Re: Gataxx

[Callum McKenzie <callum physics otago ac nz>]

On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 02:03, MattyT wrote:
> This is reasonable, but is it well known?  If people want to include
> their games, are they told what needs to be done first?  Is the problem
> no one really knows yet what that is?
> 
No, these things are not written down (unless you include the games-list
archives). This is mostly because I (as the maintainer) haven't had a
firm policy.

> I thought I saw a library that's in use being mentioned somewhere, but
> is there a library for card games (card drawing, pack selection,
> hand/deck drawing, pref dialogs, DnD)?  Could code be pulled out of
> AisleRiot and/or Blackjack for use in new card games?
Code for drawing cards and a dialog for changing the look of the cards
are in gdk-card-image. Dnd is not card-specific, it is used in tetravex
for example, and is a candidate for extraction into the games-support
library. This hasn't been done.

> Is there a need for other libraries?  To what extent would a big library
> that contains unnecessary stuff for an application be better or worse
> than multiple libraries?
A big library that contains unnecessary stuff is not a problem. Most
operating systems use demand paging which means that only the code that
is used is ever actually put into memory. Many small libraries cause a
problem by slowing down the launch of a program (prelinking solves this
to an large extent). 

> Is AisleRiot's game definition format suitable for extension to other
> card games?
It depends on what you mean by other card games. It is set up quite
specifically for single-player games (no computer opponent) and
specifically solitaire style games. The design is very elegant though
(even if some of the code isn't).

> Is this the sort of thing that could be improved by having a list of
> things people could do?  Is there such a thing already?
The gnome-games source tree already has a TODO list, but this doesn't
contain much in the way of refactoring ideas. Making such a list would
be very useful, do you (or anyone else) want to give it a go ? It
doesn't have to be comprehensive, any ideas are good ones !

 - Callum