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Hi All
A huge amount has been achieved, most of which is truly amazing. Past and present contributors deserve massive Gratitude and Respect. The community around these forums is a real asset. There's a lot of bright minds here and a huge amount of eager willingness to expend time to help.
IQ involves seeing the distinctive-essence of things and spotting patterns. I for one have started to notice things around the forums. Unfortunately there are some glaring issues in ''The Minetest Experience 2017.''
TumeniNodes posted interesting and clearly heartfelt comments about MT and the community.
That, on top of a recent
post by tinoesroho giving his five-year look-back summary.
I also see quite a few current
modding and other threads where the discussion is implicitly questioning the core design and implementation of both the engine and its default game.
Several also have been the cases which essentially said "Moving-On.. so Bye-For-Now" leaving abandoned projects unsupported and incompatible.
Worryingly, even some departures expressing clear negative sentiments in no uncertain terms.
Plus myriad crash-reports which go unsolved.
Or even ignored (cough, cough).
Which tends to skew perceptions and sap goodwill.
I've noticed similar things many times through my years trawling forums for Linux-fix information.
The FOSS (
Free
Open-
Source
Software)
scene seems particularly prone to certain phenomena. Honesty can be painful, but it's worth doing.
Maybe it's just New-Year-syndrome.
Or maybe it's genuinely time to ask some Big Questions about the Minetest scene.
Soliciting
constructive criticism and
informed analysis,
considered assessments,
pertinent questions.
Thinking
Big Thoughts.
Wiser eyes than mine have long-since joined the dots, spotted patterns, and discussed them intelligently.
The 19-point summary of the classic ''
The Cathedral And The Bazaar'' is an extremely useful list to consider.
But I would highly recommend reading a
critical review of CatB, a useful if depressing reality-check.
Particularly about the politics of mature complex projects, about who knows what and who decides what.
And, crucially, about what is properly publicly documented and comprehensible, such that the Fresh Young Turks can genuinely fork and fix deep design issues.
The centuries when a single polymath could be said to ''
Know Everything'' are long gone.
Subject-Expertise and Language are not one and the same phenomenon, but there is clearly a link.
Fluency requires more than mere Proficiency, and penning Poetry still more.
Wittgenstein's assertion that ''the limits of my language mean the limits of my world'' spring to mind when, in computer programming, language is itself the key tool with which a project is conceived and engineered and materialised.
Computer languages continue to proliferate.
Maths is a formidable language too.
The raw Capacity of a language to cope with a concept is no guarantee of its Suitability or Desirability.
Real-world considerations demand Efficiency and Elegance.
Sadly none of us is fluent in every language --- neither spoken tongues nor maths nor machine programming.
And few indeed the true poets and original innovators.
The intriguing spherical-view
proof-of-concept by Jeija beautifully demonstrates what can be done when you're sufficiently expert in both a subject and its attendant languages.
Here and there I see comments referencing issues in this or that core dependency technology (for example Irrlicht), often accompanied by remarks about ''not knowing enough..'' and mentioning the development languages.
Whilst the metaphor of the ''
Power Plant and the Bike Shed'' is both powerful and pertinent here, it's still valid to
question everything and to do so regularly.
Is the project being crippled by historical choices of core dependencies and languages used..?
There are plenty of past lessons available to be learned.
Are the devs still asking questions about the fundamental design and architecture or has the current implementation become sacrosanct, immutable and entrenched..? Infamously there are ''known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.''
The smart know the significance of the phrase ''Necessary and Sufficient.''
The wise are honest with themselves about their own limitations.
With the politics of Cathedrals and Bazaars in mind, maybe we should be explicitly sharing notes on ''who actually knows what'' and ''who speaks what'' and be actively looking to fill the gaps.
Might it be sensible to seek external expertise on key elements of the core..?
Who might be needed?
And how might they be co-opted to tackle any deemed-desirable rewrites, splitting and disentangling, rethinking the maths, or swapping to other dependencies?
Every long-standing Linux-user knows about the Marmite figure
Mister Torvalds, but is there any such lead-developer for Minetest..?
The Cathedral and its critique recognise the benefit of having the right team with the right Project Leader or Development Coordinator.
Is there even any published ''Road Map'' we can look at, or is this really too much of a hobby-volunteer exercise..?
For diverse reasons
I love Minetest and I sooooo want it to be a shining example of what Community can do.
Humans are far from perfect, and FOSS-projects can be fragile flowers.
Can we at Minetest be the exception?
I've said enough for now, and I've plenty stored up, but in the spirit of those recent posts by TumeniNodes and tinoesroho I'm most
interested in hearing what others have to say.
In particular it would be nice to read some extensive ''State of Minetest 2017'' posts from the devs themselves.
Comments please.
HTH
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