@Zizouz212 I do, you're right, C# is superior :)

View in Python, Controller and Model in Java?

Nah. Let's do Java, plus the Python for scripts

When I get my diamond back...

@Green Other way round

Java for GUI, any scripts is Python

Web interactions -> Python

View in Java, scripts in python, possibly some M and C in Java

@Zizouz212 Nope, that's a Java job. It's a Model type thing, not a script really

@ArtOfCode If you're getting some using Java, trust me, use requests

Also, @Ziz:

> Be a mod, edit chat messages from three minutes ago.

Yes

@Zizouz212 mua ha ha

Don't forget, I'm a mod too, just not blue...

@Zizouz212 The blue is the important bit, when I can still edit that message and you can't ;)

Just you wait...

So if we go with map building, I have a start on an algorithm we might use: worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/23936/10364

@Zizouz212 Hehe. I know you'll edit it back, but petty victories where petty victories are fun :)

@ArtOfCode And I will deal with each little boy around here

@Zizouz212 Says the youngest mod on our team :)

@Green Sounds good :) HDE dropped a terrain gen algorithm around earlier

When people think this will fly:

@Green great!

@Zizouz212 What are you talking about, that's a great plane design!

My brother thinks we should throw it out the window and see if it flies

@ArtOfCode Put a giant engine on it and it will fly. Badly and tumble like mad but it will fly.

everything flies... but some not for long :D

anyway, I gotta go. 'night :)

Maxim 11: Everything is air-droppable at least once.

@Zizouz212 Give me a high enough window and a big enough LEGO propeller, and I'll make it fly :)

@Green Like everything is edible, at least once.

Hi @Monica. We may have got slightly off topic right now.

We're talking about flyable lego planes

Drive-by: who are your users? What platforms will they run on? What are their constraints?

:D

I'm in charge of UI development and end user support, I think

@MonicaCellio We've got platform sorted, doing it in Java. We get a jar artifact, which can run anywhere Java's installed (i.e. almost everywhere)

Not a clue who our users are.

@ArtOfCode ok. I saw some stuff about exes, which aren't platform-independent. And your users need to have a JVM -- probably not unreasonable, but remember that it's a thing some of them will need to do. You guys considered and discarded something web-based?

Our users are members of WorldBuilding.

It flies!

IT FLIES!

@Zizouz212, Dr. Frankenstein much? ;)

@Green sure, initially. But are they programmers? Math geeks? GMs who need a map for the game they're starting tomorrow? People with Grand Ideas for a whole world?

@MonicaCellio No, actually

OK, platform consideration time: we've been assuming desktop. Why not web-based?

@ArtOfCode Like an applet?

Web-based makes distribution problems immaterial.

NOT AN APPLET! For the love. Every major browser on the planet has shut down the Java plugin.

So how do we do this?

What are the basic functions this tool needs to do? I don't mean things like "make a fractal-based map"; I mean things like "accept parameters", "write files"... does the user need to be able to draw or is it all data/text-driven? Stuff like that.

@Zizouz212 Like... a website. Shock, horror.

So how would we do that then?

@Zizouz212 We get a team who can do websites. Hopefully this one can.

Are you generating an image in the end (of a map), or is there some data format you want to write out that the user could then import into other map software, or...?

Can we make a tool to deal with this question: worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/23819/…

@MonicaCellio This reminds me of a certain project I started and never finished...

@ArtOfCode I'd actually forgotten about that.

I can make a format to store the data too

We could revive it.

@MonicaCellio Are we making a GIS package for fake worlds?

There are standard formats for mapping too. Whether you want to use any of them I don't know; this is not my field. I'm just asking questions.

OK dev team. @Ziz @Green @bilbo_pingouin @bowlturner @HDE226868 - who can do anything website-related? CSS, HTML, JS, PHP?

I've got HTML, Java, Python under my head. I've got a tiny little bit of CSS.

@Zizouz212 HTML is good

Some CSS to make it look nice

@Green I don't know. You guys tell me. Well, tell each other. :-) When somebody uses this tool to help him make a map, what is he getting out the other end? An image? A GIS-able thing? Something else?

@ArtOfCode I can test GUI stuff with Selenium without too much trouble. I've got a lot of API testing experience too.

@MonicaCellio So, what exactly is our objective here?

My idea: I made this a long time ago and never finished it. We could quite happily revive that and get it done

I can do aspx mvc...

@Zizouz212 Monica seems to be our critiquer :)

@Zizouz212 that's what I'm asking the room. :-) I'm not trying to interfere, but from the outside it just kind of looked like requirements-gathering had been skipped, so I just wanted to ask.

