Devnote Tuesday: Wednesday Edition!

[Just Jim]

OK, it seems most everyone is excited about the orbits, and so am I... but I am much more excited about seeing the little satellite signal strength thing is working.  I am really looking forward to the changes in how satellites work.  Before it was just launch and leave them.  Moving them around with contextual contracts is a start, but still fairly easy.

But this new thing y'all are talking about, where they have to be LoS of each other and all that to still work... this is a much bigger challenge, and myself, I can't wait!  Now satellites become much more important, and their placement much more strategic.  Awesome!!!

Take your time... do what you have to do, and have a great holiday everyone! 

[J.Random]

On 10.12.2015, 1:00:52, SQUAD said:

On to the development of KSP 1.1 then. Felipe (HarvesteR) put in some overtime to fix several critical issues with the port that were holding back the rest of the development team. It’s crunch time in that department as well then, as we’re gearing up for a winter-stretch to make sure 1.1 is released as soon as possible. We’ve postponed our traditional two week end-of-year vacation time to make this happen.

Because it worked so great last time you did it, right? Work 24/7, release with bugs, fix bugs in a hurry, adding more bugs, go on vacation, leaving customers with nasty memory leak for two months.

Guys, seriously. Don't do that.

[softweir]

10 minutes ago, J.Random said:

Because it worked so great last time you did it, right? Work 24/7, release with bugs, fix bugs in a hurry, adding more bugs, go on vacation, leaving customers with nasty memory leak for two months.

Guys, seriously. Don't do that.

Taking a break can also lead to bugs, and a longer delay than the interval of the break. A coder who leaves coding, has a two-week break and then returns to it is likely to lose some familiarity with the code he was working on, and will require time to "warm up" again. During that time he works slowly and is likely to make more of those silly little mistakes that lead to hard-to-QA, hard-to-fix bugs.

So long as they are avoiding crunch-like working hours AND stay at work for a few days after the release then working through is probably more sensible. Coders stay in the zone, fewer mistakes get made, and we get the update more than two weeks earlier than if they had a holiday. They can holiday once the inevitable day-zero bugs have been splatted! (There will always be day-zero bugs. It's inevitable, whatever they do. But a sensible working plan will reduce the number.)

[J.Random]

5 minutes ago, softweir said:

So long as they are avoiding crunch-like working hours AND stay at work for a few days after the release then working through is probably more sensible.

Read the quote, dude. They ARE crunching and OTing already, and it's just "gearing up".

I don't get this rush. I didn't get it with the "release", I don't get it now.

Edited December 11, 2015 by J.Random

[Dr_Turkey]

16 minutes ago, J.Random said:

Because it worked so great last time you did it, right? Work 24/7, release with bugs, fix bugs in a hurry, adding more bugs, go on vacation, leaving customers with nasty memory leak for two months.

Guys, seriously. Don't do that.

The idea is to actively avoid that scenario. That's why we pushed it back. And also, what Softweir said below...

Just now, softweir said:

Taking a break can also lead to bugs, and a longer delay than the interval of the break. A coder who leaves coding, has a two-week break and then returns to it is likely to lose some familiarity with the code he was working on, and will require time to "warm up" again. During that time he works slowly and is likely to make more of those silly little mistakes that lead to hard-to-QA, hard-to-fix bugs.

So long as they are avoiding crunch-like working hours AND stay at work for a few days after the release then working through is probably more sensible. Coders stay in the zone, fewer mistakes get made, and we get the update more than two weeks earlier than if they had a holiday. They can holiday once the inevitable day-zero bugs have been splatted! (There will always be day-zero bugs. It's inevitable, whatever they do. But a sensible working plan will reduce the number.)

Exactly. Riding an extremely productive wave right now, and the size of Unity 5 challenges meant (and still mean) that an arbitrary break of the workflow would ultimately do more harm than good. Up unto a certain point of course. Gotta balance it all out in the end.

Fun times.

