Justin et al,
I've just caught up on this thread after another long day at work. I also
don't have the luxury of working on Java 3D full time anymore - though I
think I have "paid my dues" and learnt the API by trial and error (while in
Beta) as someone described.
As most of you know I have been struggling with writing my Java 3D book, and
I have wandered into the documentation minefield. The Java 3D API is big. It
takes a lot of documentation and examples. If you add to that documenting
general 3D graphics techniques and terminology (clipping, scenegraph etc.)
you are quickly talking about a 500+ page book.
While the absence of documentation is not excusable, particularly at the API
level, I do think it takes a while for this stuff to catch up. I have been
working on my book, off and on, for approaching two years. Almost complete,
thank god.
Far more worrying, and I think I am echoing Justin here, is the quality of
the implementation, I have JADed all the Java 3D source and analyzed most of
it pretty thoroughly. I know how almost all the non-native API works
(particularly the inter-thread messaging and data structures), and I have to
say that I am not overly impressed by the design decisions (or level of OOP)
that appear to have been taken.
I don't mean this as a overt criticism because I am sometimes forced to
write code at work (usually by time to market pressures) that I am not
particularly proud off (I also write mass-market APIs for a living).
I still believe there is a place for Java 3D - however I have stressed from
the beginning that Java 3D should be able to walk before it tries to run. I
wish SUN would make the "simple" stuff *work*. A quick analysis of this
email list will show the things that people are really using and having
problems with. I see collision detection, sensors, head-tracking, HMDs etc.
as secondary while fundamental installation, rendering and API problems
continue to plague newcomers (and not so newcomers!) alike.
I for one would welcome a moratorium on new features until the existing
functionality stabilizes and demos/documentation to support it catch up. The
API is extremely powerful today, and can satisfy a broad range of
application requirements without adding more esoteric/cutting-edge features.
All that said, I have great respect for the SUN engineers and think their
presence on this list is a testament to their commitment to their work and
the API.
Sincerely,
Daniel Selman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tornado Labs Ltd.
http://www.tornadolabs.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion list for Java 3D API
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Justin Couch
Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2001 9:49 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Java 3D Impressions & Documentation
[one last comment on this thread. Only just got some of this now. My
mail client has been selectively not downloading emails on me for some
odd reason (well, I've been stuffing with sendmail over the last day or
so....)]
Doug Twilleager wrote:
>
> that I made out of context and making a lot of assumtions about how we do
> software engineering in Java 3D. Unless you are on the Java 3D team, you
> cannot make the statements that you have made - about software engineering
> or the complexity of the system.
As I said in a private email, this is not the result of a single
conversation. In that email I detailed a number of occassions over the
past two and a bit years where there has been a consistent pattern -
both of explicit j3d references and of a more general pattern. Sure I
don't know nitty gritty details, but there is a definite, undeniable
pattern in all these comments over a very long period of time, by quite
a number of people - all of them senior in the team - and I've yet to
see one piece of evidence to the contrary.
Now, I'm not taking a shot at you or anyone else just for the hell of
it. I really like J3d as a concept. It has promise, but is far from
ideal at the moment. I'd like to see it succeed too. Hell, I don't spend
between 2 and 6 hours every day of the week maintaining j3d.org and the
FAQ because I want to see it fail! (and before you fire off some other
comment - no I don't like seeing my name up in lights either. I do it
because I enjoy it and I like to help others) I really would like to
have much less to do because things are better documented. I have very
high standards basically because I am so used to teaching newbies and
know where they need help.
I am not one to sit back and blindly heap praise on something that needs
fixing. Comment on it I will. (Basically a good assumption is that if I
don't comment on it, then I feel it's being done right). Group hugs are
not something that is going to get things to a better spot. Great, one
or two people/groups are able to do something big and useful with the
product - wouldn't it be better if it was hundreds or thousands? A few
simple steps now, one's that have been asked for for the past couple of
years, would enable this to happen. Cutting off the newbies for the sake
of pushing new features for the few is not going to make it a popular
system. [1] My position is their position at the moment. I don't have
the luxury of a fulltime job only coding j3d, nor do I have the luxury
of the fullsail guys where they can talk face to face with their
students drawing on whiteboards and paper to explain things. Trying to
describe how something works over twenty lines of an email is a bloody
difficult thing to do. I'm trying to make everyone's life easier here!
Here's an open offer - if anyone from the Sun team would like to be on
the j3d.org aliases or have CVS write access to the site, just let me
know. I'll gladly give it to you. Just don't expect to sit back and
watch the messages go by. [2]
[1] Personal opinion is that we should not be trying to be on the tails
of OpenGL and DirectX, but one step behind them to let them sort out the
problems and we pick the good bits that really do work.
[2] For a while now I've been considering an open offer to the list for
people to help contribute, but really would prefer to only keep
knowledgable/experienced/respected people working on the site in order
to keep the quality high. Still debating that with myself currently.
Mail me privately if you have any suggestions.
--
Justin Couch Author, Java Hacker
http://www.vlc.com.au/~justin/ Java 3D FAQ Maintainer
http://www.j3d.org/ J3D.org The Java 3D Community Site
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Humanism is dead. Animals think, feel; so do machines now.
Neither man nor woman is the measure of all things. Every organism
processes data according to its domain, its environment; you, with
all your brains, would be useless in a mouse's universe..."
- Greg Bear, Slant
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