@pmw57, Screet & matthewfarmery, also Kaks, Thargoid, Eric ... and whoever is interested basically!
The debates about the scripts have given me some heavy food for thought, perhaps we can discuss these here. Please bear with me.
We (the "OSE team" ~ Screet, pmw57, matthewfarmery & myself) started out with the idea to check and perhaps alter the original java scripts merged into OSE. That for the following reasons:
a) To prevent timer-related crashes
b) Some of them had already started to migrate away from their originals ("ancestors"?), like the deep space pirates script and the scripts merged together into the Combat Computers
c) pmw57 has suggested "cleaning up" the java scripts according to industry standards and has started doing that - so has Screet
Now this creates some problems that have to be adressed methinks or problems will ensue - I think I can already see the beginnings of that: Never before have so many people worked on oxp scripts independently from each other. Now there's the original version, sometimes (rarely) my OSE version, then there's Screet's version and pmw57's versions!
A way has to be found to synchronise these efforts or:
a) I will not be able to update java scripts from their original oxps any more if they diverge too far
b) There will be an OSE version and an original version of scripts. That's beside the point. I want OSE to
unite many oxps into a bundle for those who want that, I
do not want to completely replace them!
c) The problems we are intending to solve in the OSE scripts are - where there
actually are problems, and not "a winning team is changed", as T suggested - also problems of the original oxps. It might be a better strategy for all of us to involve the original oxp makers into evolving the scripts further instead of four parallel evolutions where every work is done triple or quadruple times. That's inefficient and it causes unnescessary frictions between people.
So these are my thoughts. My first conclusions from them so far are these:
I don't want the scripts in OSE to drift away so far from the original oxps. Reasons are said above. I want, for the scripts that have not been strongly altered so far (deep space pirates and the combat computer ones), a sort of discussion process that involves
a) the original oxp makers, as the problems we want to solve are also their problems (and the winning teams can be left as they are for future compatibility)
b) pmw57 & Screet (for you are delivering invaluable work to develop these oxps further)
c) myself (because I don't want to OSE-ify the OSE scripts if I think about it. As already mentioned above,
I want OSE to be a bundle and not a replacement!
I am leaning on the side to only implement changes to OSE scripts in the future if the original oxp makers can be convinced to make these changes too. The "why" and "what for" should be understandable from what I have said here.
If what I say should be done then it will need something I boldly state is not
that evolved on this board (yet) except perhaps amongst the devs and two or three regular collaborators on oxps:
A constructive, critical discussion about how to do something complicated well
together even if there are
wildly diverging opinions to some aspects concerning the topic.
But I think, this board is capable to do that.
Awaiting your input, gentlemen
L