@MonicaCellio I don't think export to a GIS format will be too useful (that's a 2.0 feature.) I don't get the impression that many authors/DMs are using ArcGIS to keep track of their worlds.

@MonicaCellio No, it's good. Trust me, we would be a mess had you not come.

@bowlturner Aye, but hosting for those is less easy to find. I've got a system running on PHP; if we could build off that it would be fantastic.

@MonicaCellio Thank you for the good questions. You are definitely not interfering.

About data storage, I can quickly make a data format + savers, loaders

@Zizouz212 savers, loaders in what language?

Might need to be pseudocode

@ArtOfCode That's easy. I can make it across multiple languages

@ArtOfCode not a problem, I saw a website created question and threw them out

@Green works for me. It might be a version-200 thing for all we know. As I said, this isn't my area -- if I'm using it I'll be happy with an image that groks layers.

But I am not necessarily the user.

So, what exactly are we doing here?

@Zizouz212 There are also things to do like database admin

@ArtOfCode Databases?

We need requirements for this software, as Monica says.

@Zizouz212 If it's a web platform, definitely databases

@ArtOfCode Yes, of course.

@ArtOfCode Monica has been around the software field for a while and seen what happens when you jump straight to implementation. :-) And doesn't want to see people get frustrated here down the road.

I can do light DBA stuff. Nothing crazy though.

@MonicaCellio Monica's advice is gratefully received by the youngun who's not had any of that experience

Oh god

Proposed feature set for 1.0:

Output a geographic map. Only planetary surfaces will be supported. (HDE is going to have to wait to get his star map.)

BTW thought I should mention I'm pretty good with DB design and SQL

@bowlturner Good :) We'll need that SQL

Allow the user to set a few parameters they want to map out.

Let them draw however they like.

So this is like a map creation app?

Yep

That makes the most sense to me.

Ok. Starting to make sense now

Okey dokey. Can I ask one simple question: do we feel it's better on the web, because of support/distribution, etc.?

As we go along we can model out the interdependencies between various aspects....like the interaction of government with culture or language spread.

@ArtOfCode The question there though is, do we have experience to do it on the web

@Zizouz212 The answer there is yes.

Who?

@ArtOfCode GUI apps (desktop/web) are a bit difficult to test but I think that a web app is more accessible to more people.

@Zizouz212 I've got testing sorted.

We've got databases from @bowlturner, some HTML/CSS from @Ziz, some backend PHP and/or frontend HTML/CSS/JS from me. Don't know about bilbo

@Green If it's java, it's cross-platform and a quick download. Perhaps, if we can integrate it with web? I've got experience in that

@Zizouz212 oh god not java on the web

@ArtOfCode It's an app to download, but if we can let it communicate to a web server... Could that help?

I would never ever ever do Java as an applet or front end. JavaServerPages are too heavy weight. Python/Django are much faster for that sort of thing.

WPF can be run in a Web page too

@Zizouz212 That's just doing a desktop app

@Green I can get web communications done in Python easily.

@Zizouz212 Ah, but web servers?

Here's @knave :)

For hosting maps, and downloading them. I can build a format that will do that easily

Okay, wait, wait wait. We're doing implementation again.

Requirements people. Focus! :)

knave - any website-making experience

Can we all get this into a document, like google doc?

Anyone have mockup experience or UX/UI?

That will be final, and discussion goes here

@Green For GUIs, yes

@Green Requirements rely on the question of web or desktop

Does Github do requirements tracking?

I'd do web

@ArtOfCode Today was Day 2 of Intro to Mobile Development, in which we are making webpages.

@Green Can you do that with issues?

So ask me again in a month.

ux.stackexchange has a mockup tool, which I can use and take screenshots

I wouldn't do it on GitHub

@ArtOfCode What's a better place to keep track of reqs?

@Green Google doc, or something

No, don't do Google Doc, that will be messy

We can write a canonical when they're more concrete, and commit that to the repo

Yes, let's do that. A google doc with complete, detailed plans of what we are doing, and trying to achieve

@ArtOfCode That's making me cringe to keep a giant flat document with all our requirements in it. I don't mind keeping a vision statement there....why can't we make a vision.md and keep it in Github?

@Green Sure

@Green We can - but what do we do about requirements?

But I do want a detailed document somewhere

OK, let's get this question answered: desktop, or web? I'd do web.

Web is my vote.

Desktop is mine

We may be able to some sweet webgl stuff too (maybe).

2.0, maybe

Implementation

@ArtOfCode HAHAHAHHA!

