Any Stumbling Blocks to Improving Torque 2D?

#1 Charlie,

Git is a HUGE pain (as a non-programmer) it was my biggest learning curve. I plan on putting out a nice little PDF that shows how to perform a pull request and everything step by step, now that I finally have it all figured out. Seriously though, I bet I did my first pull request 15 times and trashed and rebuilt my repo twice that number of times. Now, this is on the T3D side but, Git is Git. Additionally, my initial pull requests had issues with programming standards. These standards were set forth but, not easy to find. Lastly, a HUGE problem was my pull request adding on a TON of other pull requests... therefore, if I only wanted to change like 6 files, it would add in pulls from Dave and Mike and any other people so my 6 files changed would end up being 171 files changed... True story...

Just some ideas.

Ron

#2 It's too advanced for me to figure out alone. T2D is a professional engine made by software engineers. I'm just a hobbiest. If someone were to write documentation on the engine's source, it would help immensely. I'd buy an e-book on it :).

#3 @Ron, thanks for sharing. If you have your Git PDF partially finished, I'd love if you shared it. Maybe others could benefit from what you have and possibly even add to it. We do have a (couple of) git intros on the website, but I'm starting to feel that we could use a step-by-step guide for each type of request -- forking from "upstream" to "origin" then your desktop, syncing with "upstream" AND "origin", pushing to both, pull requests. It's almost impossible without a lot of experience and Git is still really new.

To the side, Git, to me, is just Subversion with the single powerful feature of a "pull request." There are more features but this is the killer one for open-source. But the cost of getting this feature is still debatable to me. It costs creating TWO more repositories and getting used to having a repo on your desktop. Ah well, I guess the alternative is Subversion and patches, which kinda sucks. I wish Subversion would add a pull-request feature. :)

#4 @practicing01 -- hehe. I understand.

Let me just make the point that everyone is welcome to use Torque and participate in the community without understanding or contributing engine code. I wouldn't want any guilt on one's shoulders over that!

#5

Quote:It's too advanced for me to figure out alone. T2D is a professional engine made by software engineers. I'm just a hobbiest.

No sir! You can do it. I started out as a hobbyist and now I'm part of the industry. Keep at it and you will accumulate knowledge faster than you think!

#6 I would forever be grateful for documentation helping out with GIT.

That would be my greatest barrier.

#7 Thanks @David,

I'll make this happen.

#8 Haha, I've just been working on a slideshow introducing git for Torque users as well. I'll upload it soon. As well as any amount of tutorial stuff, I think we should create a big git help thread in General Discussion so people can ask git-related questions for any engine.

#9 Yeah, GIT also gives me headaches, especially with the current mess my T3D setup is in. My friend has pointed this link in my direction and with some free time I'm going to follow this model.

I think the community would definitely benefit from some GIT tutorials for when they plan on submitting new features.

#10 Well there you go! Git is evil. :P OK, that's just my take.

It looks like I might not need to "make it happen" so much as see what others have done and maybe contribute to that. Looking forward to it @Daniel and @Ron!

#11 A dedicated (sticky) thread on Git is also a good idea, IMO, @Daniel. Lemme double-check before doing that.

#12 Finally, if you have a few hours to spare one weekend, I read this book first. It's free and on-line. I even got it as an ebook by Googling it. It's a little heavy on the "rah ray Git, boo hiss Subversion" side, but what isn't anymore? :)

http://git-scm.com/book

#13 I think we should migrate to Darcs. :P

Robert's link is great, and it's the route I'll be trying to shepherd people into in this tutorial and just in general. It works well for pull requests,. working in the context of the whole community, etc.

#14 Well, here's the WIP version of my tutorial slideshow. Still need to finish off pull-requests and the final section (git and svn differences - though I'm considering dropping that altogether).

Is it helpful at all? Anyone can comment on the doc, so don't hesitate to point to specific issues!

#15 Damn @Daniel! Good job! That's really well done. You can probably broadcast this beyond Torque2D if you want to.

As an aside, not really something I'd expect you to do, what I was thinking was also coming at the problem from the opposite direction: no explanation of what it is, just how to do it :) The user will have both to learn from.

* Get T2D the first time: git clone ...
* Change to the development branch: git checkout ...
* Create a mini-branch off of development: ...
* Once every couple of days, pull changes from 'upstream' to 'origin': get pull ...
* If there is a conflict: ...

There are probably two dozen possible commands to use, I'd guess.

The point is that git quadruples the complexity of version control compared to Subversion, so it is probably worth having a list of how to do each step and when to do each step.

#16 I always love reading holy wars about different systems and programming languages. Fundamentally, git and svn are extremely similar if you have svn server experience. git, arch, bazaar, mercurial, and other dvcs's usually seem more complex because of all of the operations that are separated on the server side of vcs management being included so that you can manage and work with your local repos. I've cleaned up just as many serverside svn repos as I have server sida and local repos in git, bz, or hg. The concept of pushes and pulls also is confusing to a lot of people who are starting out with git. It's a concept that a lot of people struggle with.

They're two sides of the same coin, and like any technology, can be hard to wrap your head around if you're used to a certain system. Like Max users transitioning to Maya.

But if you're a diehard svn fan, you can use the github svn support for your favorite svn clients.

https://help.github.com/articles/support-for-subversion-clients

#17 Anyone who wants to snivel about svn or git should be forced to use StarTeam for a week....

#18 So @Daniel, did you get farther with the Git tutorial? I suppose Git is still the major sticking point. Kinda sad.

I'll look into the SVN thing @David.

#19 @Charlie - yes, Daniel's made some nice progress. See this thread: www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/134367

I finally got around to installing SourceTree last night. Didn't have too much time to play around with it, but it is a million times better than the Github clients for Windows and Mac. Once I get more familiar with the program, perhaps I could add a SourceTree tutorial to my workload.

#20 I originally hated git having used svn for so long. Then we got a contract where I was forced to use it and I love it now. I even started converting some of our personal projects to it. The branching alone is worth it. For a programmer anyway.