a whole different ball game.
First version should have a planned out API however. An API stands for
application program interface. What it means is that coders that don?t
want to live with the ?structure? can create ?mods? for your game and
you can post those on your website. Encourage this. Good ones can be
integrated into the next version if it is not a lot of work. Bad
ones.. well? they aren?t your problem.
At this point, you as the overseer will be spending about 20-30 hours
a week on this project, and will be doing so for the duration. The
forum is your biggest event. Both for the users, and the mod makers.
As open source, your chess board is going to be out there on other
sites. Good. This thing is going to take a great deal in resources.
Make sure that you have bots looking for these installations. Make
sure that thee installations are not commercial sites. If they are,
make them pay the cost of a commercial license or take it down or pay
your lawyers. Perl is your friend here, as well as your community.
Other non profits will have boards .. good. Great in fact. Again, they
won?t be able to have all the features without a stand alone server or
the presence of your website. Every board out there only increases the
traffic to yours. Encourage it. Support it. It works, really, it does.
This brings me to the forum moderation, your main job as overseer.
It?s hard. Don?t kid yourself. It?s hard. It is damn hard to work with
some of the people that show up in these things and still remain?
open. I speak from experience A great deal of it.
There is a shining example however of what a well run forum can do for
a company, let alone a OpenSource Website. .. and I can?t think of the
name for the life of me, and I have to run ? pager is going off.. I?ll
post more later.
webadept-ga
|
Clarification of Answer by
webadept-ga
on
14 Jul 2004 02:03 PDT
Okay, where was I? Oh yes, forum. I think this is the site I was
thinking about. My son went out with my neighbor to play paint ball,
and I was listening to the guys talk about it at the field. They
talked shop, typical enthusiast stuff, but where most of their shop
info was coming from was a company?s forum (???) which is not typical,
and caught my attention. It is very rare to find a company that even
realizes the full advantage of a well watched and moderated forum.
Come to that, they aren?t even up on what ?well moderated? means. Most
believe it is making sure what is said on the forum puts your company
in the best light at all times, which is exactly what not to do, and
.. no one stays. They also delete posts they don?t like or threads
that make them look bad, again, exactly what you want to do if you
don?t want anyone to come back.
http://www.tippmann.com/players/forum/
I believe that is them. Again, I?m not a paintball guy, but after
reading a few posts there, I?m fairly certain that this is the place.
What he has done, the owner of this company, is place himself
available to his customers, on a very real level. What he has gotten
back is guys standing around fields talking about him, his guns and
his fourm like they were the best things next to paintball itself, and
anyone that says different, better be wearing a protection mask. A
high level of loyalty. To be sure. Impressive to say the least. Not
the guys with the guns, but that a company owner would understand the
Internet community so well.
One of the lines I heard was on the topic of the <big guy?s> part(??)
hadn?t shown up yet. It has been four weeks. What did Rob say?<Turns
out this is the owners of the company, hope I remember the name right.
> Said Pam would look into it <Pam it turns out is his personal
secretary.. again I hope I got name right> Then you?ll get it soon,
she?s cool.
What he gets back is volumes and I?m sure he understands that. On his
own server is a resource of information no marketing survey could ever
come close to letting him know. He knows exactly how his product
works, or doesn?t work, what is liked, what they will pay, and who
they are (age, education, sex, ) How many companies can say that..
really?
I can talk all day on forum management but that?s not my goal at the moment.
Back to the website.
Development time for the actual site itself. (2 weeks .. or.. 4 months).
Your choice really. There are open source frame works out there which
create a whole site, you just put in the information you wish and do
some design work Let?s remember your goal, .. its not making websites
. its playing chess and building a community for players. There are
several good ones. I?ll name off a few here for you to check out. Any
of these can be installed on the server I described in about 1 hour.
Level needed : Easy to Comfortable. The rest of the two weeks is spent
making it home.
Again not in any particular order. I?ll note those I have worked with
Back End ? Never heard of them tell just now, looks like they just got
started, but it also looks like a good start. I?ll have to come back
here myself.
http://www.back-end.org/
Blue Shoes
http://www.blueshoes.org/
Um. Wow. That?s really the only thing to say about Blue Shoes. Such a
great starting point they give you. They are not really a CMS as such,
but they have a great package none the less and will achieve the same
goal. Also, check out their use of the license.. it may come in handy
later.
Liquid Byte?s AWF
http://www.liquidbytes.net/40.html
I have a sort of love hate relationship with this package. Its so very
good in some areas and not so good in others. It is adaptable,
definitely. I don?t know.. I keep using it so there must be something
there? could just be a self hate thing though.
GeekLog
http://www.geeklog.net/
I?ve used this one quite a bit, and it is probably your best starting
point. As far as features, it rocks and it is very easy to maintain.
Poke around at this more than just a glance.
PHP Nuke
http://www.phpnuke.org/
You either love this one, or hate it. It is the one that you will see
others compare themselves to, time and time again. They are very
stable.. now.. they did have some problems, but a large community
fixed most of them rather quickly.
There are tons, and I do mean tons of add-ons to this
package/system/borg thing. Anything you can think of wanting on a
website, is probably not only created for PHPNuke, but there are
several versions of it out there.