I miss my pitchfork :c

[Mat2ch]

53 minutes ago, Dr_Turkey said:

The idea is to actively avoid that scenario. That's why we pushed it back. And also, what Softweir said below...

Exactly. Riding an extremely productive wave right now, and the size of Unity 5 challenges meant (and still mean) that an arbitrary break of the workflow would ultimately do more harm than good. Up unto a certain point of course. Gotta balance it all out in the end.

Fun times.

I miss my pitchfork :c

Make sure they get enough sleep and don't work while they're ill. Coders sometimes tend to forget their health...

[0111narwhalz]

1 hour ago, Dr_Turkey said:

I miss my pitchfork :c

Don't worry, I'm sure someone will find something SQUAD does wrong and you'll get some new ones.

But yeah, I agree that long hours is a bad idea. However, having lived with an artist for the majority of my life, I know that sometimes long hours are neccessary. So, just do the thing that causes the least overwork and silly mistakes, and make 1.1.0 a playable and awesome version.

[Wallygator]

4 hours ago, Dr_Turkey said:

The idea is to actively avoid that scenario. That's why we pushed it back. And also, what Softweir said below...

Exactly. Riding an extremely productive wave right now, and the size of Unity 5 challenges meant (and still mean) that an arbitrary break of the workflow would ultimately do more harm than good. Up unto a certain point of course. Gotta balance it all out in the end.

Fun times.

I miss my pitchfork :c

No sleep! Poop-socks for all.

on a more serious on topic note: Do what you have planned. Deliver as flawless a release as possible. Full stop.

[Sanic]

Love the new Universe Sandbox style orbits!

[Karlecho]

Will mods be avaible on ps4?

[Sanic]

2 hours ago, Karlecho said:

Will mods be avaible on ps4?

I would say no.

Which is a shame because mods are pretty much a must for KSP.
I think they should at least integrate KER.

[Talavar]

On 12/9/2015, 7:42:04, smjjames said:

On 12/9/2015, 7:39:08, HoloYolo said:

That makes absolutely no sense. If anything, the development will take longer because of both of them going on Unity 5

I was making an off the wall guess. *shrug*

Porting to Unity 5 would be considered part of development, since It will allow sound functionality (I hope) of 64bit.

[Talavar]

On 12/11/2015, 12:51:13, Dr_Turkey said:

The idea is to actively avoid that scenario. That's why we pushed it back. And also, what Softweir said below...

Exactly. Riding an extremely productive wave right now, and the size of Unity 5 challenges meant (and still mean) that an arbitrary break of the workflow would ultimately do more harm than good. Up unto a certain point of course. Gotta balance it all out in the end.

Fun times.

I miss my pitchfork :c

 Hey Turk, I was wondering, as I'm sure many others are, what will the status of KSP be after the 1.1 wave? Might have been mentioned elsewhere, but the forums are a pretty big place.. lol.. I guess what I'm asking is, will all the hardware be installed at that point, then start working on extra goodies/gameplay advancement/multiplayer, Or will there be more tweaks to be made? Basically.. is the aim to be "functionality is completely finished" here, or is there more for functionality?  I might be jumping too far into the future, but It never hurts to ask, I guess.. lol

[klgraham1013]

So, I'm assuming once the current wave of creativity is done, the team will get a few days off?  As a musician, I get what you're saying, but the mandatory crunch seems to happen every time, which makes me question the reasoning.

[Curveball Anders]

2 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

So, I'm assuming once the current wave of creativity is done, the team will get a few days off?  As a musician, I get what you're saying, but the mandatory crunch seems to happen every time, which makes me question the reasoning.

Well, almost.

They've released some major releases before so I think they know better than to push the "release!" button and then send all coders on vacation.

There will (most likely) be issues that has slipped by QA and experimentals, that will need to be fixed.