Objective: To create a map creation application, where users can build maps and save them, complete with drawings, lines, and colors

I'll make a requirments.md and a vision.md when I get home this evening. We can keep all our reqs in their.

Ok, here's a suggestion: use cases. What will users do with this software? Without getting bogged down in details, can you describe a sequence of steps that starts with "runs application (or visits web site and logs on)" and ends with "takes mappy goodness home"?

Opinion from everyone please: desktop, or web? @bowlturner? @MonicaCellio (yes, you're entirely welcome to give opinions too :) ) @HDE226868? @bilbo_pingouin?

Yep

I vote we track each requirment as it's own issue so we can tightly track who has implemented each feature and what it's progress is.

Sure

@Green You're bringing me round to that

Use cases drive requirements. Other things do too, but think about what you want your users to do.

Draw maps?

use-case.md added to my todo list.

Another big question (implementation?) is whether it should be 3-d

@Zizouz212 nice.

Now drill down on that.

As Monica says, the start is starting the app; the end is having a map. What's in between?

@Zizouz212 yeah, implementation, but opinion: 2.0.

@Monica opinions on desktop/web?

Yep, figured

@Green opinions?

Personally, I think we can accomplish more doing this desktop

Already done, what am I on about

@ArtOfCode an desktop app would be easier to write, and web easier for end users

@ArtOfCode as a user, I like simple -- using a web site is easy so long as I can save the end product locally; installing an application is more work and might interact with my OS, other apps, antivirus, whatever. I install plenty of apps, but it's an extra step. Do you want casual users? Web is better for them.

So you don't have to install java apps really, just have the runtime environment installed (which is almost always)

I'm going to be annoying: if you all had to pick one platform...

?

So, @MonicaCellio @bowlturner - for you personally, your single choice of platform would be? From any point of view, but your opinion.

Now the down-sides: web requires hosting, and assume it won't have much in the way of security (probably not a concern here, but worth calling out). Web means you're downstream of whatever nutty thing the next version of Firefox or Chrome does.

@ArtOfCode as a user, I'd prefer web.

I think it's also important not to strain ourselves either

@Zizouz212 Aye, but being a casual project we can sort of do what we like when we like

when we like? I'm not so sure...

(Vision, requirements, and use-case templates committed to Github.)

@ArtOfCode :P Both! web for a light weight one and a desktop with more features! :)

Hmmm.

@bowlturner Honestly, I would okay with the "scratch that itch" approach. Ziz wants to work on a Desktop version. Everyone else wants to work on a web version. As long as the efforts aren't completely incompatible and used a common code base, I think it would okay.

It would seem we're leaning more towards the web side. We'll wait for @HDE226868 and @bilbo_pingouin to chime in on that one tomorrow, I think, but @Zizouz212 - if we were to do web, is that acceptable? i.e. it's not a deal breaker for you?

(But I notice that I'm already talking about fragmentation (which may be okay)).

@ArtOfCode It's fine for me.

Cools. Well. It's now 22:45 for me, so I'm going to head for bed. I'll be around for a while, sitting with my phone, but I won't be talking so much :) Productive discussion, though. This outlook is good.

@Zizouz212 would you implement the desktop version in Java?

If so, we may be able to share some model/sim code between the web and desktop versions.

@Green I wouldn't mind. But how would we share code?

I assume that we would be writing web/desktop in different languages

I was thinking about sharing the Model mostly. It's especially easy if we keep the Model very distinct from the View and Controller.

We can write the GUI (View and Controller) in different languages for the Web and Desktop.

HTML5 and Javascript for the web. QT/Java/Python's GUI lib for the desktop (I got confused on which languages were going to be used where.)

If it's desktop, it's java for the gui

Night all.

Hi @Vincent :)

Wait, aren't you the new-ish mod on Worldbuilding?

@Zizouz212 Hello! Yes, the new mod I am.

New as in 30 days ago or something.

I remember... I flagged for your post to be featured :)

How do you like being with the rest of the mod crew?

@Zizouz212 It's nice. I got more powers but more responsibilities too. I can't act exactly like a normal user anymore.

There's four of you guys right?

about the project I might have something to "inspire" you folks : experilous.com/1/blog/post/tag/worldbuilder

procedural world generator

Sounds interesting. I'll have a look

@Zizouz212 yep, we are four now. It a good a good sign for WB SE.

I got things like that too, a civilization simulator but I don't know if it works github.com/ftomassetti/civs

and not sure if it's the same as the first github.com/Mindwerks/worldengine

A little late here, but as a user I would prefer desktop. I've never met a web app I liked.

@knave Excellent choice :D