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Please see comments below. On 01/03/13 02:57, Pthagonal wrote: Scid vs. PC surely has very few bugs now as i'm still working on it every other day for the last few years. My early efforts were a bit raw, but latest release is very solid.[ ... ] But hey, I'm a developer myself, and I know this isn't anything any developer involved in the project ever got paid for [ ... ] As a developer, please feel free to contribute to the SCID cause. I concur that scidvspc is very solid, I'm using it under Linux and its very stable as a database and analysis tool. I have not tried to use it for FICS yet, but then again, there are other programs for this. My top-most complaints are: 1) Silly name and 2) scant documentation. But the quote also displays an issue I find many developers fall victim to, and that is the focus on the code and functionality. The no. 1 problem I have with Scid so far is its (lack of) documentation. I know, this is a little unfair for reasons mentioned above, but compare this ...http://www.hiarcs.com/hce-manual/mac/HIARCS%20Chess%20Explorer.html ... to this ... http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/doc/Contents.htm Most of the useful information to use scid I've found on Google, not the actual scid/scidvspc/scidb website. Again, contributors are needed. Right now, I'm pretty close to shelling out the € 100,- for Hiarcs just for the sake of having sane documentation. (That Hiarcs also sports the better GUI, another often neglected area, is another factor.) Hiarcs ignores us poor, wretched Linux users. Now please don't get me wrong, like I said, I appreciate all the work that people have put into Scid and its derivatives. I'm just saying that just maybe, the focus should be put towards improving stuff that isn't code (at least if people don't agree what part of the code needs fixing the most). :-) I disagree on your approach. The developers should focus on the advancement of the code and other volunteers should be sought out to flesh out the documentation. I *am* interested in the state of mainline Scid (i appreciate the popularity of dockable windows), but am not interested in debugging Fulvio and Gerds code. It is tough work, and something they should really be doing - or a new dev. Pascal cared about bugs but he has not responded in years. I've recently tried to contact Alex, Pascal and Joost to add me as a dev, but received no reply. Perhaps they just ignore me which is fair enough, or perhaps they have switched off. They have been very quiet for a while now.This is another issue I think is a major problem with Scid: No one REALLY seems to care about it. They are (competing?) spin-offs that once shared a common code base, a GUI that leaves much to be desired, and no _up-to-date_ documentation to speak of. Add the rather peculiar choice of technology to the mix, and then it doesn't come as a surprise to me that Scid development appears to be more or less stalled. And no one is leading the way to say how to fix this. Scidvspc is actively developed. There are regular updates or releases. The fork of the project seems to have stemmed from a need for continuous development and improvements. But as it is, neither scid or scidvspc are dead. Sorry to be so morose :), but I'd like some of the devs to propose how the bugs in svn will ever get fixed.Looking at it from a distance, it appears that Scid would need a major rewrite to merge the diverging code bases, support current technologies and make it easier for interested developers to contribute. I must admit I haven't looked at the code yet, but I imagine that this is a task that would require a huge investment of time. II can't even figure out who is "in charge" now with respect to Scid development, and it appears to me that this is what would be needed to get Scid moving forward again. Free Software is certainly good, but fragmentation isn't. I recommend that you select the fork that is most active, start rolling your sleeves up, and make a great program even better. |
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