So I don't think The Doctor will unlock their cage until like 2 weeks post release at earliest

 

[Dr_Turkey]

On 13/12/2015 9:10:46, Talavar said:

 Hey Turk, I was wondering, as I'm sure many others are, what will the status of KSP be after the 1.1 wave? Might have been mentioned elsewhere, but the forums are a pretty big place.. lol.. I guess what I'm asking is, will all the hardware be installed at that point, then start working on extra goodies/gameplay advancement/multiplayer, Or will there be more tweaks to be made? Basically.. is the aim to be "functionality is completely finished" here, or is there more for functionality?  I might be jumping too far into the future, but It never hurts to ask, I guess.. lol

If it never hurts, why am I wincing? Lack of sleep? Morning double espresso with an empty stomach? Nah.

 

2 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

So, I'm assuming once the current wave of creativity is done, the team will get a few days off?  As a musician, I get what you're saying, but the mandatory crunch seems to happen every time, which makes me question the reasoning.

Quite a bit more than a couple days off...

 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Dr_Turkey said:

If it never hurts, why am I wincing? Lack of sleep? Morning double espresso with an empty stomach? Nah.

 

Quite a bit more than a couple days off...

 

I like the new avatar!

[Talavar]

18 hours ago, Dr_Turkey said:

If it never hurts, why am I wincing? Lack of sleep? Morning double espresso with an empty stomach? Nah.

 

Quite a bit more than a couple days off...

 

   Hmmm... purposely avoided, or simply too tired? lol

[Speadge]

1 hour ago, Talavar said:

   Hmmm... purposely avoided, or simply too tired? lol

Please dont quote when it doesnt explain your question cause of missing context.

Here is for starters:

Spoiler

On ‎13‎.‎12‎.‎2015‎ ‎16‎:‎10‎:‎46, Talavar said:

 Hey Turk, I was wondering, as I'm sure many others are, what will the status of KSP be after the 1.1 wave?
[...]
 I might be jumping too far into the future, but It never hurts to ask, I guess.. lol

=>

20 hours ago, Dr_Turkey said:

If it never hurts, why am I wincing? Lack of sleep? Morning double espresso with an empty stomach? Nah.

=> so he wasnt answering the first question at all

Think that is way better understandable in this context

Edited December 15, 2015 by Speadge

[Talavar]

5 hours ago, Speadge said:

Please dont quote when it doesnt explain your question cause of missing context.

Here is for starters:

  Hide contents

=>

=> so he wasnt answering the first question at all

Think that is way better understandable in this context

 Sorry,  I just chain off of the last response... I'm sure he'll know the context.. But apparently you figured it out, too, regardless ... I see no problems.. especially since the posts are almost next to each other.. You'd have to be almost asleep to miss it.. lol

Edited December 15, 2015 by Talavar

[Trann]

On 12/9/2015, 7:43:08, r4pt0r said:

Im taking credit for inspiring the orbit direction indicator idea  http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/68366-orbit-direction-indicator/

Though their implementation is better than I could have expected.

I'm sliding in on this with the gradient effect.  #fistbump

[Trann]

On 12/10/2015, 5:01:28, Alshain said:

We do need more categories, but yours are a bit redundant.  Satellite I agree with, a science probe being sent to land on Eve should not be lumped in with a communications satellite.  Aircraft/Plane I agree with, but there should not be a distinction between that and Space Plane, that would be redundant.. if the icon is in space, it's a space plane.  Large Ship is unnecessary and redundant.

I think this was spoken of sometime in the past: what about a more dynamic icon pull-down menu that will accept more user-created types, as we do with Flags?  The naming convention won't matter (it's icon based) and any possibly filtering would be based on the icon chosen, not the name we give it.

[mattinoz]

On 15/12/2015, 4:06:03, Dr_Turkey said:

Quite a bit more than a couple days off...

 

When project managers make comments like that I general feel confident moving the project to the dead files drive.

Then again construction and gaming are very different beasts.

[RocketPilot573]

Will there be devnotes tonight? I understand if everyone is busy but I would like to know.

[Alshain]

1 minute ago, RocketPilot573 said:

Will there be devnotes tonight? I understand if everyone is busy but I would like to know.

Probably tomorrow, again.  Kasper is still going to be gone this week.