Projekt .. never used them. Almost have twice, but never have.
http://www.phprojekt.com/
Xaraya
http://www.xaraya.com/
Never used them, but I hear about them all time, and it is always good
things. May have to download and set this up soon, just to see.
XOOPS
http://www.xoops.org/modules/news/
Good, and getting better. I?ve used them a few times.
Pick one, pick three. Load them up, feel around.. let your coders and
designers poke at them.. call one home and go back to work.
Make sure you give and continue to give full credit for these
packages. After all, they just saved you about a year?s worth the
development time so that you can do your thing. If your coders find a
fix, make a mod, or find some way of doing some thing better, send it
to them. If your designers come up with a skin or a better method of
keeping the site looking good, send it to them. That?s the way it
works, and it really does work, very well.
So it is now two weeks into this thing and you have a huge website and
an amazing forum and with a bit of work, you are looking good. You
have spent probably about $3000.00, and have running close to an
estimated 15-20k in software cost alone.
Server revist.
I?m use to thinking of server sitting in house. I like them close to
me, where I can see the blinking lights out of the corner of my eye as
I?m working, and feel the temperature in the room. I?m a touchy feely
kind of SysAdmin, and remain that way as a coder.
This isn?t how it has to be however. You can get dedicated servers for
very reasonable costs these days with good bandwidth. Some thoughts on
these ISPs however.
1, never a reseller, always directly with the company. Ask them flat
out, are you are reseller? Too many resell for too many companies. And
too many of those companies disappear in the blink of an eye. At least
when your?s disappears, you?ll be watching them go.
2. Be ready to move at all times. Make sure that if they did
disappear, you are not down more than a day or two while you find a
new home, and change your DNS listings.
3. No development on the server. Nothing on the server, which is not
protected by license.
4. Watch them like a hawk. They do some weird stuff. Two of my
customers were blacklisted by AOL and Yahoo mail because their ISP?s
used their server as a spammer box. And then there?s always the ones
that like to go in and put links on your pages to their sites. .. Just
watch them. Bots are good from the coder?s machines.
Often I start feeling I should get my server out of my living room and
get a dedicated server some where. I would save money and have more
bandwidth. And then I read about something or a customer calls
screaming and praying I have backups to their site. And so I lay down
until the feeling goes away.
You may want to check with Macromedia and see if they would be willing
to host your site for you, when you get that game working. They might.
Other sponsors may be available as well.
Game design and Coding
Ah, we are finally getting to what it was we wanted to do, right? No,
we aren?t. What you want to do is have a chess site, not create the
next best chess game on the web. But that?s what you will be doing if
you go this route.
Which brings up a whole new aspect of this, I can foresee, but you
probably won?t grasp until it hits you. Honestly and all humility
aside, done right, this thing is going to be very popular. Very fast.
Prepare to get geeky. Cause you are going to be getting emails and
phone calls from people you didn?t expect to have to deal with today.
As I said in my first part of this answer, Chess has been a major
interest for computer development for a very long time; there is a
reason for this. In creating a chess game, the problems which need to
be over come solve real world problems as well. Basicaly, if you can
code a chess game, you can do anything.
Many coders are going to be watching you and your site. And they will
periodically drop in to check it out, and download your latest
release. They don?t care about the chess game, but they are going to
be very interesting in the Web service aspects of your site. Sites
like Slashdot.org are going to want to interview you, and see how it
is going. What is the bandwidth you are using, what is the stability
factors, where is the bottle neck in development, how long, how much,
? and many more questions.
I know this to be fact, because I?m going to be one of those guys
poking and prodding at you, to see how its going. Why, because this is
what I do, and this is still pretty new, and this site will be
exploiting Web services, and Remote services like no other I can think
of right now.
I know the technology is stable. That?s a known factor. But, in any
knew project there are at least 10 things which happen that you could
not possibly foresee or plan for, and won?t recognize until you are
being swallowed by it. You are going to have a lot of traffic on this
site and many of these people are going to know a Queen?s Gambit from
a castling rule, and they could care less. But it is still traffic,
and time spent. So, I?m going to want to know those 10 things you
found, to help my own projects. And I won?t be alone.
You aren?t making a chess game though, you are making a chess board.
Which is much easier to create. You are also not coding much in Flash,
but in PHP, which, is also a good thing. Flash 7 is much better, and
so much more stable than 5 or 6. But still, PHP is much faster to code
in
I estimate two coders, working 10 to 15 hours a week taking about 5 to
6 weeks to get a working demo going. Then to Source Forge. Version .01
will probably be stable and released a month, perhaps 6 weeks after
that. Depending of course on your list of features.
Pre Planning, that thing you are going to do to get that list of
features, will be about 2 weeks.
Total time to first release then is probably 14 weeks, give or take a
week here and there. You might be thinking that you can higher some
coders and get this thing done faster.. maybe you can, but plan on the
14 weeks anyway, and if you have those resources, then use them for
code polishing and features. Get to know your game before the public
and the OpenSource people get to know it. This is just my own
experience talking. Rushing something like this has never been worth
the shoe leather in the past.
Okay. I think I?ve worked this out of my system enough to get back to
work, so, hope you find some use in all of this.. I sure have. And I
hope to see you on SourceForge, or at the very least, on the web soon.
.. don?t worry,.. I?ll find you. After all, that?s what researchers
do.
webadept-ga
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